They had not been gone long when the Petrel returned to the nest. He looked everywhere for Sedna, and he called for her, his cry a long and lonely sound of the sea. Other Petrels answered him; they told him where Sedna had gone. Spreading his wings, he soared out over the sea and was soon flying over the boat that was carrying Sedna back to her home. This made the brothers nervous, and they paddled faster. As they skimmed over the water, the Petrel became angry. He began to beat his wings against the wind, making it whirl and shriek, and making the waves leap higher and higher. In minutes the sea was black with storm, and the waves so wild that the boat was in danger of turning over. Then Sedna‘s brothers and father realized that the Petrel was such a powerful spirit that even the sea was angry because his bride was being taken from him. They decided that they must sacrifice Sedna to the sea in order to save their own lives. They picked her up and threw her into the icy water.

Sedna, blue with cold, came up to the surface and grabbed at that the side of the boat with fingers that were turning to ice. Her brothers, out of their minds with fear, hit at her hands with a paddle, and her fingertips broke off like icicles and fell back into the sea, where they turned into seals and swam away. Coming up again, Sedna tried once more to catch hold of the boat, and again her brothers hit at her hands with the paddle. The second joints of her fingers, breaking off and falling into the water, turned into ojuk, ground seals. Two more times Sedna attempted to take hold of the boat, and each time her terrified brothers hit her hands, and the third joints of her fingers turned into walruses and the thumbs became whales. Then Sedna sank to the bottom of the sea. The storm died down, and the brothers finally brought their boat to land, but a great wave followed them and drowned all of them.

Sedna became a powerful spirit, in control of the sea creatures who sprang from her fingers. Sometimes she sends storms and wrecks kayaks. The people fear her, and hold ceremonies in her honour, and on especially serious occasions — as when she causes famines by keeping the seals from being caught by the hunters — the angakok, or conjurer, goes on a spirit journey to Sedna ‘s home at the bottom of the sea to arrange her hair.

Sedna wears her hair in two braids, each as thick as an arm, but since she has no fingers, she cannot plait her own hair, and this is the service she appreciates most of all. So when the angakok comes to her and arranges her hair for her, she is so grateful that she sends some of the seals and other animals to the hunters so that they may have food.

Haviland, Virginia. The Faber Book of North American Legends, London, Faber and Faber, 1979, pp 60-64