he stood high above his kinsfolk. He seemed to see through his fellows
as if their bosoms and brains had been made of glass, and all their
thoughts visible. Ujarak knew this also, and did not like it. But no
one suffered because of Angut's superior penetration, for he was too
amiable to hurt the feelings of a mosquito.
After all that we have said, the reader will perhaps be prepared to
expect that Angut never opened his mouth save to drop words of love and
wisdom. Not so. Angut was modest to excess. He doubted his own
wisdom; he suspected his own feelings; he felt a strong tendency to
defer to the opinion of others, and was prone rather to listen than to
speak. He was fond of a joke too, but seldom perpetrated one, and was
seldom severe.
While Ujarak was speaking, Angut listened with that look of unmoved
gravity with which he always met a new thing or idea, and which
effectually concealed his real feelings, though the concealment was
unintentional. But when at last the wizard came to the most distasteful
part of his discourse, namely the message from Reginald Rooney, that, on
the occasion of his visit to the camp, he would take up his abode with
Angut, that hero's countenance lighted up with surprise, not unmingled
with pleasure.
"Is Ujarak sure that the Kablunet said this?" asked Angut.
"Quite sure," replied the wizard.
"Huk!" exclaimed Angut, by which exclamation you may be sure that he
meant to express much satisfaction.
"But," continued the wizard, "the Kablunet is ill. He is thin; he is
weak. He wants rest. I have consulted with my torngak, who tells me he
will get better soon if we do not trouble him."
At this point Ujarak glanced at Angut, but that worthy's countenance had
resumed its look of impenetrable gravity.
"We must not worry him or go near him for some days," continued the
wizard. "We must let him alone. And this will not try our patience,
for my torngak tells me that seals have come. Yesterday I went to the
house of the great Fury under the sea, and wrestled with her; and my
torngak and I overcame her, and set many of the seals and other animals
free."
"Huk!" exclaimed the assembly, in gratified surprise.
Lest the reader should feel some surprise also, we may as well explain
what the Greenlanders believed in former times. They held, (perhaps
they still hold), that there were two great spirits--the one was good,
named Torngarsuk; the other was bad, and a female--a Fury--without a
name. This malevolent woman was supposed to live in a great house under
the ocean, in which by the power of her spells she enthralled and
imprisoned many of the sea monsters and birds, thus causing scarcity of
food among the Eskimos. The angekoks claimed to have the power of
remedying this state of things by paying a visit to the abode of the
Fury.
When an angekok has sufficient courage to undertake this journey, his
torngak, after giving him minute instructions how to act, conducts him
under the earth or sea, passing on the way through the kingdom of those
good souls who spend their lives in felicity and ease. Soon they come
to a frightful vacuity--a sort of vasty deep--over which is suspended a
narrow wheel, which whirls round with great rapidity. This awful abyss
is bridged by a rope, and guarded by seal sentinels. Taking the angekok
by the hand, his torngak leads him on the rope over the chasm and past
the sentinels into the palace of the Fury.
No sooner does the wicked creature spy the unwelcome visitors than,
trembling and foaming with rage, she immediately sets on fire the wing
of a sea-fowl, with the stench of which she hopes to suffocate angekok
and torngak together, and make both of them captives. The heroes,
however, are prepared for this. They seize the Fury before she has
succeeded in setting fire to the wing, pull her down, and strip her of
those amulets by the occult powers of which she has enslaved the
inhabitants of ocean. Thus the spell is broken, for the time at least,
and the creatures, being set free, ascend to their proper abodes at the
surface of the sea!
After this explanation the reader will easily understand the flutter of
excitement that passed through the assembly, for, although feasting at
that moment on a walrus, they had suffered much during the latter part
of that winter from the scarcity of animals of all kinds.
But Angut did not flutter. That peculiar man was an incorrigible
sceptic. He merely smiled, and, chucking a rotund little boy beside him
under the chin, said, "What think ye of that, my little ball of fat?" or
some Eskimo equivalent for that question. Our intelligent wizard had
not, however, ventured on these statements without some ground to go on.
The fact is, that, being a close observer and good judge of the
weather, he had perceived a change of some sort coming on. While on his
way to the hut of Okiok he had also observed that a few seals were
playing about on the margin of some ice-floes, and from other symptoms,
recognisable only by angekoks, he had come to the conclusion that it
would be safe as well as wise at that time to prophesy a period of
plenty.
