The last of the Prungha, a people who lived on Murkatoiak Island for millennia before they were wiped out by Europeans and disease, sat down with a journalist during her final illness and recounted the stories and language of her people. The first and most important myth was that of the moose in the moon, with the Prungha holding that the creator of the world had ascended there to build anew, having painstakingly created the earth from a similarly lambent and desolate state.

When the journalist asked if this deity—whose name was taboo to utter unless a shaman was present—could be found on the moon if someone were to travel there, the last Prungha laughed and told another story.

A young Prungha man, she said, had once decided to ask the great creator-moose a question, and to that end had managed to sail to the moon to seek its counsel. When he arrived, though, he found that there was no way to return, no food for him to eat, and no water for him to drink. His earlier question forgotten, the young man instead asked asked only how to get home.

Suspicious, the journalist asked whether this was a true tale that the Prungha had told, or if the woman had made it up on the spot. Laughing, the woman asked who there was left to say otherwise. She died of her illness not long after, leaving the question wholly unanswered.

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