nothing he liked better than to be called on to relate his adventures--
and it must be added that there was nothing he found easier, for, when
his genuine adventures were not sufficiently telling, he could without
difficulty expand, exaggerate, modify, or even invent, so as to fit them
for the ears of a fastidious company.
"Remember!" he repeated in a loud voice, which attracted all eyes, and
produced a sudden silence; "of course I remember. The difficulty with
me is to forget--and I would that I could forget--for the adventure was
ho-r-r-r-ible!"
A low murmur of curiosity, hope, and joyful expectation, amounting to
what we might style applause, broke from the company as the wizard dwelt
on the last word.
You see, Eskimos love excitement fully as much as other people, and as
they have no spirituous drinks wherewith to render their festivities
unnaturally hilarious, they are obliged to have recourse to exciting
tales, comic songs, games, and other reasonable modes of creating that
rapid flow of blood, which is sometimes styled the "feast of reason and
the flow of soul." Simek's soul flowed chiefly from his eyes and from
his smiling lips in the form of hearty laughter and encouragement to
others--for in truth he was an unselfish man, preferring rather to draw
out his friends than to be drawn out by them.
"Tell us all about it, then, Ujarak," he cried. "Come, we are ready.
Our ears are open--yes; they are very _wide_ open!"
There was a slight titter at this sly reference to the magnitude of the
lies that would have to be taken in, but Ujarak's vanity rendered him
invulnerable to such light shafts. After glaring round with impressive
solemnity, so as to deepen the silence and intensify the expectation, he
began:--
"It was about the time when the ravens lay their eggs and the small
birds appear. My torngak had told me to go out on the ice, far over the
sea in a certain direction where I should find a great berg with many
white peaks mounting up to the very sky. There, he said, I should find
what I was to do. It was blowing hard at the time; also snowing and
freezing. I did not wish to go, but an angekok _must_ go forward and
fear nothing when his torngak points the way. Therefore I went."
"Took no food? no sleigh? no dogs?" asked Okiok in surprise.
"No. When it is a man's duty to obey, he must not think of small
things. It is the business of a wise man to do or to die."
There was such an air of stern grandeur about Ujarak as he gave
utterance to this high-flown sentiment, that a murmur of approval burst
from his believers, who formed decidedly the greater part of the
revellers, and Okiok hid his diminished head in the breast of his coat
to conceal his laughter.
"I had no food with me--only my walrus spear and line," continued the
wizard. "Many times I was swept off my feet by the violence of the
gale, and once I was carried with such force towards a mass of upheaved
ice that I expected to be dashed against it and killed, but just as this
was about to happen the--"
"Torngak helped--eh?" interrupted Okiok, with a simple look.
"No; torngaks never help while we are above ground. They only advise,
and leave it to the angekok's wisdom and courage to do the rest,"
retorted the wizard, who, although roused to wrath by these
interruptions of Okiok, felt that his character would be damaged if he
allowed the slightest appearance of it to escape him.
"When, as I said, I was about to be hurled against the berg of ice, the
wind seemed to bear me up. No doubt it was a long hollow at the foot of
the ice that sent the wind upwards, but my mind was quick. Instead of
resisting the impulse, I made a bound, and went up into the air and over
the berg. It was a very low one," added the wizard, as a reply to some
exclamations of extreme surprise--not unmingled with doubt--from some of
his audience.
"After that," continued Ujarak, "the air cleared a little, and I could
see a short way around me, as I scudded on. Small bergs were on every
side of me. There were many white foxes crouching in the lee of these
for shelter. Among them I noticed some white bears. Becoming tired of
thus scudding before the wind, I made a dash to one side, to get under
the shelter of a small berg and take rest. Through the driving snow I
could see the figure of a man crouching there before me. I ran to him,
and grasped his coat to check my speed. He stood up--oh, _so_ high! It
was not a man," (the wizard deepened his voice, and slowed here)--"it--
was--a--white--bear!"
Huks and groans burst at this point from the audience, who were covered
with the perspiration of anxiety, which would have been cold if the
place had not been so warm.
