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Page 26
"Thou standest alone--thou wouldst leave me?" Papik, eager,
triumphant, questioning, emerged from the stone entrance to the house
and approached the girl. The other natives, homeward bent, followed.
The girl was silent.
"Methought thou wouldst be glad----"
"Thy dog is strong," the girl replied.
"Dost thou love that dotard Attalaq?"
"No," the maid replied. "He is clumsy as the musk ox."
They turned, walking toward the igloo occupied by Ahningnetty and her
aged father.
"Wilt thou not be Papik's wife?" Papik pleaded. "My shelter is
cold--little meat have I. The white men robbed the tribe. But
perchance the bears come--then I shall kill them; valiant is my dog."
He patted the animal's shaggy head.
"But thy fingers, Papik--Papik! No--no!"
"But Papik loves thee," he protested; "his skin flushes with the
thought of thee."
"That thou didst also say to Annadoah, whom thou didst seek before me."
Papik was silent; it was true that Ahningnetty was only a second choice.
At that moment an ominous noise was heard on the sea. The tide, in
moving, caused the massive floe-ice to grate against that adhering to
the shore. To the simple natives, the noise indicated something more
sinister.
"Hearest that?" Ahningnetty asked.
"Yea," replied Papik, "_Qulutaligssuaq_, the monster who lives in the
sea, cometh with his hammers."
"He cometh to steal the children. In winter he is very hungry."
"They say he frightens people to death when a baby which is fatherless
screams."
"And after he heats his ladles, the babies often die."
Again the grating noise shuddered along the shore, and Ahningnetty,
frightened, fled to her house. Papik, pursuing his way, accosted Ootah.
As they were speaking they saw Otaq and his wife emerge from their
house. Between them they carried a small stark body. The woman was
weeping piteously. It was their child, which a brief while before had
died. The sea monster had again claimed its human toll.
Papik and Ootah disappeared--Papik to his shelter, Ootah to Annadoah's
igloo. The parents, left alone, dug up stones and ice and buried the
child. Then beneath the stars they stood in silent grief. Other
natives, emerging from their houses and seeing them, understood and
disappeared, for while relatives weep over their dead none dare disturb
their mourning. For five days, in commemoration of the death, the
parents would visit the grave of their child, During this time no
native dare cross the path leading from their igloo to the silent
resting place, and while they stood beneath the stars all alien to
their sorrow must remain within their houses. Only the Great Spirit,
who lives beyond the golden veils of the boreal lights, may hear the
sobbing of a stricken human creature over the thing of which it has
been bereft.
In the course of ten sleeps--as days are called--the first moon of the
long night sank below the horizon and the colorful stars fierily
glittered over a world of black silence. The cold increased to an
intolerable bitterness. Ootah, venturing from his igloo to dig up
walrus meat, found the earth frozen so solid that it split his steel
axe.
It was not long before many white mounds appeared beneath the liquid
stars. The old and the very young, unable to endure the rigorous cold
and dearth of food, passed into the mysterious unknown of which the
long dark of earth is only the portal. After the passing of the first
moon the storms came; the sky blackened; the winds voiced the desolate
woe of millions of aerial creatures. Terrific snow storms kept the
tribe within their shelters for days. Often the winds tore away the
membrane windows of their snow houses, and blasts of frigid cold
dissipated the precious warmth within. In the lee of circular walls of
ice, right at the immediate entrance of the houses, the natives kept
their dogs. Inside they had only room for the mother dogs, which at
this period brought into being litters of beautiful little puppies with
which the Eskimo children played. Outside, scores of splendid animals,
which could not be sheltered, were frozen to death in great drifts.
These, during the following days, were dug out and used as food both
for men and the living animals.
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