It was a long time ago. One Naukan hunter from the Nunagmit clan had two wives. The first wife had children, the second was childless and lived in a separate shelter. One day this woman pretended to be sick. Out of pity for her, her husband stopped hunting in the sea and did not even leave the house. The hunter was afraid that his wife would die.
In the same village, in the Nunagmit family there was a teenage girl. A girl lived with her father, without a mother, and when her father went hunting, she wandered around the village, eavesdropping and spying on everything, wanting to know everything. One day, the husband of a sick woman was sitting at the threshold of the dugout and saw a girl passing by. The girl looked into the hunter's eyes and laughed. The hunter got angry and shouted:
“Get out of here, mocker, or I’ll beat you with a stick.” Don't you know that my wife is lying sick? The girl said:
“You can hit me, but I laugh because I know something about your sick wife.”
Having said this, the girl ran away. The hunter entered the canopy of the first wife and said to her:
“This naughty girl wants to tell me something.” We need to call her and treat her well.
The next day they called the girl and began to treat her. The hunter asked:
– What did you want to say? Why do you laugh when you see me? The girl said:
“Your second wife, who lives in a separate canopy, constantly deceives you. She's not sick at all, she's only pretending to be.
The man asked:
-What is she doing?
“And you yourself take cover near the dugout tonight and keep watch, maybe you’ll see something.”
And so, when night came and the full moon rose, the hunter went out and hid behind a large stone near the dugout. And when the moon reached the middle of the night, his sick wife went out into the street, dressed in a silyagak (rain cloak) and kamgyki (footwear for sea hunting). In one hand the woman has a wooden dish with meat, in the other a bucket of water.
A woman climbed onto the roof of the dugout, stood in the middle and sang. The hunter heard a woman calling her whale husband with a song. Having finished singing, she began to listen. Suddenly a noise was heard far out to sea: it was the breathing of a whale. Hearing the noise, the woman began to sing again. Now the whale's exhalations were heard closer. The woman began to sing for the third time. The moon illuminated the shore, and the hunter saw a whale swim up to the shore. The woman quickly ran downstairs. The whale leaned against a large coastal rock. The woman stood on a stone and began to feed and water the whale. When she fed and watered, a man came out of the whale’s nostrils and climbed ashore. The man who came out of the whale. was young and handsome. He and the woman went into her canopy and stayed there for a long time.
The hunter went to his first wife and told her that the second wife really had a husband. After this, the hunter went to bed. In the morning I woke up, took a large kapun (spear) and began to sharpen it with a stone. The capun sharpened all day, testing the tip on his cheek. Well sharpened the capon. The next day he told his eldest wife that he was going hunting. He took his hunting equipment with him, went out, hid near the rocky shore, and began to watch over his deceiving wife. And so, when the moon reached the middle of the night, the woman came out again, dressed in silyagak and kamgyk.
As before, the woman sang, calling her whale husband from the sea. In the distance there was a sound of exhalation. This whale was walking towards the shore. The woman sang a calling song four times, and again the whale approached the coastal stone. She fed and watered the whale, and after that a man came out of his nostrils, climbed ashore, entered her canopy together with the woman, and stayed there. At this time, the hunter went down to the shore, holding a capun in his hands. Approaching the whale, the capun stuck right into the whale’s heart and killed it. And at that very moment the whale man near the woman shuddered violently, stood up, and ran down. He ran to the whale, entered its nostrils, and was gone. The man returned to his wife. Other hunters skinned the whale, but did not find any person there. In the evening the hunter went to his unfaithful wife and spent the night there. It turns out that the second wife became pregnant.
The hunter began to hunt a lot of animals and was at sea every day. And so his second wife was resolved. The husband asked:
– Whom did you give birth to, a boy or a girl? The woman replied:
- I gave birth to a kitten!
The husband was scared, but didn’t say anything.
The mother put the baby whale in a large basin of water and began to raise him, feeding him with her milk. And her husband began to try even harder on the hunt. The baby whale grew quickly. The pelvis is too small for him. They made a large hole for the baby whale on the bank of the stream. Water from the stream was released into the hole. But this hole also turned out to be small when the whale grew to be the size of a beluga. The Nunagmitians decided to release the baby whale into the sea as a whole. The road to the sea was leveled, and the baby whale was lowered to the water on a large walrus skin. To prevent the baby whale from getting lost in the sea, a red mark was tied to its nostrils. So he went to sea with the mark.