"I turned and ran," continued the angekok; "the bear followed. We came
to a small hummock of ice. I doubled round it. The bear went past--
like one of Arbalik's arrows--sitting on its haunches, and trying to
stop itself in vain, for the wind carried it on like an oomiak with the
sail spread. When the bear stopped, it turned back, and soon came up
with me, for I had doubled, and was by that time running nearly against
the wind. Then my courage rose! I resolved to face the monster with my
walrus spear. It was a desperate venture, but it was my duty. Just
then the snow partly ceased, and I could see a berg with sloping sides.
`Perhaps I may find a point of vantage there that I have not on the flat
ice,' I thought, and away I ran for the sloping berg. It was rugged and
broken. Among its masses I managed to dodge the bear till I got to the
top. Here I resolved to stand and meet my foe, but as I stood I saw
that the other side of the berg had been partly melted by the sun. It
was a clear steep slope from the top to the bottom. The bear was
scrambling up, foaming in its fury, with its eyes glaring like living
lamps, and its red mouth a-gape. Another thought came to me--I have
been quick of thought from my birth! Just as the bear was rising to the
attack, I sat down on the slope, and flew rather than slid to the
bottom. It was an awful plunge! I almost shut my eyes in horror--but--
but--kept them open. At the bottom there was a curve like a frozen
wave. I left the top of this curve and finished the descent in the air.
The crash at the end was awful, but I survived it. There was no time
for thought. I looked back. The bear, as I expected, had watched me in
amazement, and was preparing to follow--for bears, you know, fear
nothing. It sat down at the top of the slope, and stuck its claws well
into the ice in front of it. I ran back to the foot of the slope to
meet it. Its claws lost hold, and it came down thundering, like a huge
round stone from a mountain side. I stood, and, measuring exactly its
line of descent, stuck the butt of my spear into the ice with the point
sloping upwards. Then I retired to see the end, for I did not dare to
stand near to it. It happened as I had wished: the bear came straight
on my spear. The point went in at the breast-bone, and came out at the
small of the back; but the bear was not checked. It went on, taking the
spear along with it, and sending out streams of blood like the spouts of
a dying whale. When at last it ceased to roll, it lay stretched out
upon the ice--dead!"
The wizard paused, and looked round. There was a deep-drawn sigh, as if
the audience had been relieved from a severe strain of attention. And
so they had; and the wizard accepted that involuntary sigh as an
evidence of the success of his effort to amuse.
"How big was that bear?" asked Ippegoo, gazing on his master with a look
of envious admiration.
"How big?" repeated Ujarak; "oh, as big--far bigger than--than--the--
biggest bear I have ever seen."
"Oh, then it was an _invisible_ bear, was it?" asked Okiok in surprise.
"How? What do you mean?" demanded the wizard, with an air of what was
meant for grave contempt.
"If it was bigger than the _biggest_ bear you have ever seen," replied
Okiok, with a stupid look; "then you could not have seen _it_, because,
you know, it could not well be bigger than itself."
"Huk! that's true," exclaimed one, while others laughed heartily, for
Eskimos dearly love a little banter.
"Boh! ba! boo!" exclaimed Simek, after a sudden guffaw; "that's not
equal to what _I_ did to the walrus. Did I ever tell it you, friends?--
but never mind whether I did or not. I'll tell it to our guest the
Kablunet now."
The jovial hunter was moved to this voluntary and abrupt offer of a
story by his desire to prevent anything like angry feeling arising
between Okiok and the wizard. Of course the company, as well as Rooney,
greeted the proposal with pleasure, for although Simek did not often
tell of his own exploits, and made no pretension to be a graphic
story-teller, they all knew that whatever he undertook he did passably
well, while his irrepressible good-humour and hilarity threw a sort of
halo round all that he said.
"Well, my friends, it was a terrible business!"
Simek paused, and looked round on the company with a solemn stare, which
produced a smothered laugh--in some cases a little shriek of delight--
for every one, except the wizard himself, recognised in the look and
manner an imitation of Ujarak.
"A dreadful business," continued Simek; "but I got over it, as you shall
hear. I too have a torngak. You need not laugh, my friends. It is
true. He is only a little one, however--about so high, (holding up his
thumb), and he never visits me except at night. One night he came to
me, as I was lying on my back, gazing through a hole in the roof at our
departed friends dancing in the sky. [See note.] He sat down on the
bridge of my nose, and looked at me. I looked at _him_. Then he
changed his position, sat down on my chin, and looked at me over my
nose. Then he spoke.
"`Do you know White-bear Bay?' he asked.
