which was by no means slight.
"Rule Britannia," rendered in good time, with tremendous energy, and all
the additional flourishes possible, nearly drove the audience wild with
delight. They had never heard anything like it before.
"That beats _you_, Okiok," said Simek.
"That is true," replied Okiok humbly.
"What! does _he_ sing?" asked Rooney.
"Yes; he is our maker of songs, and sings a little."
"Then he must sing to me," cried the sailor. "In my land the man who
sings last has the right to say who shall sing next. I demand a song
from Okiok."
As the company approved highly of the demand, and Okiok was quite
willing, there was neither difficulty nor delay. The good-natured man
began at once, with an air of humorous modesty, if we may say so.
Eskimos, as a rule, are not highly poetical in their sentiments, and
their versification has not usually the grace of rhyme to render it
agreeable, but Okiok was an exception to the rule, in that he could
compose verses in rhyme, and was much esteemed because of this power.
In a tuneful and moderate voice he sang. Of course, being rendered into
English, his song necessarily loses much of its humour, but that, as
every linguist knows, is unavoidable. It was Red Rooney who translated
it, which will account for the slightly Hibernian tone throughout. I
fear also that Rooney must have translated rather freely, but of course
at this late period of the world's history it is impossible to ascertain
anything certain on the point. We therefore give the song for what it
is worth.
OKIOK'S SONG.
I.
A seal once rowled upon the sea
Beneath the shining sun,
Said I, "My friend, this very day
Your rowlin' days are done."
"No, no," said he, "that must not be,"
(And splashed the snowy foam),
"Beneath the wave there wait for me
A wife and six at home."
II.
"A lie!" said I, "so you shall die!"
I launched my whistling spear;
Right up his nose the weapon goes,
And out behind his ear.
He looked reproachful; then he sank;
My heart was very sore,
For down, and down, and down he went.
I never saw him more.
III.
Then straight from out the sea arose
A female seal and six;
"O kill us now, and let our blood
With that of father's mix.
We cannot hunt; we dare not beg;
To steal we will not try;
There's nothing now that we can do
But blubber, burst, and die."
IV.
They seized my kayak by the point,
They pulled me o'er the sea,
They led me to an island lone,
And thus they spoke to me:
"Bad man, are there not bachelors
Both old and young to spare,
Whom you might kill, and eat your fill,
For all the world would care?"
V.
"Why stain your weapon with the blood
Of one whose very life
Was spent in trying to provide
For little ones and wife?"
They paused and wept, and raised a howl.
(The youngest only squealed).
It stirred the marrow in my bones,
My very conscience reeled.
VI.
I fell at once upon my knees,
I begged them to forgive;
I said I'd stay and fish for them
As long as I should live.
"And marry me," the widow cried;
"I'd rather not," said I
"But that's a point we'd better leave
To talk of by and by."
VII.
I dwelt upon that island lone
For many a wretched year,
Serving that mother seal and six
With kayak, line, and spear.
And strange to say, the little ones
No bigger ever grew;
But, strangest sight of all, they changed
From grey to brilliant blue.
VII.
"O set me free! O set me free!"
I cried in my despair,
For by enchantments unexplained
They held and kept me there.
"I will. But promise first," she said,
"You'll never more transfix
The father of a family,
With little children six."
IX.
"I promise!" Scarce the words had fled,
When, far upon the sea,
Careering gaily homeward went
My good kayak and me.
A mist rolled off my wond'ring eyes,
I heard my Nuna scream--
Like Simek with his walrus big,
I'd only had a dream!
The reception that this peculiar song met with was compound, though
enthusiastic. As we have said, Okiok was an original genius among his
people, who had never before heard the jingle of rhymes until he
invented and introduced them. Besides being struck by the novelty of
his verses, which greatly charmed them, they seemed to be much impressed
with the wickedness of killing the father of a family; and some of the
Eskimo widows then present experienced, probably for the first time in
their lives, a touch of sympathy with widowed seals who happened to have
large families to provide for.
