Sky and Land

The land does not emerge as a character necessarily in the “Sky People” or the “Two Men from the Moon” stories, but as a secondary element. The two “guests” from both versions of the story are representative of another world—the sky, or the moon—but a world supposedly similar to ours. “Animals that lived in the mountains like the caribou and the mountain sheep also lived in the land they came from” (p.83). However, the home of these visitors is suffering from a shortage of food and supplies, which is directly related to the land and the sea. The land from their world has suffered, but now the land of the Inuit’s is just bountiful enough to help the guests. This is paralleled by the Inuit’s courtesy to the two men, who were technically thieves. In this way, the land in this story seems related to balance—what is lacking in the “sky” world can be balanced by the excess in this world. It also parallels the Inuit people themselves, who are warm and welcoming as opposed to the secretive nature of the guests. The land is both a symbol of suffering, in the Sky people’s case, and of hospitality and bountifulness for the Inuit people. This might have been used as an analogy for times when the Inuit people flourished off the land, as opposed to harder times.