Myth and Leyend Inuit

What is dream? What is reality? A dream is the representation of a crazy reality?

In this case, what is myth? What is legend? We have an explanation for these questions that we compile in our research about the myth and legend of the Inuit people from Canada.

Myth is a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events. (Oxford Dictionary)

Legend is a traditional story sometimes popularly regarded as historical but unauthenticated: the legend of King Arthur according to legend he banished all the snakes from Ireland. (Oxford Dictionary)

After these definitions, we need to establish a difference, which is in our opinion the sacred sense of Myth related to the Creation and the feature based on heroes of the Legend like the example of the last quotation.





Myths of Canada

We can ask ourselves, where does the need to create so many stories being in most cases irrational? Well, the necessity is because all in this world must have an origin, a creation or a purpose, so the man seeks to explain all of this questions creating an story to give a reason of why something exist.

Canada is a country rich in mythology above everything in cryptozoology (a pseudoscience involving the search for animals whose existence has not been proven) because we can see that in several myths created to people, the mean characters in these stories are strange animals that have not seen or unproven their existence. We may assume that due to a strong influence from United States, aboriginal people as the Inuit and the proximity to the North Pole, the country in that sense, share a rich culture from several places.

Several characters in the mythology of Canada come from the countries abovementioned, for instance, we have the case of “Sasquatch” or “Big Foot”, it is an apelike creature that lives in forest between United States and Canada and the creation of this story comes from aboriginal culture who said have seen this phenomenon. Other example is “Nanabozo”, it is a hero with forms of raven, coyote or hare and he represented the cycles of the life including the creation of animals and plants that served as food to aboriginal people, specifically Inuit people.

In that sense, Canada has a lot of myths from Inuit, being this culture the main of this country and as every culture, focusing on deities who live among more icy waters or who live in heaven, and who can intervene in celestial phenomena. Thus, they provide many stories such as origin of the world, origin of the man, the animals, the death, etc. and there is a point very interesting about their myths. Besides of those topics, they also could explain through their myths how eclipses occur and for this there is an incredible myth about that. They believed that the goddess of the moon and the good of the sun fell in love although they were but they felt the need for love, and for this reason they show their love every time there is an eclipse. Focusing on the origin of the man we can see that there is a similarity with what the bible says, because in the myth of Inuit they says, about the origin, that on the world there were only a man and only a woman, without animals, so they asked to Kaila (the god of the sky) that populate the earth. This is repeated in the myth of the death because they believe that one part of the soul from the person who died; go to heaven or to the hell. Incredibly they also believe that years ago there was a great flood that covered the whole earth and this would be the reason why there is ice and snow in the Arctic. There is not a specific reason about why they beliefs are like our beliefs, if we are Christian people, about the origin but we realize that their myths try to explain, equal like us, the origin of the whole world through stories, in this case myths, created by people that only think in give to their generations something to believe.




Legends

Is it real? The legend in part is based in real life, about people who live in a tribe and carry out their normal activities. And another stories with a bit of supernatural interventions like animals which can speak; an example is “The Blind boy and the Loon” where a loon save a boy of a terrible destiny, because his mother had left blind with a plants.

Continue with characteristics of legend, if the Myth is the sacred, the legend is wisdom. Why? The proud of people are in their legends about heroes, whose stories had been served of motivation and inspiration for poets and writers, but also it teaches to the people about the history of the tribe and it gives an advice.

As in many cultures the Inuit has a several histories about characters, which move in several scenes of problems that after a decision she/he gets over, or in other cases they could not get over and it stories finished with a sad final. In this case, the stories have a purpose of making someone feel like the character and he/she does not make the same mistake of this character quoted in the legend.

In the legends of the Lost Brothers, A Blind Son, etc. a story of with problems and after something, generally a change of attitude, the situation change to favor of the protagonist.

In this essay we give to know about the Myth and legend of Inuit people, the most know tribe in Canada and for our, it is the most important among the tribes from this country. In short, the Inuit myth has a connection with supernatural animals or humans with the capacity of change their body in an animal which help the people in their life, the myth of Nanabozo a hero that brought the fire to the people when they had not anything to heat up, also this character is attributed the creation of animal and plants. No exist doubt about the connection with the nature.

About the legend, there are many legends with different topics and situations, the legends mentioned before was extract of an interesting book “Inuit Legend” by Mark Kalluak –that shows a compilation of stories in English and in Inuil language. Just like Myth, the presence of animals with supernatural abilities is very common in these stories like in the “the Blind Boy and the Loon”.

The Inuit people is a tribe mark by legends and myths that explain many situations in the tribe and the same time teaching the people about the risk of feeling certain emotions and doing certain acts.

Bibliography

Gadacz R., Nanabozo. Retrieved from the Canadian Encyclopedia © 2012 Historica-Dominion
Mitología Canadiense. Bestiario internacional, sábado, 2 de junio de 2012.
Houston J., Inuit myth and legend. The Canadian Encyclopedia © 2012 Historica-Dominion
The blind boy and the loon, Virtual Museum. Retrieved from http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/exhibitions/holman/english/storytelling/blind_boy.php3
Myth, Oxford Dictionary. Retrieved from http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/american_english/myth?region=us&q=myth
Legend, Oxford Dictionary. Retrieved from http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/american_english/legend?region=us&q=legend