"One version [of the creation] was given by the shaman Unaliq, the other by Unaliq's wife, Tuuliq. Tuulliq's version follows:

'There once was a world before this, and in it lived people who were not of our tribe. But the pillars of the earth collapsed, and all was destroyed. And the world was emptiness. Then two men grew from a hummock of the earth. They were born and fully grown all at once. A magic song changed one om them into a woman, and they had children. These were our earliest forefathers, and from them all the lands were peopled.' (Rasmussen 1929:252-53)

 

Other peoples with whom the Inuit were to come in contact originated in quite another way. The well-known legend of Uinigumasuittuq ('She who never wants a husband') ... relates how Indians and Europeans were created as the result of a marriage between an Inuk woman and a dog.

 

A Greenlandic account offered by Cranz, and also alluded to by Rasmussen, suggests that a recurrence of the kind of cosmic collapse described above by Tuuglik is, in Greenland at least, prevented by the frequent and active intervention of shamans:

'They think the globe of the earth stands upon posts, which are so rotten with age that they often crack; and they would have sunk long ago, if they had not continually been kept in repair by the angekoks {angatkuit}, who sometimes bring back a piece of rotten wood as proof of their important service. Their astronomy makes their firmament to rest on a lofty pointed hill in the north, and it performs its revolutions on that centre.' (Crantz 1767, II:230)."

 

 

 

 

"Sila can be used in three principal ways: as an indicator of environment, an indicator of locality, and an indicator of intelligence or spirit...

 

In a word like silajjuaq ... we have a synthesis, one might say, of all these: that which supports life and physical being, that which defines horizons and limits, and that which regulates and clarifies mind and spirit.

 

In this concept, one feels a unity of microcosm and macrocosm, near and far, inner and outer, that is, one living physical and spiritual unity of being. These are the outlooks and values of all peoples who are wise from their contact with the air, earth and water. (Spalding 1972:102)."

 

 

 

"Iglulingmiut designate four 'primary' winds - Uangnaq, Kanangnaq, Nigiq, and Akinnaq - from which all other local wind directions can be specified.

 

When related to the divisions of a European compass rose these four primary winds have the following approximate values: Uangnaq, WNW (296^o); Kanangnaq, NNE (019^o); Nigiq, ESE (119^o); and Akinnaq, SSW (202^o).

 

It will be noted that there are two sets of roughly opposing, or counterbalancing, winds, one on the Uangnaq-Nigiq axis, the other on the Kanangnaq-Akinnaq axis. To the Iglulingmiut this arrangement of 'opposites' is symbolically important, especially in the pairing of Uangnaq and Nigiq which ... are personified respectively as female and male and are said to 'retaliate' against each other. It is, in fact, not uncommon to have a west-northwest gale followed by a contrary blow from the east-southeast."

 

 

 

 

 

 

This picture (from the horizon of Igloolik) show that the sun is absent until about the 14th of January and always present from about the 14th of May, also the directions where to find the rising and declining sun depending on season.

 

Daily rise and descent of the sun is not there for more than about 10 months each year. December and June are months without this phenomenon. In a way there are two 'holes' in these months, also around the horizon - only about 2 * 165 = 330 degrees of the circle of the horizon follow the normal behaviour.

 

I imagine that these facts may have contributed to this glyph type:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In this picture a woman cooks on the fire in the oil lamp. The shape of the oil lamp is similar to the shape of rei miro.

 

 

 

 

 

Here we can see the sun shining through a gap in a cairn of stones, Inuksugaq. These stone cairns were raised in order to mark places wo it would be easier to find them later.

 

I do not understand the Eskimo language, but certainly Inuk means an Eskimo person (Inuit in plural). Possibly stone cairns are not only raised by people but also similar to persons. I think about the stone cairns raised by the five explorers of Hotu Matua. I also remember that stone cairns (painted white on top) at the seaside on Easter Island meant that somebody had been buried there.

 

A stone (tau) is like a star immobile, no longer living. Six stones marked the Pleiades, three marked the Belt of Orion. Six persons and three persons I think.