"`Know it?' said I--`do I know my own mother?'
"`What answer is that?' he said in surprise.
"Then I remembered that torngaks--especially little ones--don't
understand jokes, nothing but simple speech; so I laughed.
"`Don't laugh,' he said, `your breath is strong.' And that was true;
besides, I had a bad cold at the time, so I advised him to get off my
chin, for if I happened to cough he might fall in and be swallowed
before I could prevent it.
"`Tell me,' said he, with a frown, `do you know White-bear Bay?'
"`Yes!' said I, in a shout that made him stagger.
"`Go there,' said he, `and you shall see a great walrus, as big as one
of the boats of the women. Kill it.'
"The cold getting bad at that moment, I gave a tremendous sneeze, which
blew my torngak away--"
A shriek of delight, especially from the children, interrupted Simek at
this point. Little Tumbler, who still sat on Rooney's knee, was the
last to recover gravity, and little Pussi, who still nestled beside
Nunaga, nearly rolled on the floor from sympathy.
Before the story could be resumed, one of the women announced that a
favourite dish which had been for some time preparing was ready. The
desire for that dish proving stronger than the desire for the story, the
company, including Simek, set to work on it with as much gusto as if
they had eaten nothing for hours past!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note. Such is the Eskimo notion of the Aurora Borealis.
CHAPTER TWELVE.
COMBINES STORY-TELLING (IN BOTH SENSES) WITH FASTING, FUN, AND MORE
SERIOUS MATTERS.
The favourite dish having been disposed of, Simek continued his story.
"Well," said he, "after my little torngak had been blown away, I waited
a short time, hoping that he would come back, but he did not; so I got
up, took a spear in my hand, and went off to White-bear Bay, determined
to see if the little spirit had spoken the truth. Sure enough, when I
got to the bay, there was the walrus sitting beside its hole, and
looking about in all directions as if it were expecting me. It was a
giant walrus," said Simek, lowering his remarkably deep voice to a sort
of thunderous grumble that filled the hearts of his auditors with awe in
spite of themselves, "a--most--awful walrus! It was bigger,"--here he
looked pointedly at Okiok--"than--than the very _biggest_ walrus I have
ever seen! I have not much courage, friends, but I went forward, and
threw my spear at it." (The listeners gasped.) "It missed!" (They
groaned.) "Then I turned, and, being filled with fear, I ran. Did you
ever see me run?"
"Yes, yes," from the eager company.
"No, my friends, you never saw me run! Anything you ever saw me do was
mere walking--creeping--standing still, compared with what I did then on
that occasion. You know I run fast?" ("Yes, yes.") "But that big
walrus ran faster. It overtook me; it overturned me; it _swallowed_
me!"
Here Simek paused, as if to observe how many of them swallowed that.
And, after all, the appeal to their credulity was not as much
overstrained as the civilised reader may fancy, for in their
superstitious beliefs Eskimos held that there was one point in the
training of a superior class of angekoks which necessitated the
swallowing of the neophyte by a bear and his returning to his friends
alive and well after the operation! Besides, Simek had such an honest,
truthful expression of countenance and tone of voice, that he could
almost make people believe anything he chose to assert. Some there were
among his hearers who understood the man well, and guessed what was
coming; others there were who, having begun by thinking him in jest, now
grew serious, under the impression that he was in earnest; but by far
the greater number believed every word he said. All, however, remained
in expectant silence while he gravely went on:--
"My friends, you will not doubt me when I say that it was very hot
inside of that walrus. I stripped myself, but was still too hot. Then
I sat down on one of his ribs to think. Suddenly it occurred to me to
draw my knife and cut myself out. To my dismay, I found that my knife
had been lost in the struggle when I was swallowed. I was in despair,
for you all know, my friends, how impossible it is to cut up a walrus,
either from out or inside, without a knife. In my agony I seized the
monster's heart, and tried to tear it; but it was too hard-hearted for
that. The effort only made the creature tremble and jump, which I found
inconvenient. I also knew from the curious muffled sound outside that
it was roaring. I sat down again on a rib to consider. If I had been a
real angekok, my torngak no doubt would have helped me at that time--but
he did not."
"How could you have a torngak at all if you are not a _real_ angekok?"
demanded the wizard, in a tone that savoured of contempt.
