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Page 8
"A white warrior from the south," Ootah murmured. "And he comes with
swift tread. What can it mean?"
In common with many primitive peoples, Ootah possessed the soul of a
poet--nature was vocal with him, and the disembodied beings of other
worlds made themselves manifest and spoke in the light and in the
clouds. To him everything lived; the clouds were the habitation of
spirits, the waves were alive, all the animals and fish possessed
souls; the very winds were endowed with sex functions and loved and
quarreled among themselves. The interrelation of man and the forces of
the universe were inseparably intimate and familiar; integral parts of
one another, their destinies were bound together. And to Ootah nature
found much to gossip about in the affairs of men.
Eagerly Ootah sought the clouds. Along the horizon they resolved
themselves into a phantasmagoria of Eskimo maidens and white men
resembling the Danes who came each summer to gather riches of ivories
and furs. And the Eskimo maidens and white men danced together. As
these mirage-forms melted, Ootah glanced into the water by his side.
Looking up from the ultramarine depths he saw something white. For an
instant it assumed the likeness of the face of Annadoah. He saw her
golden skin, her cheeks flushed with the pink of spring lichen
blossoms, her lips red as the mountain poppies of late summer. He
started back and called aloud:
"Annadoah! Annadoah!" For she had smiled, cruelly and disdainfully.
Hoarse laughter answered him--the laughter of white men from the south.
A flock of hawks passed over the water. He was about to shout when he
heard the sound of kayak paddles behind him. He recalled himself and
beckoned silence.
II
"_The thought of Annadoah in the embrace of the big blond man, of her
face pressed to his in the white men's strange kiss of abomination,
aroused in Ootah a sense of violation. . . . He heard Annadoah murmur
tenderly, 'Thou art a great man, thou art strong; thy arms hurt me, thy
hands make me ache.'_"
Slowly, with silent paddles, the hunters moved over the limpid waters
to the north of the floe. On the far side they saw a horde of walrus
bulls dozing in the sunlight. Behind a ridge of ice they landed,
drawing their kayaks after them. With skin lassos, harpoons and
floats, the party crouched low and crept toward the prey. Thus they
would be mistaken for other walrus by the unsuspecting animals. Ootah
was ahead. Softly they all muttered the magic formulas to prevent
themselves from being seen:
"_Nunavdlo sermitdlo-akorngakut-tamarnuga_!" In the rear, his eyes
evilly alight, Maisanguaq followed.
As they approached the herd they scattered. Along the edge of the floe
lay about twenty monstrous animals, steam rising from their nostrils as
they snorted in their slumber. There were a half dozen mother walrus
with half-grown young about them. Now and then they sleepily opened
their eyes and made low maternal noises.
Before the others realized what had happened, Ootah sprang toward a
bull and delivered his harpoon. It rose in the air and roared
deafeningly. Ootah struck a second time. The animal floundered in a
pool of blood, whipping the floe furiously with its huge tail.
With a thunderous roar all the others leaped with one glide into the
sea. The floe rocked, the water churned like a boiling cauldron. In a
few minutes Ootah had despatched the beast. Standing erect, he gazed
in defiance at the clouds, at the distant gulls. He forgot the omens,
and laughed with joy.
Not a moment was to be lost, however. Springing into their kayaks, the
Eskimos put to sea. Now the battle began in earnest. Attacking
enraged walrus in these frail skin boats is probably the most dangerous
form of hunting in the world. At any moment an infuriated animal is
liable to rise from the sea immediately beneath a kayak and upturn it.
Forming a semi-circle on the water about the swimming herd, the
fearless hunters sat in their tossing boats, each with one arm upraised
ready to strike, and with the other manipulating the paddle. Whenever
a whiskered head rose above the water one of the hunters let a harpoon
descend. After each attack they waited breathlessly.
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