Origin: Southern Water Tribe
All life is thread within the loom of dreams. There are three colors on the loom; the grey underworld, the white overworld, and the indigo world, where people and animals dwell.
At the beginning of the thread, there was only the sea. No ice. No tiger-seals or elk or fox-hares to hunt. No kelp, no sea-prunes, no shells. No thaw, no freeze. No day, no night. No mother, no father. No children. Only the sea, and Arviq, the great whale, who was the dream of the sea.
In the moment between moments Arviq became aware that he was the only creature. Though nameless currents pushed and pulled at his flanks and fins, there was no one to sing with him as he traversed the endless sea. So he, too, dreamed.
He dreamed his mother and father, and the sea became La, the ocean spirit, and with him Tui, his wife the moon. Enraputred with one another, Tui and La forgot their duties, and begat the plants and the fish and all the bounty of the sea. Then Arviq dreamed of a house for his mother apart from his own, and the sky, Bi, was born, and with him came his children the stars. This was the overworld, the white world, and Tui and the spirits live there to this day. La still reaches for Tui as she dances across her house the sky.
Arviq dreamed of warmth, and the sun, Su, was born, and with him came the first day, and the first thaw. For a time Su's face was always turned to Arviq, until the sea became hot like stew and Arviq became so fatigued he could no longer dream. Then Tui called to him, and Su turned his face away, and this was the first freeze, and the first night. When it grew so cold that Arviq and the world became encased in endless ice, La called Su to him, and Su turned back, and this was the second thaw, and the second day. Tui still must call Su to her every night, lest the world become hot again, and La must call Su to him every day, lest the world freeze forever. Just as Su brings life, so too do Tui and La keep the balance, so that we may all dream.
Arviq dreamed the colors in the sky, the wind that stirs the ocean, the snow that falls into water like feathers. He dreamt his brothers, the orca and nar-dolphins that swim swiftly through La and hunt but do not sing. Then Arviq's dreams turned to nightmares, and he dreamt the Fang Woman and Skull Raven and the Winter Shades that appear when Su has turned his face away during the long night.
Arviq's parents saw their son and took pity on him. Together, Tui and La pulled and pushed at the endless sea until they caused a new thing to rise from the warm grey underworld, and they called it land. Where La's hands shaped the land he left ice and vegetation and the slow rivers. Where Tui pulled she created the mountains and valleys and the swift rivers. Then they slept together, exhausted from their creation, and as they slept they dreamdc the animals. The wolf, who cries out to the beautiful moon because he cannot reach her. The penguin, who lives in joy on both sea and land. The polar-tiger, who hunts the fox-hare and the tern and the elk. The raven, who tricks the albatross-gull into giving up its nest.
But still they did not dream of one who could sing. And so Arviq, in despair, flung himself onto the land and died.
From his jaw bones came the first woman, and from his tail bones came the first man. They beheld the land that they had been born into and saw that it was beautiful, and settled there. The woman fashioned a spear from Arviq's rib and used it to hunt, and the man used Arviq's fat to preserve the meat the woman brought home and to light their igloo and cook their food. They used Arviq's teeth to cure leather, and they used Arviq's fine fin bones to weave cloth from the pelts of their kills and the flax plants that grew in the valleys. And, late at night, long after Su and Tui had gone to sleep, the man and the woman would sing to one another. For this, Tui and La blessed them with a child, and the child dreamed of Arviq. And Arviq came into the indigo world once again.
In gratitude, Tui and La blessed the child with the ability to weave water, from which everything began. She was the first waterbender, and the mother of our tribes. When she came of age, she married Arviq, and their children became the Water Tribe, and they went on to dream of children of their own, some of whom could bend water, some who sang, some who hunted, some who wove, and all who dreamed.
This story references Inuit and Kwakiutl mythology.