CHEROKEE-L Archives

From: "Blue Panther" <>
Subject: Auroras - Inuit
Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2005 10:42:28 -0500

Auroras - Inuit

Auroras are believed to be the torches held in the hands of spirits seeking
the souls of those who have just died, to lead them over the abyss at the
edge of the world. A narrow pathway leads across it to the land of
brightness and plenty, where disease and pain are no more, and where food of
all kinds is always ready in abundance. To this place none but the dead and
the Raven can go. When the spirits wish to communicate with the people of
the earth they make a whistling noise and the earth people answer only in a
whispering tone. The Eskimo say that they are able to call the aurora and
converse with it. They send messages to the dead through these spirits.

Taken from Eleventh Annual Report, Bureau of American Ethnology, Washington,
D.C., 1894, page 266.

From Blue Panther Keeper of Stories.

This thread:

• Auroras - Inuit by "Blue Panther" <>