"You shall hear. Patience!" returned Simek quietly, and then went on:--
"I had not sat long when I knew by the motions of the beast that he was
travelling over the ice--no doubt making for his water-hole. `If he
gets into the sea,' I thought, `it will be the end of me.' I knew, of
course, that he could not breathe under water, and that he could hold
his breath so long that before he came up again for fresh air I should
be suffocated. My feelings became dreadful. I hope, my friends, that
you will never be in a situation like it. In my despair I rushed about
from the head to the tail. I must have hurt him dreadfully in doing
so--at least I thought so, from the way he jumped about. Once or twice
I was tossed from side to side as if he was rolling over. You know I am
a man of tender heart. My wife says that, so it must be true; but my
heart was hardened by that time; I cared not. I cared for nothing!
"Suddenly I saw a small sinew, in the form of a loop, close to the
creature's tail. As a last hope, without knowing why, I seized it and
tugged. The tail, to my surprise, came slightly inwards. I tugged
again. It came further in. A new thought came to me suddenly. This
was curious, for, you know, that never since I was a little child have
my thoughts been quick, and very seldom new. But somehow the thought
came--without the aid of my torngak too! I tugged away at that tail
with all my might. It came further and further in each tug. At last I
got it in as far as the stomach. I was perspiring all over. Suddenly I
felt a terrific heave. I guessed what that was. The walrus was sick,
and was trying to vomit his own tail! It was awful! Each heave brought
me nearer to the mouth. But now the difficulty of moving the mass that
I had managed to get inside had become so great that I felt the thing to
be quite beyond my power, and that I must leave the rest to nature.
Still, however, I continued the tugging, in order to keep up the
sickness--also to keep me employed, for whenever I paused to recover
breath I was forced to resume work to prevent my fainting away
altogether, being so terrified at the mere thought of my situation. To
be inside a walrus is bad enough, but to be inside of a sick walrus!--my
friends, I cannot describe it.
"Suddenly there was a heave that almost rent the ribs of the creature
apart. Like an arrow from a bow, I was shot out upon the ice, and with
a clap like thunder that walrus turned inside out! And then," said
Simek, with glaring solemnity, "I awoke--for it was all a dream!"
There was a gasp and cheer of delight at this, mingled with prolonged
laughter, for now the most obtuse even among the children understood
that Simek had been indulging in a tale of the imagination, while those
whose wits were sharper saw and enjoyed the sly hits which had been
launched at Ujarak throughout. Indeed the wizard himself condescended
to smile at the conclusion, for the tale being a dream, removed from it
the only objectionable part in his estimation, namely, that any torngak,
great or small, would condescend to have intercourse with one who was
not an angekok.
"Now," cried Okiok, starting up, "bring more meat; we are hungry again."
"Huk! huk!" exclaimed the assenting company.
"And when we are stuffed," continued Okiok, "we will be glad to hear
what the Kablunet has to tell about his own land."
The approval of this suggestion was so decided and hearty, that Red
Rooney felt it to be his duty to gratify his hospitable friends to the
utmost of his power. Accordingly he prepared himself while they were
engaged with the second edition of supper. The task, however, proved to
be surrounded with difficulties much greater than he had expected.
Deeming it not only wise, but polite, to begin with something
complimentary, he said:--
"My friends, the Innuits are a great people. They work hard; they are
strong and brave, and have powerful wills."
As these were facts which every one admitted, and Rooney uttered them
with considerable emphasis and animation; the statement of them was
received with nods, and huks, and other marks of approval.
"The Innuits are also hospitable," he continued. "A Kablunet came to
them starving, dying. The Great Spirit who made us all, and without
whose permission nothing at all can happen, sent Okiok to help him.
Okiok is kind; so is his wife; also his daughter. They took the poor
Kablunet to their house. They fed--they stuffed--him. Now he is
getting strong, and will soon be able to join in kick-ball, and
pull-over, and he may perhaps, before long, teach your great angekok
Ujarak some things that he does not yet know!"
As this was said with a motion in one eye which strongly resembled a
wink, the audience burst into mingled applause and laughter. To some,
the idea of their wise man being taught anything by a poor benighted
Kablunet was ridiculous. To others, the hope of seeing the wizard's
pride humbled was what is slangily termed "nuts." Ujarak himself took
the remark in good part, in consequence of the word "great" having been
prefixed to his title.