"Now I would advise," he said, in concluding his discourse, "that we
should send off a hunting party to the south, for I can tell you that
seals will be found there--if the young men do not put off time on the
way."
This last proviso was a judicious back-door of escape. Slight delays,
he knew, were almost inevitable, so that, if the hunt should prove a
failure, he would have little difficulty in accounting for it, and
saving his credit. The most of his credulous and simple-minded hearers
did not reflect on the significance of the back-door remark, but Angut
did, and grinned a peculiar grin at the little fat boy, whom he chucked
a second time under the chin. Ujarak noted the grin, and did not like
it.
Among the people there who gave strongest expression to their joy at the
prospect of the good living in store for them, were several young and
middle-aged females who sat in a corner grouped together, and conveyed
their approval of what was said to each other by sundry smirks and
smiles and nods of the head, which went far to prove that they
constituted a little coterie or clique.
One of these was the wife of Simek, the best hunter of the tribe. Her
name was Pussimek. She was round and short, comely and young, and given
to giggling. She had a baby--a female baby--named after her, but more
briefly, Pussi, which resembled her in all respects except size. Beside
her sat the mother of Ippegoo. We know not her maiden name, but as her
dead husband had been called by the same name as the son, we will style
her Mrs Ippegoo. There was also the mother of Arbalik, a youth who was
celebrated as a wonderful killer of birds on the wing--a sort of Eskimo
Robin Hood--with the small spear or dart. The mother of Arbalik was
elderly, and stern--for an Eskimo. She was sister to the great hunter
Simek. Kannoa, a very old dried-up but lively woman with sparkling
black eyes, also formed one of the group.
"Won't we be happy!" whispered Pussimek, when Ujarak spoke in glowing
terms of the abundance that was in prospect. She followed up the
whisper by hugging the baby.
"Yes, a good time is coming," said the mother of Ippegoo, with a
pleasant nod. "We will keep the cooking-lamps blazing night and--"
"And stuff," rejoined Pussimek, with a giggle, "till we can hold no
more."
"Do you want to grow fatter?" asked the mother of Arbalik in a sharp
tone, which drew forth a smothered laugh all round, for Pussimek had
reached that condition of _embonpoint_ which rendered an increase
undesirable.
"I would not object to be fatter," replied the wife of Simek, with
perfect good-humour, for Eskimos, as a rule, do not take offence easily.
"Stuff, stuff," murmured Kannoa, nodding her old head contemplatively;
"that's what I'm fond of; stuff--stuff--stuff."
"All your stuffing will never make _you_ fat," said the stern and rather
cynical mother of Arbalik.
She paid no attention to Kannoa's reply--which, to do her justice, was
very mild--for, at the moment, Arbalik himself rose to address the
assembly. He was a fine specimen of an Eskimo--a good-looking young
savage; slim and wiry, with a nose not too flat, and only a little
turned up; a mouth that was well shaped and pleasant to look at, though
very large, and absolutely cavernous when in the act of yawning; and his
eyes looked sharp and eager, as if always on the outlook for some
passing bird, with a view to transfixion.
"The words of Ujarak are wise," he said. "I was down at the high bluffs
yesterday, and saw that what he says is true, for many seals are coming
up already, and birds too. Let us go out to the hunt."
"We would like much to see this wonderful Kablunet," remarked the jovial
big hunter Simek, with a bland look at the company, "but Ujarak knows
best. If the Kablunet needs rest, he must have it. If he needs sleep,
he must have it. If he wants food, he must have it. By all means let
him have it. We will not disturb him. What the torngak of Ujarak
advises we will do."
Several of the other leading men also spoke on this occasion--some
inclining to accept the wizard's advice; others, who were intolerably
anxious to see the Kablunet, rather inclining to the opinion that they
should remain where they were till he recovered strength enough to be
able to pay his contemplated visit.
Ippegoo spoke last. Indeed, it was not usual for him to raise his voice
in council, but as he had been the first to carry the important news,
and was known to be an ardent admirer and pupil of Ujarak, he felt that
he was bound to back his patron; and his arguments, though not cogent,
prevailed.
"Let us not doubt the wisdom of the angekok," he said. "His torngak
speaks. It is our business to obey. We have starved much for some
moons; let us now feast, and grow fat and strong."
"Huk!" exclaimed the auditors, who had been touched on their weakest
point.