But there was one member of the company whose thoughts and feelings were
very differently affected by the song of this national poet--this Eskimo
Burns or Byron--namely the wizard Ujarak. In a moment of reckless anger
he had challenged Okiok to combat, and, knowing that they would be
called on to enter the arena and measure, not swords, but intellects, on
the morrow, he felt ill at ease, for he could not hope to come off
victorious. If it had been the ordinary battle of wits in blank verse,
he might have had some chance he thought, but with this new and telling
jingle at the end of alternate lines, he knew that he must of a surety
fail. This was extremely galling, because, by the union of smartness,
shrewd common sense, and at times judicious silence, he had managed up
to that time to maintain his supremacy among his fellows. But on this
unlucky day he had been physically overcome by his rival Angut, and now
there was the prospect of being intellectually beaten by Okiok.
"Strange!" thought the wizard; "I wonder if it was my intention to run
away with Nunaga that brought this disgrace upon me."
"It was," said a voice very close to him.
The wizard looked round quickly, but no one seemed to be thinking of
him.
It was the voice of Conscience. Ujarak felt uneasy, and stifled it at
once. Everybody can do that without much difficulty, as the reader
knows, though nobody has ever yet succeeded in killing Conscience
outright. He then set himself to devise some plan for escaping from
this duel. His imagination was fertile. While the revellers continued
to amuse themselves with food, and song, and story, the wizard took to
thinking.
No one thought his conduct strange, or sought to disturb him, for
angekoks belong to a privileged class. But think as hard and as
profoundly as he could, no way of escape presented itself until the
evening was far advanced, and then, without an appreciable effort of
thought, a door seemed to fly open, and that door was--Ippegoo.
"Yes," thought the wizard; "that will do. Nothing could be better.
I'll make him an angekok."
It may be needful to explain here that the creation of an angekok is a
serious matter. It involves much ceremonial action on the part of him
who operates, and preparation on the part of him who is operated on.
Moreover, it is an important matter. When once it has been decided on,
nothing can be allowed to interfere with it. All other things--save the
unavoidable and urgent--must give way before it.
He would announce it that very night. He would boldly omit some of the
preliminary ceremonial. The morrow would be a day of preparation. Next
day would be the day of the ceremony of induction. After that it would
be necessary for him to accompany the new-made wizard on his first
journey to the realm of spirits. Thus the singing duel would have to be
delayed. Ultimately he would manage to carry off Nunaga to the land of
the southern Eskimo; thus he would be able to escape the ordeal
altogether, and to laugh at Okiok and his jingling rhymes.
When he stood up and made the announcement, declaring that his torngak
had told him that another angekok must be created, though who that other
one was had not yet been revealed to him, there was a slight feeling of
disappointment, for Eskimos dearly love a musical combat; but when he
pointed out that after the ceremonies were over, the singing duel might
then come off, the people became reconciled to the delay. Being by that
time exhausted in body and mind, they soon after retired to rest.
Ere long oblivion brooded over the late hilarious crew, who lay down
like bundles of hair in their festal garments, and the northern lights
threw a flickering radiance over a scene of profound quietude and peace.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
MISCHIEF HATCHING.
At early dawn next morning Ippegoo was awakened from a most refreshing
slumber by a gentle shake of the shoulder.
"Oh! not yet, mother," groaned the youth in the drowsiest of accents;
"I've only just begun to sleep."
He turned slowly on the other side, and tried to continue his repose,
but another shake disturbed him, and a deep voice said, "Awake; arise,
sleepy one."
"Mother," he murmured, still half asleep, "you have got the throat
s-sickness v-v-very bad," (referring to what we would style a cold).
A grim smile played for a moment on the visage of the wizard, as he gave
the youth a most unmotherly shake, and said, "Yes, my son, I am very
sick, and want you to cure me."
Ippegoo was wide awake in a moment. Rising with a somewhat abashed
look, he followed his evil genius out of the hut, where, in another
compartment, his mother lay, open-mouthed, singing a song of welcome to
the dawning day through her nose.
Ujarak led the youth to the berg with the sea-green cave. Stopping at
the entrance, he turned a stern look on his pupil, and pointing to the
cavern, uttered the single word--"Follow."
As Ippegoo gazed into the sea-green depths of the place--which darkened
into absolute blackness, with ghostly projections from the sides, and
dim icicles pendent from the invisible roof, he felt a suspicion that
the cave might be the vestibule to that dread world of the departed
which he had often heard his master describe.
"You're not going far, I hope," he said anxiously; "remember I am not
yet an angekok."
