.
The Sedna Legend
The names for Sedna
and the versions of her legend vary widely throughout the various Inuit
communities where it is told. The common thread of all these puts
the story thus:
"Sedna was a little
girl, harshly treated by her people, who abandoned her as they moved in
their boats to find better hunting grounds. She swam after them but
as she grasped a boat, a cruel paddler severed her fingers to keep her
from coming aboard. As the fingers floated into the depths the Great
Maker transformed them into earth's creatures: seals, whales, walruses
and bears. So great was the evil perpetrated upon Sedna that she
became Goddess and Mistress over them all. When people are wicked
toward one and show disrespect for their land she withholds the creatures
so that the land starves. The sins of the people become tangles in
her flowing hair. Since she has no fingers, a Shaman, a man entrusted
with the spiritual care of each community, must then descend into the depths
and comb the evil of human injustice from her tresses. Only then
does she release the creatures to roam and land again becomes bountiful
..."
Commissioned by Royal
Trust, 'The Legend of Sedna' is the first monumental sculpture ever carved
from Baffin Island marble. Beginning in August of 1990 with the quarrying
of the marble at Andrew Gordosa Bay in the Arctic tundra east of Cape Dorset,
the work continued for six months until its final installation in Toronto.
It is the work of an unusual team of Canadian sculptors - three Inuit
from Baffin Island and a non-original Canadian from British Columbia.
Though they differ in colour, all figures except the walrus are marble
from the same vein. The walrus is hewn from gneiss, a granite-like
stone found on the beach in Cape Dorset. The tusks of both the walrus
and the narwhal are marble.
All artists touched
in some way all the pieces in the group, but specific responsibilities
were:
The WALRUS Taquialuk
Nuna, Cape Dorset, N.W.T.
The BEAR
Phillip Pitseulak, Pond Inlet, N.W.T.
The SEAL
Simata Pitsiulak, Lake Harbour, N.W.T.
SEDNA and NARWHAL
George Pratt, Vancouver, B.C.
The SHAMAN jointly
carved by Simata and Phillip.
.
Outdoor Art in Toronto
Downtown