"But Angut has not yet uttered his mind," said the jovial Simek, turning
with a bland expression to the man in question; "he is an angekok,
though he will not admit it. Has not his familiar spirit said anything
to him?"
Angut looked gravely at the speaker for a moment or two, and shook his
head. Dead silence prevailed. Then in a voice that was unusually soft
and deep he said: "I am no angekok. No torngak ever speaks to me. The
winds that whistle round the icebergs and rush among the hummocks on the
frozen sea speak to me sometimes; the crashing ice-cliffs that thunder
down the glens speak to me; the noisy rivulets, the rising sun and moon
and winking stars all speak to me, though it is difficult to understand
what they say; but no familiar spirit ever speaks to me."
The man said this quietly, and in a tone of regret, but without the
slightest intention of expressing poetical ideas, or laying claim to
originality of thought. Yet his distinct denial of being an angekok or
wise man, and his sentiments regarding the voices of Nature, only
confirmed his countrymen in their belief that he was the greatest
angekok they had ever seen or heard of.
"But surely," urged Simek, "if so many spirits speak to you, they must
tell you _something_?"
"They tell me much," replied Angut in a contemplative tone, "but nothing
about hunting."
"Have you no opinion, then, on that subject?"
"Yes, I have an opinion, and it is strong. Let all the hunters go south
after seals without delay; but I will not go. I shall go among the
icebergs--alone."
"He will go to hold converse with his numerous torngaks," whispered old
Kannoa to Pussimek.
"He will go to visit Okiok, and see the Kablunet, and court Nunaga,"
thought the jealous and suspicious Ujarak.
And Ujarak was right; yet he dared not follow, for he feared the grave,
thoughtful man, in spite of his determination to regard and treat him
with lofty disdain.
Utterly ignorant of the wizard's feelings towards him--for he was slow
to observe or believe in ill-will towards himself when he felt none to
any one else--Angut set off alone next morning in the direction that led
to the great glacier, while his countrymen harnessed their dogs, loaded
their sledges with lines and weapons, and went away southward on a
hunting expedition. Wishing the latter all success, we will follow the
fortunes of Angut, the eccentric angekok.
Had you and I, reader, been obliged to follow him in the body, we should
soon have been left far behind; fortunately, spirit is more powerful and
fleet than matter!
Without rest or halt, the stalwart Eskimo journeyed over the ice until
he reached the residence of Okiok.
The dogs knew his step well, and gave no noisy sign of his approach,
though they rose to welcome him with wagging tails, and rubbed their
noses against his fur coat as he patted their heads.
Creeping into the hut, he presented himself unexpectedly. Okiok bade
him silent welcome, with a broad grin of satisfaction. Nunaga did the
same, with a pleased smile and a decided blush. The other inmates of
the hut showed similar friendship, and Tumbler, trying to look up, fell
over into an oil-puddle, with a loud crow of joy. They all then gazed
suddenly and simultaneously, with mysterious meaning, at Red Rooney, who
lay coiled up, and apparently sound asleep, in the innermost corner.
Angut also gazed with intense interest, though nothing of the sleeping
man was visible save the point of his nose and a mass of curling brown
hair protruding from his deerskin coverings.
Seating himself quietly between Nunaga and Nuna, and taking the oily
Tumbler on his knee, the visitor entered into a low-toned conversation
respecting this great event of their lives--the arrival of a real live
Kablunet! They also talked of Kablunets in general, and their reported
ways and manners. It is to be noted here that they did not talk in
whispers. Okiok and Nuna had indeed begun the conversation thus, but
had been immediately checked by Angut, whose intelligence had long ago
taught him that no sound is so apt to awaken a sleeper as the hiss of a
whisper; and that a steady, low-toned hum of conversation is more fitted
to deepen than interrupt slumber.
"Is he _very_ thin?" asked Angut, who had been somewhat impressed by
Ujarak's description of the stranger, and his evident desire that no one
should go near him.
"He is not fat," answered Okiok, "but he has not been starving long;
sleeping and stuffing will soon make him strong. Don't you think so,
Norrak? You saw him at his worst, when we found him on the ice."
Thus appealed to, Okiok's eldest son laid down the piece of blubber with
which he had been engaged, nodded his head several times, and said,
"Yes, he will be able to run, and jump soon."
"And he speaks our language _well_," said Okiok, with a look of great
interest.
"I know it," returned his friend; "Ujarak told us about that. It is
because of that, that I have come at once to see him." Nunaga winced
here, for she had timidly hoped that Angut had come to see _her_! "I
would not," continued the visitor, "that Ujarak should be the first to
speak to him, for he will poison his ears."