"True; but you are yet a fool," returned the wizard contemptuously. "Do
you suppose I would lead you to certain death for no good end? No; but
I will make you an angekok to-night, and after that we may explore the
wonders of the spirit-world together. I have brought you here to speak
about that, for the ears of some people are very quick. We shall be
safe here. You have been long enough a fool. The time has arrived when
you must join the ranks of the wise men. Come."
Again he pointed to the cave, and led the way into its dim sea-green
interior.
Some men seek eagerly after honours which they cannot win; others have
honours which they do not desire thrust upon them. Ippegoo was of the
latter class. He followed humbly, and rather closely, for the bare idea
of being alone in such a place terrified him. Although pronounced a
fool, the poor fellow was wise enough to perceive that he was utterly
unfitted, physically as well as mentally, for the high honour to which
Ujarak destined him; but he was so thoroughly under the power of his
influence that he felt resistance or refusal to be impossible. He
advanced, therefore, with a heavy heart. Everything around was fitted
to chill his ambition, even if he had possessed any, and to arouse the
terrors of his weak and superstitious mind.
When they had walked over the icy floor of the cave until the entrance
behind them seemed no larger than a bright star, the wizard stopped
abruptly. Ippegoo stumbled up against him with a gasp of alarm. The
light was so feeble that surrounding objects were barely visible. Great
blocks and spires and angular fragments of ice projected into
observation out of profound obscurity. Overhead mighty and grotesque
forms, attached to the invisible roof, seemed like creatures floating in
the air, to which an imagination much less active than that of Ippegoo
might easily have given grinning mouths and glaring eyes; and the
atmosphere of the place was so intensely cold that even Eskimo garments
could not prevent a shudder.
The wizard turned on his victim a solemn gaze. As he stood facing the
entrance of the cavern, there was just light enough to render his teeth
and the whites of his eyes visible, though the rest of his features were
shadowy.
"Ippegoo," he said in a low voice, "the time has come--"
At that moment a tremendous crash drowned his voice, and seemed to rend
the cavern in twain. The reverberating echoes had not ceased when a
clap as of the loudest thunder seemed to burst their ears. It was
followed for a few seconds by a pattering shower, as of giant hail, and
Ippegoo's very marrow quailed.
It was only a crack in the berg, followed by the dislodgement of a great
mass, which fell from the roof to the floor below--fortunately at some
distance from the spot on which the Eskimos stood.
"Bergs sometimes rend and fall asunder," gasped the trembling youth.
Ujarak's voice was unwontedly solemn as he replied--
"Not in the spring-time, foolish one. Fear not, but listen. To-night
you must be prepared to go through the customs that will admit you to
the ranks of the wise men."
"Don't you think," interposed the youth, with a shiver, "that it would
be better to try it on some one else--on Angut, or Okiok, or even
Norrak? Norrak is a fine boy, well-grown and strong, as well as clever,
and I am such a fool, you know."
"You have said truth, Ippegoo. But all that will be changed to-morrow.
Once an angekok, your foolishness will depart, and wisdom will come."
The poor youth was much cheered by this, because, although he felt
utterly unfit for the grave and responsible character, he had enough of
faith in his teacher to believe that the needed change would take
place,--and change, he was well aware, could achieve wonders. Did he
not see it when the change from summer to winter drove nearly all the
birds away, converted the liquid sea into a solid plain, and turned the
bright day into dismal night? and did he not feel it when the returning
summer changed all that again, sent the sparkling waves for his light
kayak to dance upon, and the glorious sunshine to call back the
feathered tribes, to open the lovely flowers, to melt the hard ice, and
gladden all the land? Yes, he knew well what "change" meant, though it
never occurred to him to connect all this with a Creator who changes
not. In this respect he resembled his master.
"Besides," continued the wizard in a more confidential tone, which
invariably had the effect of drawing the poor youth's heart towards him,
"I cannot make whom I will an angekok. It is my torngak who settles
that; I have only to obey. Now, what I want you to do is to become very
solemn in your manner and speech from this moment till the deed is
finished. Will you remember?"
Ippegoo hesitated a moment. He felt just then so unusually solemn that
he had difficulty in conceiving it possible to become more so, but
remembering the change that was about to take place, he said brightly,
"Yes, I'll remember."
