land: foundation of existence and a spiritual Power

Land in the Iñupiaq Narratives emerges as a character with two different tasks: as we already said in class, the land dictates how the people live. The people can hunt and gather supplies for the winter, and they always get enough (as long as they are good hunters, such as the husband in the story The Sky People). But the land also forces them to get active when they run out of food, and there is no difference made between the land as we know it, i.e. the Earth, and a more spiritual, unknown place as the moon, which is described to be very alike to the Earth, except for slight differences. One difference is that there is no open water during the winter, and so the land of the moon forces the Sky People to go to the earth to get food. So the first quality/character trait of land in these stories is that it serves as a foundation of existence by simultaneously dictating people's life habits.
The second aspect of land is of a more mystic and spiritual quality. This especially becomes apparent in the story Raven Who Brought Back the Land. This story very much reminds me of the biblical story of the Deluge and how Noah, his family and all the animals were stuck on the top of a mountain and had to wait that the water disappears. After Raven hit the tussock's dead center, the water recedes and the land forms itself, e.g. trenches become rivers. It seems that water plays a more important role than the land, because it was first, it contains (almost) all the things the people need, and it is more dangerous (cf. The Legend of Magic, where the melting ice and the open sea become a threat). But at the same time, the water appears as a helpful being, too, as it supports the people when they know the right way how to 'communicate' with it: Raven knows how to get the tussock, and the man in The Legend of Magic also finds the solution how to handle the situation. Water is a more ambiguous character, whereas land symbolizes a safe place, a home. In both stories, the people, however, interact with the surrounding water and land, they create a connection.
In Raven Who Brought Back the Land and The Legend of Magic, man seems to be very small compared to the mighty water and the endless area, particularly in the latter story. There is this picture in my head of the man, standing alone on the cliff, and around him is nothing as far as the eye can see. Complete solitude (I just blanked out the other waiting hunters).
By being so overwhelmingly eternal and impossible to conceptualize, the land as it is presented in these stories reminds us humans of our finite time and position on Earth.