"Yes, Ujarak is a dreadful liar," said Okiok solemnly, but without the
slightest touch of ill feeling.
"An awful liar," remarked Nuna softly.
Nunaga smiled, as though acquiescing in the sentiment, but said nothing.
Just as they gave utterance to this decided opinion as to the character
of the wizard, Red Rooney turned round, stretched himself, yawned, and
sat up.
CHAPTER SIX.
ANGUT AND ROONEY HOLD CONVERSE ON MANY THINGS.
At first Rooney did not observe that there was a visitor in the hut,
but, when his eyes alighted on him, he rose at once, for he felt that he
was in the presence of a man possessed of intelligence vastly superior
to that of the ordinary natives. It was not so much that Angut's
presence was commanding or noble, as that his grave expression, broad
forehead, and earnest gaze suggested the idea of a man of profound
thought.
The angekok who had been so graphically described to him by Okiok at
once recurred to Rooney's mind. Turning to his host, he said, with a
bland expression--
"I suppose this is your friend Angut, the angekok?"
"Yes," replied Okiok.
While the mysterious foreigner was speaking, Angut gazed at him with
looks and feelings of awe, but when he stepped forward, and frankly held
out his hand, the Eskimo looked puzzled. A whispered word from his
host, however, sufficed to explain. Falling in at once with the idea,
he grasped the offered hand, and gave it a squeeze of good-will that
almost caused the seaman to wince.
"I am glad to meet you," said Rooney.
"I am more than glad," exclaimed the Eskimo with enthusiasm; "I have not
language to tell of what is in my mind. I have heard of Kablunets,
dreamed of them, thought of them. _Now_ my longings are gratified--I
behold one! I have been told that Kablunets know nearly everything; _I_
know next to nothing. We will talk much. It seems to me as if I had
been born only to-day. Come; let us begin!"
"My friend, you expect too much," replied Rooney, with a laugh, as he
sat down to devote himself to the bear-steak which Nunaga had placed
before him. "I am but an average sort of sailor, and can't boast of
very much education, though I have a smattering; but we have men in my
country who do seem to know 'most everything--wise men they are. We
call them philosophers; you call 'em angekoks. Here, won't you go in
for a steak or a rib? If you were as hungry as I am, you'd be only too
glad and thankful to have the chance."
Angut accepted a rib, evidently under the impression that the Kablunet
would think it impolite were he to refuse. He began to eat, however, in
a languid manner, being far too deeply engaged with mental food just
then to care for grosser forms of nourishment.
"Tell me," said the Eskimo, who was impatient to begin his catechising,
"do your countrymen all dress like this?" He touched the sealskin coat
worn by the sailor.
"O no," said Rooney, laughing; "I only dress this way because I am in
Eskimo land, and it is well suited to the country; but the men in my
land--Ireland we call it--dress in all sorts of fine cloth, made from
the hair of small animals--Why, what do you stare at, Angut? Oh, I
see--my knife! I forgot that you are not used to such things, though
you have knives--stone ones, at least. This one, you see, is made of
steel, or iron--the stuff, you know, that the southern Eskimos bring
sometimes to barter with you northern men for the horns of the narwhal
an' other things."
"Yes, I have seen iron, but never had any," said Angut, with a little
sigh; "they bring very little of it here. The Innuits of the South
catch nearly the whole of it on its journey north, and they keep it."
"Greedy fellows!" said Rooney. "Well, this knife is called a
clasp-knife, because it shuts and opens, as you see, and it has three
blades--a big one for cuttin' up your victuals with, as you see me
doin'; and two little ones for parin' your nails and pickin' your teeth,
an' mendin' pens an' pencils--though of course you don't know what that
means. Then here, you see, there are two little things stuck into the
handle. One is called tweezers, an' is of no earthly use that I know of
except to pull the hairs out o' your nose, which no man in his senses
ever wants to do; and the other thing is, I suppose, for borin' small
holes in things--it's almost as useless. This thing on the back is for
pickin' stones out of horses' hoofs--but I forgot you never saw horses
or hoofs! Well, no matter; it's for pickin' things out of things,
when--when you want to pick 'em out! But below this is an uncommon
useful thing--a screw--a thing for drawin' corks out of bottles--there,
again, I'm forgettin'. You never saw corks or bottles. Happy people--
as the people who don't drink spirits would call you--and, to say truth,
I think they are right. Indeed, I've been one of them myself ever since
I came to this region. Give us another steak, Nunaga, my dear--no, not
a bear one; I like the walrus better. It's like yourself--tender."