"You see," continued his instructor, "we must get people to suppose that
you are troubled by a spirit of some sort--"
"Oh! only to suppose it," cried Ippegoo hopefully. "Then I'm not
_really_ to be troubled with a spirit?"
"Of course you are, foolish man. But don't you understand people must
see that you are, else how are they to know it?"
Ippegoo thought that if he was really to be troubled in that way, the
only difficulty would be to prevent people from knowing it, but
observing that his master was getting angry, he wisely held his tongue,
and listened with earnest attention while Ujarak related the details of
the ordeal through which he was about to pass.
At the time this conversation was being held in the sea-green cave,
Okiok, rising from his lair with a prodigious yawn, said to his wife--
"Nuna, I go to see Kunelik."
"And what may ye-a-o-u---my husband want with the mother of Ippegoo?"
asked Nuna sleepily, but without moving.
"I want to ye-a-o-u---ask about her son."
"Ye-a-a-o-o-u!" exclaimed Nuna, turning on her other side; "go, then,"
and she collapsed.
Seeing that his wife was unfit just then to enter into conversation,
Okiok got up, accomplished what little toilet he deemed necessary in
half a minute, and took his way to the hut of Ippegoo's mother.
It is not usual in Eskimo land to indulge in ceremonious salutation.
Okiok was naturally a straightforward and brusque man. It will not
therefore surprise any one to be told that he began his interview with--
"Kunelik, your son Ippegoo is a lanky fool!"
"He is," assented Kunelik, with quiet good-humour.
"He has given himself," continued Okiok, "spirit and body, to that
villain Ujarak."
"He has," assented Kunelik again.
"Where is he now?"
"I do not know."
"But me knows," said a small sweet little child-voice from the midst of
a bundle of furs.
It was the voice of Pussi. That Eskimo atom had been so overcome with
sleep at the breaking up of the festivities of the previous night that
she was unable to distinguish between those whom she loved and those for
whom she cared not. In these circumstances, she had seized the first
motherly tail that came within her reach, and followed it home. It
chanced to belong to Kunelik, so she dropped down and slept beside her.
"_You_ know, my dear little seal?" said Okiok in surprise.
"Yes, me knows. When I was 'sleep, a big man comes an' stump on my
toes--not much, only a leetle. Dat wokes me, an' I see Ujiyak. He
shooks Ip'goo an' bose hoed out degidder."
Okiok looked at Kunelik, Kunelik looked at Okiok, and both gravely shook
their heads.
Before they could resume the conversation, Ippegoo's voice was heard
outside asking if his mother was in.
"Go," said Kunelik; "though he is a fool, he is wise enough to hold his
tongue when any one but me is near."
Okiok took the hint, rose at once, and went out, passing the youth as he
entered, and being much struck with the lugubrious solemnity of his
visage.
"Mother," said Ippegoo, sitting down on a skin beside the pleasant
little woman, "it comes."
"What comes, my son?"
"I know not."
"If you know not, how do you know that it comes?" asked Kunelik, who was
slightly alarmed by the wild manner and unusual, almost dreadful,
gravity of her boy.
"It is useless to ask me, mother. I do not understand. My mind cannot
take it in, but--but--it comes."
"Yes; when is it coming?" asked Kunelik, who knew well how to humour
him.
"How can I tell? I--I think it has come _now_," said the youth, growing
paler, or rather greener; "I think I feel it in my breast. Ujarak said
the torngak would come to-day, and to-night I am to _be--changed_!"
"Oho!" exclaimed Kunelik, with a slight touch of asperity, "it's a
torngak that is to come, is it? and Ujarak says so? Don't you know,
Ippe, that Ujarak is an idiot!"
"Mother!" exclaimed the youth remonstratively, "Ujarak an idiot?
Impossible! He is to make me an angekok to-night."
"You, Ippe! You are not more fit for an angekok than I am for a
seal-hunter."
"Yes, true; but I am to _be--changed_!" returned the youth, with a
bright look; then remembering that his _role_ was solemnity, he dropped
the corners of his mouth, elongated his visage, turned up his eyes, and
groaned.
"Have you the stomach twist, my boy?" asked his mother tenderly.
"No; but I suppose I--I--am changing."
"No, you are not, Ippe. I have seen many angekoks made. There will be
no change till you have gone through the customs, so make your mind
easy, and have something to eat."