"But," continued the seaman, with much earnestness, "having said that I
am grateful, I will not say more about the Innuit just now. I will only
tell you, in few words, some things about my own country which will
interest you. I have been asked if we have big villages. Yes, my
friends, we have very big villages--so big that I fear you will find it
difficult to understand what I say."
"The Innuit have big understandings," said Simek, with a bland smile,
describing a great circle with his outspread arms; "do not fear to try
them."
"Well, one village we have," resumed Rooney, "is as broad as from here
to the house of Okiok under the great cliff, and it is equally long."
The "huks" and "hois!" with which this was received proved that, big as
their understandings were, the Eskimos were not prepared to take in so
vast an idea.
"Moreover," said the seaman, "because there is not enough of space, the
houses are built on the top of each other--one--two--three--four--even
five and six--one standing on the other."
As each number was named, the eyes of the assembly opened wider with
surprise, until they could open no further.
"Men, women, and children live in these houses; and if you were to
spread them all over the ice here, away as far as you can see in every
direction, you would not be able to see the ice at all for the houses."
"_What_ a liar!" murmured the mother of Arbalik to the mother of
Ippegoo.
"Dreadful!" responded the latter.
"Moreover," continued Rooney, "these people can put their words and
thoughts down on a substance called paper and send them to each other,
so that men and women who may be hundreds of miles away can talk with
each other and understand what they say and think, though they cannot
hear or see each other, and though their words and thoughts take days
and moons to travel."
The breathless Eskimos glanced at each other, and tried to open their
eyes wider, but, having already reached the utmost limit, they failed.
Unfortunately at that moment our hero was so tickled by the appearance
of the faces around him, that he smiled. In a moment the eyes collapsed
and the mouths opened.
"Ha! ha-a-a!" roared Simek, rubbing his hands; "the Kablunet is trying
to beat my walrus."
"And he has succeeded," cried Angut, who felt it his duty to stand up
for the credit of his guest, though he greatly wished that he had on
this occasion confined himself to sober truth.
A beaming expression forthwith took the place of surprise on every face,
as it suddenly dawned upon the company that Ridroonee was to be classed
with the funny dogs whose chief delight it is to recount fairy tales and
other exaggerated stories, with a view to make the men shout, the women
laugh, and the children squeak with amusement.
"Go on," they cried; "tell us more."
Rooney at once perceived his mistake, and the misfortune that had
befallen him. His character for veracity was shaken. He felt that it
would be better to say no more, to leave what he had said to be regarded
as a fairy tale, and to confine himself entirely to simple matters, such
as an Eskimo might credit. He looked at his friend Angut. Angut
returned the look with profound gravity, almost sorrow. Evidently his
faith in the Kablunet was severely shaken. "I'll try them once more,"
thought Rooney. "It won't do to have a vast range of subjects tabooed
just because they won't believe. Come, I'll try again."
Putting on a look of intense earnestness, which was meant to carry
irresistible conviction, he continued--
"We have kayaks--oomiaks--in my country, which are big enough to carry
three or four times as many people as you have in this village."
Another roar of laughter greeted this statement.
"Isn't he a good liar?" whispered Arbalik's mother.
"And so grave about it too," replied Kunelik.
Red Rooney stopped.
The mother of Ippegoo, fearing he had divined her thoughts, was
overwhelmed, and tried to hide her blushing face behind Issek.
"They don't believe me," said the seaman in a low voice to Okiok.
"Of course they don't. You might as well tell us that the world is
round, when we _see_ that it is flat!"
Rooney sighed. He felt depressed. The impossibility of his ever
getting these people to understand or believe many things was forced
upon him. The undisguised assurance that they looked upon him as the
best liar they had ever met with was unsatisfactory.
"Besides all this, my friends," he cried, with a feeling and air of
reckless gaiety, "we have grand feasts, just as you have, and games too,
and dances, and songs--"
"Songs!" shouted Simek, with an excited look; "have you songs? can you
sing?"
"Well, after a fashion I can," returned Rooney, with a modest look,
"though I don't pretend to be much of a dab at it. Are you fond o'
singin'?"
"Fond!" echoed Simek, with a gaze of enthusiasm, "I love it! I love it
_nearly_ as much as I love Pussimek; better, far, than I love blubber!
Ho! sing to us, Ridroonee."