The fair Nunaga fell into a tremendous giggle at this joke, for although
our hero's Eskimo was not very perfect, he possessed all an Irishman's
capacity for making his meaning understood, more or less; and truly it
was a sight to behold the varied expressions of face--the childlike
surprise, admiration, curiosity, and something approaching to awe--with
which those unsophisticated natives received the explanation of the
different parts of that clasp-knife!
"But what did we begin our talk about?" he continued, as he tackled the
walrus. "O yes; it was about our garments. Well, besides using
different kinds of cloths, our coats are of many different shapes: we
have short coats called jackets, and long coats, and coats with tails
behind--"
"Do your men wear tails behind?" asked Angut, in surprise.
"Yes; two tails," replied Rooney, "and two buttons above them."
"Strange," remarked Angut; "it is only our women who have tails; and
they have only one tail each, with one button in front--not behind--to
fasten the end of the tail to when on a journey."
"Women with tails look very well," remarked Okiok, "especially when they
swing them about in a neat way that I know well but cannot describe.
But men with tails must look very funny."
Here Mrs Okiok ventured to ask how the Kablunet women dressed.
"Well, it's not easy to describe that to folk who have never seen them,"
said the sailor, with a slight grin. "In the first place, they don't
wear boots the whole length of their legs like you, Nuna."
"Surely, then," remarked the hostess, "their legs must be cold?"
"By no means, for they cover 'em well up with loose flapping garments,
extending from the waist all the way down to the feet. Then they don't
wear hoods like you, but stick queer things on their heads, of all
shapes and sizes--sometimes of no shape at all and very small size--
which they cover over with feathers, an' flowers, an' fluttering things
of all colours, besides lots of other gimcracks."
How Rooney rendered "gimcracks" into Eskimo we are not prepared to say,
but the whole description sent Nunaga and her mother into fits of
giggling, for those simple-minded creatures of the icy north--unlike
sedate Europeans--are easily made to laugh.
At this point Angut struck in again, for he felt that the conversation
was becoming frivolous.
"Tell me, Kablunet," he began; but Rooney interrupted him.
"Don't call me Kablunet. Call me Red Rooney. It will be more
friendly-like, and will remind me of my poor shipmates."
"Then tell me, Ridroonee," said Angut, "is it true what I have heard,
that your countrymen can make marks on flat white stuff, like the thin
skin of the duck, which will tell men far away what they are thinking
about?"
"Ay, that's true enough," replied the sailor, with an easy smile of
patronage; "we call it writing."
A look of grave perplexity rested on the visage of the Eskimo.
"It's quite easy when you understand it, and know how to do it,"
continued Rooney; "nothing easier."
A humorous look chased away the Eskimo's perplexity as he replied--
"Everything is easy when you understand it."
"Ha! you have me there, Angut," laughed the sailor; "you're a 'cute
fellow, as the Yankees say. But come, I'll try to show you how easy it
is. See here." He pulled a small note-book from his pocket, and drew
thereon the picture of a walrus. "Now, you understand that, don't you?"
"Yes; _we_ draw like that, and understand each other."
"Well, then, we put down for that w-a-l-r-u-s; and there you have it--
walrus; nothing simpler!"
The perplexed look returned, and Angut said--
"That is not very easy to understand. Yet I see something--always the
same marks for the same beast; other marks for other beasts?"
"Just so. You've hit it!" exclaimed Rooney, quite pleased with the
intelligence of his pupil.
"But how if it is not a beast?" asked the Eskimo. "How if you cannot
see him at all, yet want to tell of him in--in--what did you say--
writing? I want to send marks to my mother to say that I have talked
with my torngak. How do you mark torngak? I never saw him. No man
ever saw a torngak. And how do you make marks for cold, for wind, for
all our thoughts, and for the light?"
It was now Red Rooney's turn to look perplexed. He knew that writing
was easy enough to him who understands it, and he felt that there must
be some method of explaining the matter, but how to go about the
explanation to one so utterly ignorant did not at once occur to him. We
have seen, however, that Rooney was a resolute man, not to be easily
baffled. After a few moments' thought he said--
"Look here now, Angut. Your people can count?"