Sedna

Sedna clung to the boat while the sea turned against her. In one account her father threw her overboard to save himself and chopped at her fingers when she tried to hold on. In another, her frozen fingers cracked off as she reached for the kayak, and her father struck her hands until they snapped. A Netsilik version names her Nuliajuk, an orphan pushed overboard by other children as people moved towards new hunting grounds.

The fingers fell into the sea. They did not disappear. The pieces became fish, seals, whales and other sea animals. One account gives the transformation in stages: the first pieces became deep-sea seals, the next became walruses and the remainder became whales. In another telling the fingers became seals first and the hands became whales. The boat was left above the water while Sedna sank beneath it.

The fall did not kill her in every version. Sedna became the keeper of the animals and Mother of Oceans, an angry deity who could send violent storms or withhold the animals on which people depended. A different account has Sedna climb back into the boat after the storm subsides. She no longer loved her father, so she ordered her dogs to bite off his hands and feet. The earth then swallowed Sedna, Anguta and the dogs, and Sedna ruled beneath the world in Adlivun.

Another account joins Sedna and her father in the depths after a high tide covers the shore. The father and the dog are re-united with her, and the place is called Adliden. The details change, but the event keeps its shape: a girl loses her fingers to the water, the sea receives them as animals, and Sedna takes her place below as their ruler. Native American Mythology names the result directly: she disappeared beneath the surface and became Mother of Oceans.