The youth, having had no breakfast, was ravenously hungry, and as the
process of feeding would not necessarily interfere with solemnity, he
agreed to the proposal with his accustomed look of satisfaction--which,
however, he suddenly nipped in the bud. Then, setting-to with an
expression that might have indicated the woes of a lifetime, he made a
hearty breakfast.
Thereafter he kept moving about the village all day in absolute silence,
and with a profound gloom on his face, by which the risibility of some
was tickled, while not a few were more or less awe-stricken.
It soon began to be rumoured that Ippegoo was the angekok-elect. In the
afternoon Ujarak returned from a visit, as he said, to the nether world,
and with his brother wizards--for there were several in the tribe--
confirmed the rumour.
As evening approached, Rooney entered Okiok's hut. No one was at home
except Nuna and Tumbler. The latter was playing, as usual, with his
little friend Pussi. The goodwife was busy over the cooking-lamp.
"Where is your husband, Nuna?" asked the sailor, sitting down on a
walrus skull.
"Out after seals."
"And Nunaga?"
"Visiting the mother of Arbalik."
The seaman looked thoughtfully at the lamp-smoke for a few moments.
"She is a hard woman, that mother of Arbalik," he said.
"Issek is not so hard as she looks," returned Mrs Okiok; "her voice is
rough, but her heart is soft."
"I'm glad to hear you speak well of her," said Rooney, "for I don't like
to think ill of any one if I can help it; but sometimes I can't help it.
Now, there's your angekok Ujarak: I cannot think well of him. Have you
a good word to say in his favour?"
"No, not one. He is bad through and through--from the skin to the bone.
I know him well," said Nuna, with a flourish of her cooking-stick that
almost overturned the lamp.
"But you may be mistaken," remarked Rooney, smiling. "You are mistaken
even in the matter of his body, to say nothing of his spirit."
"How so?" asked Nuna quickly.
"You said he is bad through and through. From skin to bone is not
through and through. To be quite correct, you must go from skin to
marrow."
Nuna acknowledged this by violently plunging her cooking-stick into the
pot.
"Well now, Nuna," continued Rooney, in a confidential tone, "tell me--"
At that moment he was interrupted by the entrance of the master of the
mansion, who quietly sat down on another skull close to his friend.
"I was just going to ask your wife, Okiok, what she and you think of
this business of making an angekok of poor Ippegoo," said Rooney.
"We think it is like a seal with its tail where its head should be, its
skin in its stomach, and all its bones outside; all nonsense--
foolishness," answered Okiok, with more of indignation in his look and
tone than he was wont to display.
"Then you don't believe in angekoks?" asked Rooney.
"No," replied the Eskimo earnestly; "I don't. I think they are clever
scoundrels--clever fools. And more, I don't believe in torngaks or any
other spirits."
"In that you are wrong," said Rooney. "There is one great and good
Spirit, who made and rules the universe."
"I'm not sure of that," returned the Eskimo, with a somewhat dogged and
perplexed look, that showed the subject was not quite new to him. "I
never saw, or heard, or tasted, or smelt, or felt a spirit. How can I
know anything about it?"
"Do you believe in your own spirit, Okiok?"
"Yes, I must. I cannot help it. I am like other men. When a man dies
there is something gone out of him. It must be his spirit."
"Then you believe in other men's spirits as well as your own spirit,"
said Rooney, "though you have never seen, heard, tasted, smelt, or felt
them?"
For a moment the Eskimo was puzzled. Then suddenly his countenance
brightened.
"But I _have_ felt my own," he cried. "I have felt it moving within me,
so that it made me _act_. My legs and arms and brain would not go into
action if they were dead, if the spirit had gone out of them."
"In the very same way," replied the seaman, "you may _feel_ the Great
Spirit, for your own spirit could not go into action so as to cause your
body to act unless a greater Spirit had given it life. So also we may
feel or understand the Great Spirit when we look at the growing flowers,
and hear the moving winds, and behold the shining stars, and feel the
beating of our own hearts. I'm not much of a wise man, an angekok--
which they would call _scholar_ in my country--but I know enough to
believe that it is only `the fool who has said in his heart, There is no
Great Spirit.'"
"There is something in what you say," returned the Eskimo, as the lines
of unusually intense thought wrinkled his brow; "but for all that you
say, I think there are no torngaks, and that Ujarak is a liar as well as
a fool."