The Owl and the Lemming : An Eskimo Legend

According to this Inuit legend the raven was not always the jet-black bird that it is today. The owl had something to do with it. What happened makes an engaging story acted out by two life-like puppets made of seal fur. The film, narrated partly in Inuktitut, partly in English, is largely the work of Inuit artists.

In this Inuit legend it is plausible enough that a goose should capture the fancy of an owl and that the owl should be quite bewildered by what follows. The sound effects and voices are Inuktitut, but the animated pictures leave no doubt as to the happenings that transpire. It is a story with the wry humour characteristic of many Inuit tales, for audiences young or old.

A hunter is pursued, bound up and carried to a cave in this legend of a river and of how fog came to the land. The story is enacted by Inuit using katadjak or throatsinging. The audience is locked in an alien world of sights and sounds where human activity seems propulsed by primeval forces.