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Raven Mask – Tulugaq, Syungha

There was once a magical woman, the first of the Inupiat Shaman. She liked to chew the burnt oil from the oil lamp mixed with the down feathers off her birdskin parka. They call it Puiya. It turned white when chewed. She took her puiya and made a bird with a beak in the middle of its forehead. She put it on her sleeping bench and went to bed. In the morning there was a young man on the floor with a beak in the middle of his forehead. She asked: who are you? You my puiya? He said yes. He was the first Raven Man. He was a Shaman too. In the Qalgi–the Men’s House–Raven Man heard men talking about a giant beast that none could catch. Raven Man went hunting, harpooned it, singing songs to it and the whale spirit sang back. As he towed it, it surfaced and became dry land: Tikigaq, Point Hope.