The Sedna legend 2..
Long ago Sedna, a girl, refused to get married despite her father's wishes. Because of her persistent refusal he punished her by marrying her to a dog and they lived on an island.
She escaped from her dog-husband and the island by leaving with a stranger who happened to be passing one day. She married the stranger and went to live with him in his village but became frightened when she learned that he was not really a man but a petrel which could transform itself into a man. She wanted to escape from him and fled in a boat with her father who had been searching for her. The petrel had some powers over the weather and, after finding Sedna and her father, caused a storm.
To stop the boat from sinking Sedna's father threw her into the sea. Sedna desperately clung to the side of the boat and begged her father to save her life. He refused and, to stop her clinging to the boat, cut her fingers off one at a time. As these severed fingers hit the water they were magically transformed into narwhals, whales, and seals. Sedna's father then poked out one of her eyes and she sank to the bottom of the sea.
She became the custodian of the animals which had previously been her fingers and could release them in order for humans to hunt them but she holds on to them when humans have hurt an animal's soul.
Then a shaman must intervene and persuade Sedna to release the animals in order the people can be successful at the hunt. Sometimes they are entangled in her hair which has been dirtied by humans breaking the rules. Her hair must then be combed by the shaman in order for the animals to be released.
One of the key themes of Inuit mythical life, the transformation of animals into man and vice versa, can be seen in this myth as it can be seen on the white triangles decorating the parkas of North Alaskan Inuit. These are meant to represent walrus tusks with associations to ideas about walrus-men and the transformation of men into walruses and walruses into men. This unusual view of the interrelationship between the animal and human world is epitomized in Inuit mythical stories about polar bears having sexual intercourse with women. Bears are both hunted and predators of man. Were-animals ('were' is from the Old English word for 'man' which was wer ) also figure in the were-jaguars of the Olmecs and the werewolves of Medieval Europe.