But the whale got used to people and often began to come to Nunak with other whales. A whale approached a coastal stone, and a mother woman breastfed it. Having had enough, he went back to the sea. During the hunt, the Nunagmitians recognized their baby whale by a red mark and did not touch it. It was he who brought other whales with him, so the Nunagmitians constantly hunted successfully and did not experience hunger.
At the same time, people from the Mamrokhpagmit clan stopped catching whales and did not have the tasty food of mantak - whale skin with fat. All the whales were led away from their village to the Nunagmites by a whale born of a woman. But one day the Mamrokhpagmitians saw a Nunak whale with a red mark. The Mamrokhpagmit umilyk (foreman) said:
- This is what will be our food!
After this, the harpooner harpooned the whale born of the woman. The Mamrokhpagmitians killed the Nunagmite whale.
The Nunagmitians waited a long time for their pupil, the baby whale, but they did not receive it. And the sister of one Nunagmite hunter was married to a Mamrokhpagmite. Feeling sorry for her relatives, she went to Nunak and said that the Mamrokhpagmitians had killed a whale with a red mark. .
There was a left-handed woman in Nunak who was good with a bow - Not a single arrow fired by a left-handed person missed the target. Moor; hunters to the shore, and the left-handed man, sitting on the high bank near his dugout, shouts:
- Well, raise the oar, I’ll shoot an arrow!
And indeed, from the upper dugouts to the shore in Nunak, no one’s arrow reached, but the left-handed man hit the oar. He was a good left-handed shooter.
One day the Nunagmitians equipped themselves, took bows and arrows and sailed on kayaks towards Cape Oyuk.
There, near Oyuk, they saw a Mamrokhpagmit Umilyk floating in a kayak. It turns out that he went hunting alone. The Nunagmitians began to approach him. Umilyk quickly began to run away in a kayak. So he moored to the shore, jumped out of the kayak, and began to climb up the grass. At this time, the Nunagmite smile to the left-hander said:
- Well, kill that runner over there!
The left-handed man perched himself on the bow of the canoe, pulled his bow, then asked:
- Which place should I go to? Umilyk, sitting behind the wheel, said:
- Get to the place that helps him escape. The left-handed man took aim, fired an arrow and hit the smile of the Mamrokhpagmitians right in the heel. The arrow even crushed a bone. They landed on the shore and killed the enemy. Then we went to the Mamrokhpagmitians, moored to the shore, and climbed up. The Mamrokhpagmitians warmly welcomed the guests and fed them with whale vertebrae meat. They did not know that their smile was killed.
After this, the Nunagmitians went down to the shore, got into their canoes and left. Having reached Cape Umkuglyuk, the float was tied to the tip of the harpoon and raised up. Raising the float high, they began to shout. The Mamrokhpagmitians saw the float raised up, heard screams, and immediately ran to the canoes.
They began to catch up with the Jaunagmitians, but could not catch up. So the Nunagmitians took revenge for their whale, born of a woman.
From spring to autumn, the Mamrokhpagmitians were unable to take revenge on the Nunagmitians for their dear one. Finally they decided to lure them with the walrus' roar. That same night, with bows and arrows, the Mamrokhpagmitians descended through Mount Mamrugagnak to the sea, hid at the coastal cliff of Typagruk and began shouting loudly in walrus style. And the Nunagmitians, even before dawn, left for a walrus hunt in the direction of Typagruk. As soon as they approached Typagruk, they heard a strong walrus roar. All the canoes floated towards the walrus roar. At this time, the Mamrokhpagmitians began to shoot arrows at the canoes. One canoe was holed, drowned, and many people were injured. After some time, the Nunagmitians went to Mamrokhpagmit and took away the poles from the bunks of the dugouts from the Mamrokhpagmitians. So they took revenge on each other, then they began to live well and amicably in the same village - in Naukan.
All.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru