Chapter IV (2)

Again last year when I had the influenza here, and they wired home about it, my friend Cries-for-salmon gave fifteen dollars in gold to the shaman to have him visit me through his fox, the one who carries his messages. Weasels and wolferenes, wolferenes are the most powerful of all, may be messengers for the shamans, but the commonest messenger is the fox. The fox is swift and sly.

A boy should marry among his own people, but it is not customary for him to marry near kin, a first cousin. To have relations with a sister is othlang. Of such a boy, people would say, “There are so many girls, yet he did not have the courage to go with them, he went with his sister.” If he did go with his sister, he would be thinking at the same time of another girl. And for this reason, a sister, realizing she was a substitute, would feel outraged. A really weak-minded boy would even go with his mother. It is possible, for it is all in the dark, and no one speaks; merely some one will come, some one will go.

Cries-for-salmon has a brother who is dead or, as we say, “has gone.” In telling of his death you will hear about the death rites and the way the people mourn. I will tell you, too, of a woman relative of Cries-for-salmon, who died.

But first I would tell you of another relative of Cries-for-salmon who has been such an invalid since the birth of her first child that she can not sit up, and who will never have another child. She had been a woman who menstruated with the waning moon—the character of such women, it is thought, is poor. So, as women do, she went to the shaman to have him regulate her periods to fall with the growing moon—the best hearted, best natured women menstruate at that time. Again there was a time when this woman was much frightened because the menstrual flow did not stop. This time she asked an old woman shaman—sick women are apt to go to women shamans and to the wives or widows of shamans, and sick men, to men shamans—if she should consult a white doctor. “Yes,” said the old woman, “we don’t know what is going to happen nowadays.” Since the whites have come people have lost self-confidence. Formerly they were far more certain that the cause of sickness, of an epidemic, let us say, was not keeping the rules.

Well, when Cries-for-salmon’s relative was sick after her first child was born, she went again to the man shaman. On this occasion the shaman expressed a desire for her, but she refused. Ordinarily women will not refuse the shaman. Nor would their husbands expect them to. The old women tell you never to go against the will of the shaman. “That is one of the things you will have to watch,” an old woman once said to me. Nevertheless Cries-for-salmon’s relative refused, and she has been sick ever since, and ever since the other women have sneered at her.

Her husband, too, has been down and out. They were poor to start with, he lived in one of the few underground houses left at Anvik, and now he has only three poor dogs, bale-back dogs we call them, nor can he borrow a dog team. Not long since, he was charged with stealing green fish (fish fresh from the trap) from another man’s cache. “Why did you steal?” the old men asked him. “Don’t you know if you are hungry we will feed you?” And so they would. Food would be given to any one who was hungry, although sometimes in return he might be asked to help at the fish traps or in making snowshoes. With us it is only when a man is put into a mean position, when he has lost pride in himself, that he will steal. In this case, the man denied the theft, so the old men kept at him. “Why do you deny?” they asked. “We know what you have done. Don’t you know that there is somebody watching you?” You see, since it is customary for the young men to be most of the time in the kadjim, except when they are away hunting or in other settlements—on their return they go directly to the kadjim to tell the news and to give the jokes they have heard about the persons they know—the old men know pretty well what the young men are about, where they are. Besides there is the shaman. A man believes that the shaman knows what he is doing all the time. It is just because of this knowledge that the shaman is head of the village.

It is not only for cures, and to buy songs for hunting and trapping, that people go to the shaman: the shaman has to blow upon the masks which we put on to represent other beings (when we put them on we are not ourselves), and the shaman has to give power to the dancers by blowing on them at the ceremonies or, as we say, the annual performances, of which each has its own name. Until the shaman blows on it, a spirit mask is just like any other mask. Besides downy feathers, from the leg and breast of duck and goose, are fastened to a spirit mask and from the forehead there is the quill of a goose feather with a downy tuft tied to the tip. The masks of the fun makers are not blown on. The fun makers come out at intervals to give the dancers time to rest. The fun makers are usually young men, but sometimes a witty old man will act. I remember one old man—he was a shaman—and one of his jokes. He acted like a woman and he said, “Half of me belongs up river and half down river. How are you going to ‘fuss’ me?”

Men may wear female masks. There are certain parts women may not take, so men act for them. But there are female masks that women wear. Women never wear male masks. Women sing in the kadjim, too, to big drums, four feet in diameter, made of a sea animal’s stomach on a spruce frame—five drums that can be heard a mile or more away. There may be as many as a hundred and fifty persons singing at one time in the kadjim. But in the powerful dances—the hagerdelthlel—ordinary women do not sing, only the wives of chiefs and shamans.

After a mask is made, it belongs in the kadjim for a year, and some man will appropriate it to wear for the year—or longer if he likes, and if he performs well what the mask represents. The shaman does not make the masks—he is too busy. He is charged with the welfare of the whole village, and he may be called upon in any emergency—at an eclipse, for example. Once long ago, it is said, there was a great famine, the winter ran into two winters, and Moon said to the shaman, “Whenever I go out of the sky, the people may not look, they should go inside and cover the smoke hole until I have performed my duty.” Since then, at an eclipse, the shaman will send out fast runners to cry out, “Moon has gone under the sky! Stay indoors!” The shaman himself will go on top of the kadjim and chant and go through the motions the moon taught. When the moon reappears, the shaman will reënter the kadjim where every one has been sitting silent,—if a dance had been on at the time, it had stopped. The following morning all form a long line, the shaman in the lead. They encircle the village, forming an arc starting from the river and ending at the river, and, as I said before, taking in a half mile of woods above the village and half a mile below. They drum and sing and go through certain motions, each having a bundle of fish on his back.

There are many other times, too, when the shaman takes charge or tells people what to do. I remember a great to-do over a frog that appeared in a house in the middle of the floor. The house had been built in the fall, after the ground was frozen, and one warm day in the dead of winter the frog thawed out of its hole and came out on the floor. This was an othlang, and it had to be righted at once. The shaman had to be paid to find out about it. Such an incident would never be forgotten.

Muskrats come out from their holes in the bank of pond or lake, when the ice breaks loose in the spring. If a muskrat came out before, say in February or March, this, too, would be othlang and would have to be righted.

Sometimes a whale will stray up the Yukon River, and when this happens, unless the whale is killed, there will be a great famine. Once, a whale went up river as far as Tenana, about nine hundred miles. There was great alarm, and one of the shamans, a shaman of medium powers (there are shamans of high, medium, and low powers; nowadays, however, there are no very great shamans who, as in the ancient days, can do everything; nowadays some shamans do one kind of thing, others, other things), this Tenana shaman went out single-handed and speared the stray whale. It was forty to fifty degrees below zero, he was nude from the waist up, and from the great exposure and the great strain, within a few days he died. The people were so grateful to the shaman for saving the village that they made a carving in split spruce of the shaman spearing the spouting whale, to place near his grave-box.

When the caribou and deer began to decrease at Anvik, the people became greatly alarmed, they were afraid it was because of something they had done, and they consulted the shaman. When he came out of his trance, he told them to paint seven deer on the board over the ridge pole of the grave-building of a certain shaman who had been a great hunter of caribou. Each deer was to represent a year’s kill. Once, long ago, to preclude othlang, the shaman ordered a man to be thrown off the side of a certain mountain.

At every death the shaman has to give the death stroke, that is, when it is time to send the spirit of the deceased away—on the fourth day for an ordinary person, some days later for a person of distinction—the shaman has to strike the corpse on the chest. He sends him on his journey under the river to the village of the spirits—kethagyiye—a way where there are, at intervals, pillars of fire at which the dead may warm himself, and may cook. At the time of giving the death stroke, the shaman also drives away all the evil spirits that are around the village.

I mentioned a cousin of Cries-for-salmon who died in childbirth. Her child was born alive, but as it was a girl and as the family were ordinary people—the deceased woman was a sister of the invalid woman I told about—the baby was put in the grave-box of the mother, in her bosom. Strong families with many songs, with spirit powers and hunting powers, might save babies in these circumstances, particularly a boy baby; some woman in the family would adopt him. But the girl baby of an ordinary family would certainly not be let live. I remember the case of a girl baby the Mission people wanted to save. They took her, and she had the best of care from them, but in four months she died.

Should a child die while it is still creeping, it is wrapped in something the animals will not devour, like bark, and placed in the woods under a spruce sapling. As long as the tree lives, the spirit of the child lives, too, under its protection. The spirit dies with the tree.... I may say here that in getting wood or bush from the forest we do not take all there is in any place. We depend on the wood and bark. If we destroyed it, we would become vagabonds.

The death of Cries-for-salmon’s brother was by drowning. He had been drinking with the white trader, they were out in a boat together, the boat upset, and the Indian was drowned. When Cries-for-salmon’s mother heard the news, she rushed out of the house, wailing with heart-rending cries, pulling her hair, and stripping herself to her waist. “My son, why have you left me?” she cried, looking to the North where the dead live. We could hear her cries a mile away, and we knew from her wailing songs the family of the deceased. Distinguished families have their own songs, and they make a greater outcry at death. Cries-for-salmon’s mother is a woman with power. She has many strong songs. Her father had been a great hunter, with wolferene and bear songs. She is always consulted in the village, she knows her power, and there is no one to check her or to talk about her. So she stripped to the breeches—an ordinary woman would be afraid to strip lest people would talk—and she threw herself into the ice-cold water. She wanted to go on with her son, he was the only son left her. But they pulled her out. And they pulled out her husband who had also thrown himself in.

After two or three hours, they found the body and took it home, transporting it in the oldest or most worn-out canoe at hand. As the spirit of the drowned man was supposed to be still in the water, nobody was allowed to go into the water. It would cause othlang. People were told not to use that channel for a year, and women were not to set out their fish nets in a place where there was a good place for pickerel. The evil spirit of the place might pull them overboard. I recall another place in the river where there are sand bluffs where, unless people pay homage, they do not feel safe.

As usual, the mourners made new garments, new mittens, new moccasins, and a new cap for the dead man. The second night they danced and sang old songs, and the third night they danced to new songs. Cries-for-salmon’s brother was a good bear hunter, so they danced bear dances which showed how a bear behaves and which would promote the increase of bears. Had he been a good seal hunter or hunter of other animals, similarly they would have danced seal dances or other animal dances. Besides, had he died during a good game year, they might have carved the game animal on his grave-box. I recall a hunter with a good heart, who died in a good deer year, having a string of deer carved on his grave-box—to continue the abundance of the deer.

During the mourning time of work, of dancing and feasting, the corpse is placed so that the dead man can see what is going on and absorb it all. He is in a sitting position or, even if he is laid out, as happens nowadays, the body is propped up. The dead man has to report in the village of the dead how his favorite food was placed near him and how he was honored, up to the last. On the sixth day, after waiting for relatives from another village to arrive, after the death stroke,—in this case the white man was not allowed in to pray, for everything was done in the old way,—the dead man was put in the grave-box in a sitting position, his eyes open, frozen open, and his hands placed in a position to show his interest. He is thought to return to his grave-box from time to time, more particularly in summer, and he wants to see what is going on. For this reason, too, the sinew corded grave-box is set on a hillside overlooking the river, the face of the corpse turned towards the river, that the dead may see who are passing and what is going on in the village; likewise that the dead may be near his food supply, i. e. the fish in the river. In the late autumn, after the leaves have fallen, the older women take bits of their most valued food, salmon and, since the coming of the whites, biscuit, to place by the side of the grave-box for the dead to eat, and to bless the givers. At the same time the men, if not the old women, will put the grave place (tudatonte, where the body lies stiff, as we say) in order, removing vegetation and restoring implements to their place. Thus engaged, every one will be continually breathing out to the North. Towards spring these attentions to the dead are repeated, on a smaller scale.

At death, food is put near the head of the corpse in the grave-box and, in the case of Cries-for-salmon’s brother, the bows and arrows of the deceased were tied to a cross piece supported by upright sticks by the grave-box; but, as he was not a shaman or chief, no roof was built over the grave-box nor was the box ornamented. The dead man’s things were given away to relatives; his rifle in particular was given to a member of the family distinguished for his ability and for his songs. After the distribution was complete, they set fire to the man’s house, to drive away the evil spirit.

Cries-for-salmon’s brother, like most men to-day in Anvik, had only one wife—formerly a man might have as many wives as he could support, generally he had two wives, sometimes three. And she had not yet reached middle age, the time when women tattoo lines on their chin—they tattoo according to the songs they have or their husband has, a shaman’s wife will have more lines than a chief’s wife—nevertheless, she decided not to marry again and she bobbed her hair. In this way she showed, even to men from other villages who did not know about her, that she grieved and that she was unwilling to associate with one without her husband’s power. She wanted to prolong his powers, and to keep the atmosphere she was left in by him, from going over to another man. Having his atmosphere and songs, she was strong and she felt spurred to care for herself, to accomplish almost anything.

Sometimes a dying person will send for one to whom he wishes to pass on his powers. Then the dying one looks to the North, breathes on the other and spits on him (spittle is a part of you). Once, Cries-for-salmon said to me, “I think a great deal of you. I would do almost anything for you, and I would like to give you some of my power, but if I did, I would die within the year. I must live for my children—providing the Good One sees fit for me to live.” Cries-for-salmon spoke this way to me because a while before she had said something to me which I did not understand, and it hurt her. An old man present said, “You can’t expect much of him” (as a Mission boy). So Cries-for-salmon said to me, “With all the white man’s knowledge, you have no intelligence whatsoever. Had I completed my duties to my children, I could tell you more.”

Many widows do not bob their hair, but even so, unless a woman were of no account, she would not remarry within the year, she would wait two or three years. A woman is esteemed not only for waiting, she is valued according to the way she cared for her husband before he died, when he was helpless. A man’s feelings are badly hurt if he is neglected in these circumstances.

If a man and his wife died at the same time, let us say, from eating poisonous berries, “devil berries” people call them, the two would be buried in the same grave-box. I had to move such a box once—the Mission wanted to make some use of the place. A string of beads fell out, not the kind we use to-day, these were very old, I think, got from Siberia in trade. They asked me for the beads in the village, but I kept them—until they disappeared. The people wanted them very much.

The deceased is referred to as “the one who has gone from us.” The term for dead is used only of animals. Once I referred to some one as dead. They said, “What! He is not a dog. You are referring to a human being.” Nor is the name of the dead ever mentioned; but people think of them, and whenever they think of them they turn to the North and breathe out. (A prolonged, gentle expiration, as Reed showed me.) So on return from a hunt, passing the cemetery, a man will take a berry, eat half, and throw half in the direction of the cemetery, to some chief dying in a good season, and then look to the North and breathe out.

I recall a visit up river I paid to Shagrūk where lives my mother’s sister. “My grandmother,” I said to her. “Whose blood is this addressing me?” she asked. When she knew me, she began to wail, looking to the North—she was recalling my mother: “My sister, my sister, and here is my blood come again to me!” People think that if ever they said anything disrespectful about the dead, they would be laughing, as we say, at their own corpse. (In thinking of the dead, people appreciate the experience awaiting them.)

About Christmas time there are ceremonials for the dead for three or four days. Persons who have lost their relatives in the past year are called upon by the shaman to contribute the bulk of the feast. “Who will contribute so many bundles of salmon?” asks the shaman, “so many sacks of seal oil, so many sealskins or caribou skins, so many cords of sinew (for sewing), the œsophagus of a white whale (used in trimming)?” People eat to their heart’s content. Sometimes they eat for the dead, sometimes they set aside the food—the best that can be got from the woods and waters. The missionaries are told that these are merely social feasts. Not that many of the old ceremonies have not indeed been cut out at Anvik. If a ceremonial can not be performed fully, in the proper way, people do not want it performed at all. Yet it is much against the wish of the people to go without their ceremonials. The “feasts,” as I have often told the missionary, are the only amusements of the people, and they would like to keep on with them just as they do at the conservative village of Shagrūk.

T. B. REED AND ELSIE CLEWS PARSONS

An Eskimo Winter

The skin boat, propelled by the oars of the women, approached the shores. On the bundles of caribou skins which were piled up in the stern, steering cautiously through the floes of drift ice that dotted the surface of the sea, sat Pakkak, the boat-owner. The boat was heavily laden and a strong tide was running so that the women had to exert themselves, two on each oar, to make headway. Pakkak’s son accompanied the boat in his kayak. He had been out seal hunting in order to keep the traveling party supplied with provisions. The seals lay on the narrow deck of his boat which zig-zagged swiftly through the water, propelled by the strokes of the single paddle which he held in the middle, and which struck the water, now at the right and now at the left.

The young man was the first to reach the shore. He brought his boat sideways close to the beach and climbed out of the small central hatch in which he had been sitting. He took off his harpoon and lance, his bird spear and float from under the holding thongs. Then he unlashed the seals, and hauled them ashore. After everything had been taken off, he lifted the light boat out of the water, turned it over, put his head into the opening and carried it up the shore.

Meanwhile, the whole party in the large boat had reached the land. It was nearly high water. The travelers jumped ashore. The children and old people scrambled out of the boat, and the tent covers, poles and household goods were taken ashore. The caribou skins, which were the spoils of the summer’s hunt inland, were deposited on a dry spot. While the women climbed the barren hills to gather brush for building a fire, the men hauled up the boat, and put up the tent. The framework was quickly set up, the skin cover was thrown over it, and the lower part of the skin was ballasted with stones. When the women came back, the shrubs were put down in the rear of the tent. They were covered with heavy caribou skins, and thus the bed of the family was prepared. The seals were put down at the right and left of the doorway, inside.

After a short time, the boats of Pakkak’s brothers came in. They had started together in the morning, but had made unequal progress through the lanes of water that opened between the shifting ice floes. After unloading the boats, the brothers also put up their tents.

Some of the women had piled up the fuel nearby. Pakkak fanned into flames the smoldering slow match which he was carrying along. As soon as he had obtained fire, the shrubs were lighted. Meanwhile, the hunter had opened one of the seals and removed the skin with the attached blubber. He cut off pieces of the blubber and threw them into the flames. The rectangular kettle, hollowed out of a block of soft soapstone, was filled with water and placed over the fire. The seal meat was put into it, and soon the water began to boil. When the meat was done, the men and women had finished their work, and Pakkak stood next to the kettle and shouted, “Boiled meat, boiled meat!”

The men sat down in a circle near the fire. The women formed another circle. Pakkak took one piece of the meat out of the kettle, and handed it to one of the men; he gave another piece to one of the women. The first person bit into the meat and cut off a mouthful close to his lips. Then he passed the meat to his neighbor, who in the same way cut off a mouthful and passed the meat on. Thus, the whole company was provided for.

The travelers were tired from their exertions, and retired to their beds in the rear of the tent where the whole family lay down, their heads toward the door. They covered themselves with the large blanket of caribou skins which extended over the whole width of the bed from one side of the tent to the other.

Pakkak and his brothers, and Usuk, the half-witted old bachelor who lived with them, were the first to arrive at the place of the winter village, but within a few days other families came, who had been hunting in various districts. Men and women would sit together until late at night, telling of their summer experiences and of their success in hunting. Pakkak and his brothers had been hunting on the shores of the inland lake to which they used to resort, where they had fallen in with large herds of caribou. Some of the men drove the animals into the water, while others pursued them in their frail boats. The animals were easily overtaken and killed with the lance.

Pakkak was the oldest one of five brothers who were all skillful hunters, and provided well for their families. They were renowned for their daring and enterprise. Therefore, their friendship was valued and their enmity feared. Pakkak was held in particular awe, for he was not only strong in body and skilled in the use of the knife, lance and bow, but he was endowed with supernatural powers. As a child he had sat on the knees of the old medicine man, Shark, who had been known to visit the moon and the great deity that controls the supply of sea animals. Through contact with him, the supernatural power had passed into Pakkak’s body, and now his services were needed whenever sickness and famine visited the village. Thus it happened, that Pakkak and his brothers were both sought as protectors and shunned as possessed of unusual power.

Pakkak did not misuse his power, but one of his brothers, Ikeraping, was rash in anger and overbearing in manner, and he was feared and hated. If it had not been for the combined strength of the brothers, the people of the winter village would have agreed to do away with Ikeraping in order to rid themselves of his aggressions.

Among the later arrivals was No-tongue, whose party had been unsuccessful in the summer hunt. He had hunted in the narrow valleys between the ice covered highlands, and by mischance he had come at a time when the caribou had left for another feeding ground. He had only a few skins for his whole family, hardly sufficient to provide himself, his old mother Petrel, his wife, Attina, and his children, with the necessary winter clothing. However, he was not greatly perturbed. He relied upon good luck and the help of his friends who might be expected to assist him, in case they should have skins to spare.

Gradually, one party after another arrived, and on the island which a short time ago had been solitary and quiet, little groups of huts sprang up and there was great activity. The women were busy with their household duties, getting fuel and mending clothes, while the men went out hunting in their kayaks and brought home game for their evening meal. The skins of the seals were scraped by the women, and stretched on the ground to be dried and later on worked into tent covers.

The wind had shifted seaward, and the floating ice had been driven away from the shore. It was getting cold, and the ponds began to be covered with a thin sheet of ice. Before the sea began to freeze over, it was necessary to bring the dogs back from the islands on which they had been placed over summer, and where they lived on what they could find on the beach or what they could hunt on the hills. Only a few of them had been taken along on the summer hunt, and with them were brought back a few litters of pups that were carefully nursed by the women.

When the new ice began to form on the sea, the hunters could not go out any more in their boats, because the sharp edges of the ice would have cut the skin covers. For a few days, all were confined to the land. The hunters brought in ptarmigans and hares, but everybody looked anxiously forward to the time when the ice would be strong enough for the hunters to go out. A few days without new supplies are likely to empty the larder all too quickly. Besides, it was getting cold, and work on winter clothing could not be started until the sea was covered with ice. The Sea-Goddess would take bitter revenge if such a sin were committed.

This year the weather was favorable, and the anxious days between summer and winter were not needlessly prolonged. After three cold days, the men could go out on the sea ice and wait at the edge of the open water for the seals to come up to breathe. Since the wind had brought back the drifting ice, the stretch of open water was not very wide, and the seals came near enough to be harpooned without difficulty, and to be drawn up to the ice. It was even possible to venture out in the open water in the kayak, for the ice was not forming very rapidly. Thus an ample supply of meat was obtained.

Meanwhile, the women were busy scraping and cleaning the caribou skins, and making the winter clothing for the family—the warm shirts and drawers of young caribou skins, and the heavy jackets and trousers of heavy skins; the stockings of light skins of young caribou, and the boots made from the skin of caribou legs, with soles of ground sealskins. Poor No-tongue had just enough for his family, and a few skins to spare. Unfortunately the catch of the whole community had been rather light, notwithstanding Pakkak’s good luck.

From now on, the men went out regularly every morning and came back in the evening, generally with an ample catch. One day they had gone out again and were scattered along the edge of the ice, watching for seals. During the day the sky clouded up, and a strong, seaward wind began to blow. It increased in strength, and an ominous cracking of the ice gave warning of danger. Hurriedly the men loaded their sledges, and sped landward. Under their feet the ice began to crack and to yield to the pressure of the wind, but they succeeded in reaching land before the floe gave way and drifted out to sea.

Only No-tongue’s sledge was missing. He had been hunting on a projecting point of ice, and before he was even aware of his danger, the whole point had broken off and was rapidly drifting out to sea. There was nothing for him to do but yield to his fate, and see whether the gale would exhaust itself soon, and whether by chance the floe that carried him might be blown back to land. Fortunately he had just killed a seal. He flensed it and made a little shelter of the fresh hide. His lance had to serve as a tent pole. He protected his tent cover against the wind by piling snow all over it. He made a receptacle for the blubber out of a piece of skin, and thus improvised a little lamp. Fortunately, too, he carried his fire drill and a little of the moss which is used for wicks; so that he was able to start a little fire in his shelter. The gale was still blowing, and the angry waves threatened to break up the floe on which he was drifting. When day dawned the land was far away. Soon, however, the wind subsided, and a swift tide carried the ice floe back, nearer and nearer the land.

It had grown very cold. An icy slush was forming on the surface of the sea and the waves were rapidly calming down. The breaking up of the floe which seemed imminent through the night was no longer to be feared and immediate danger of drowning had passed. Still it was doubtful how the drift would end. With the changing tide, the current changed again, and the floe drifted away from the shore. The play of tides continued for days. Now the shore seemed near, so that the hopes of No-tongue were raised to a high pitch, and now the shore receded. In these days of anxiety No-tongue never lost courage, but, mocking his own misfortune, he composed this song:

Aya, I am joyful; this is good!
Aya, there is nothing but ice around me, that is good!
Aya, I am joyful; this is good!
My country is nothing but slush, that is good!
Aya, I am joyful; this is good!
Aya, when indeed, will this end? this is good!
I am tired of watching and waking, this is good!

His endurance and patience were finally rewarded. After a week of privations, he reached the shore not very far from the winter village. A few days of hard travel over the ice covered sea, and rocky hills brought him home to his family and friends. They had almost given him up for lost.

* * * * *

As it grew colder the light tent no longer offered adequate protection. The women sewed a new cover of sealskins and gathered loads of brush. They placed them on the outside of the summer tent, and spread the new covers over the whole structure. The door flap was also transformed into a solid wall, and only a low opening was left, through which the people had to pass, stooping down low. This darkened the inside of the tent, which before had been fairly light because the front part of the tent cover was made of the transparent inner membrane of sealskin. Therefore the lamps were put into place. The long, rectangular entrance of the tent with its roof-shaped cover still served for keeping provisions, but just in front of the beds, the soapstone lamps—long crescent-shaped vessels—were placed. The wife of the tent owner took her seat on the bed in front of the lamp, where she sat in kneeling position letting her body rest between her heels. The lamp was filled with blubber that had been chewed to release the oil, and the straight front edge of the lamp was provided with a wick of moss which, when carefully treated with the bone pointer, gave an even, yellow flame that lighted and heated the hut pleasantly.

Soon the snow began to fall, and the autumnal gales packed it solid in every hollow in the ground, and piled it up against the sides of the huts. The heather-like shrubs were deeply buried under the snow, and all domestic work had to be done inside. The soapstone cooking vessels were placed over the lamps, and all the meals were prepared in the house. The entrance to the hut was protected against the cold by a low passage, built of snow. As it grew colder, the snow accumulated, and most of the people exchanged their tents for snow houses. The men cut out of an even snow bank blocks about thirty inches by eighteen inches high, and six inches wide. These they placed on edge, in the form of a circle. At one point, the upper edge of the row was cut down to the ground, and then sliced down to the right, so that it slanted up gradually. At the place where it had been cut down, a new block of snow was put on, leaning against the end of the first row and slightly inclined inward. One man was cutting the snow blocks outside, while his helper was placing the blocks from the inside,—each block being inclined slightly more inward so that a spiral wall was gradually formed. Finally the key block was inserted, and the builder cut a little door through which he came out. In the rear half of the circular room, a platform was built for the bed which was elevated a couple of feet above the ground, and at the same level, at the right and left of the entrance, a bank was erected. The bed platform was covered with shrubs and skins. The tent cover was used to line the inside of the snow house, being held to the wall by means of pegs and ropes, thus protecting the snow against the heat of the living room. The lamps were put in place on each side of the front of the bed platform, and the pots were hung over them. In front, just above the door, a window was cut which was covered with a translucent sheet, made of seal intestines sewed together, and a series of low vaulted structures was erected in front of the door, forming a passageway which protected the inside against the wind.

When everything was done the family moved into the snow house. Two families occupied one house and each housewife had her seat in front of her lamp. The stores of meat were placed on the platforms at the right and left. Now the regular winter life began. It was bitter cold. The dogs huddled together in the entrance passages of the snow houses.

Early in the morning, the men went out to the sledges. The shoeing of the runners, which were made of split and polished bone of whale, was covered with a thin sheet of ice. The hunter took some water in his mouth, and allowed it to run slowly over the shoeing. Then he polished it with his mittened hand. After the icing had been made smooth, he turned the sledge right side up. The harpoon was lashed on, the knife was suspended from the antlers that form the back of the sledge, which are used in steering it through rough ice. The hunters then put the dogs in harness. The light team started down to the beach. During the continued cold weather, the rise and fall of the high tides was forming a broken mass of heavy ice on the beach which, as the winter progressed, was constantly increasing in thickness. A beaten path led down through the broken masses to smooth floe. The sledge sped down, and the hunters went off to the sealing ground. At first the unwilling dogs had to be coaxed to go forward, and even spurred on by cries and by the use of the short handled whip, which the driver handled with skill and accuracy, calling upon the lazy dogs, and hitting them at the same time with the points of the whip. Gradually, the dogs warmed up, and ran along swiftly over the smooth floe. When they reached a part of the ice that was broken up by gales, and in which the uplifted floes were frozen together, the driver had to lift his sledge over the sharp edges and broken masses, and progress was slow and difficult.

Finally the hunting ground was reached. The dogs took the scent of the breathing hole of a seal, and they rushed forward with such speed that the driver could hardly restrain them. At some distance from the hole he succeeded in stopping his team. He tied the dogs to a hummock so that they should not run away and then he inspected the seal hole to see whether it was still being visited by the seal. It was completely covered by snow, and discernible only to the experienced eye. He piled up a few blocks of snow on which he sat down. He laid his harpoon down cautiously, and waited. For hours he remained seated there, waiting for the snorting of the seal. The slightest noise would frighten away the wary animal, and, notwithstanding the intense cold, the hunter could not stir. At last he heard the seal. Cautiously he lifted his harpoon, and sent it down vertically into the snow. It hit the seal which tried in vain to escape. The hunter broke the snow covering of the hole, and hauled the animal upon the ice where, with a swift blow on the head, he killed it. Before he loaded it on his sledge he cut it open, and took out the liver which served him as lunch.

Meanwhile the short day had come to an end! The dogs were harnessed to the sledge, and the hunters returned home. When they arrived, they unloaded the sledge, unharnessed the dogs, and took off the heavy outer clothing. The hunter patted his coat carefully to remove the ice formed by the freezing of his breath. Then he put his coat in the storeroom and entered the house. As soon as he came in he took off his sealskin slippers, bird-skin slippers and stockings, which protected his feet against the cold, and his wife placed them on the rack over the lamp to dry. Then she looked them over and mended them carefully so that they should be ready on the following day.

When all the hunters had come back, those who had brought home no game flocked to the house of one of the successful hunters, who butchered his seal and gave to each man a share to eat in the house, or to take home to his family. They talked over the events of the day until late at night.

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This life had been going on quietly for all, without exciting events, when No-tongue’s youngest child became ill. The boy refused food and drink, and household remedies did not avail. In her anxiety for the life of her darling, Attina appealed to Pakkak and asked him to find out what ailed the child, and if possible to cure him. Pakkak went to No-tongue’s hut. As soon as he came in, the lamps were lowered. He sat down on the bed facing the rear wall of the hut and began his incantation. His body shook violently when he called his protecting spirits to help him. He uttered unintelligible sounds and cries.

Finally his incantation stopped. He addressed himself to Attina and said, “Have you sinned? Have you eaten forbidden food? Have you done forbidden work? What tabus have you transgressed?” She had asked herself what she might have done to bring about her child’s sickness, and she remembered that she had scraped the frost from the window of her house, and that she had eaten seal meat and caribou meat on the same day.

She replied, at once, “I confess! I have scraped frost from the window of my house. I have eaten caribou meat and seal meat on the same day. I have sinned.”

Pakkak replied, “It is well, my daughter that you have confessed. Now the evil consequences of your sins are forgiven. The black halo that I saw surrounding your body, and that has affected your child, has disappeared and the boy will soon recover.”

The lamps were lighted again. The confession of Attina’s transgressions had appeased the supernatural powers and therefore the parents hoped for the recovery of their son.

For a while the little boy seemed to improve, but suddenly he suffered a severe relapse, and before the help of Pakkak could be summoned, he died. At once No-tongue prepared to bury the boy. He stuffed his own nostrils with caribou hair to prevent contamination by the exhalation from the corpse. The limbs were tied up with thongs and No-tongue carried his dead child out of the hut and up the hills. There he cut the thongs, and thus released the soul of the child. No-tongue covered the body with a vault of stones, being careful that no stone should weigh on it. He deposited the child’s toys and returned home. For three days the whole family stayed in the house. No-tongue did not go out a-hunting. Attina did not clean her lamps. She did not move the caribou skin of the bed. She did not mend any clothing. To transgress these rules would have resulted in new misfortunes.

After four days all the members of the family threw away their clothing which had been contaminated by the breath of the dead child, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that they secured enough skins from their neighbors to make a new set for the whole family. Through the charity of friends they were finally provided for.

The death of the child, and the cares of the family weighed heavily on the mind of Petrel, No-tongue’s mother. He himself was light-hearted and consoled himself with the thought that they might have other children in the future; but she was an old woman, and felt that she could not carry the burden of her years much longer. She loved her son and her grandchildren, and the thought haunted her mind that she might die in the hut, and that they might be compelled to throw away another set of winter clothing and be exposed to the hardships of the winter without adequate protection. If only she could die away from home, and thus spare her dear ones the consequences of another sickness and death. The thought preyed on her mind and finally she resolved to end her own life.

The long Arctic night had set in, and only at noon came the sun near enough to the horizon to spread the faint light of dawn over the ice and mountains. One night when it was bitterly cold and the snow was drifting, lashed by a strong wind, old Petrel left the house and walked across the ice to a small island. There in a nook of barren rocks she piled up a wall of stones, and sat down behind it, in order to allow herself to freeze to death. Her thoughts dwelled with her children, and she was satisfied that she was not going to die of sickness in her bed, for then her future life would have been one of agony and torture in the lower world where there is only want and famine, where cold and struggle prevail all the year round. By choosing her own death she looked forward to a happy life in the upper world. There she was going to play ball, and her friends would see her joyful motions in the rays of the Aurora Borealis. She would enjoy comfort and plenty and the cares of this world, as well as the tortures of the lower world would be spared her. Her limbs became numb with the cold and she went to sleep, her mind filled with pleasant visions.

During the night Attina roused herself to trim her lamp. She chanced to look about, and noticed that Petrel was not there. She called her husband who at once guessed what had happened. He gave the alarm and soon all the sledges were out. No tracks were to be seen in the drifting snow, and the whole party scattered in different directions to search for the old woman. To right and left along the coast, north and south they went on their sledges. Usuk, the bachelor, who did menial work for Pakkak, had joined the party. He, the despised and ridiculed one, found the old woman in time to save her from death. Notwithstanding her resistance, he carried her to his sledge, and hurried home. She was taken into the house, covered with a warm blanket and scolded for the unnecessary worry that she had given to her family and to her neighbors. She was ill-satisfied with her rescue, but submitted to the friendly influence of her light-hearted son.

It seemed that with this event the ill luck of No-tongue had spent itself, and the rest of the winter passed quietly. The weather was propitious and no long continued gales kept the hunters at home. The snow was hard and crisp so that the hunting ground could be reached without difficulty. Early in February, the first rays of the sun struck the high mountains and although the cold was still intense, the daylight made hunting and work easier.

Now and then visitors came in from distant villages to see their relatives. Everybody flocked to the hut where they were visiting, to hear the news. There was much to tell about success in hunting, about marriage and birth, sickness and death. For months, the village had been cut off from all intercourse with the outside world, because the strong currents that washed the foot of the promontories prevented the formation of ice, and only after the cold had continued long enough, was the sea covered by a continuous floe, which allowed the villagers to travel unhampered from place to place.

One day a number of travelers were discovered, whose sledge, dogs and gait did not seem familiar. The news spread rapidly through the village and the women and children assembled on a point of vantage, straining their eyes in an attempt to discover who the visitors were. Soon, Pakkak recognized an old friend who lived many days’ journey away, and whom he had not seen for many years. He shouted, “There is Eiderduck.” When the women knew that the visitors were friends of Pakkak, they burst forth in song and laughter. They waved their arms and jumped about. The frightened children hid, crying, behind their mothers. Most of the men went down to the ground ice to meet the strangers, and to help them to unload their sledges. Pakkak led Eiderduck and his companions to a snow house, and treated them hospitably with frozen seal meat.

While they were eating, the people crowded into the house. They sat on the bed platform, and squatted on the floor until there was no more room. Those who could not get into the house crouched in the entrance to get a glimpse of the visitors, and to hear what they had to say. All the older people had some friends in the villages through which the travelers had passed, and therefore their reports were listened to with keenest interest, interest which communicated itself to the younger generation, who thus learned about the family relationships and the history of all the people who lived many miles up and down the coast line.