but yet, grim and grisly, behind this smiling face of nature, Annadoah,
primitive child of the human race, shudderingly felt the malevolent and
evil eyes of _Perdlugssuaq_, the spirit of great evil, he who brings
sickness and death. Annadoah felt that instinctive fear which humanity
has felt from the beginning--the superstitious terror of tribes who
confront extinction, in the face of famine; the quiet white tremor of
the hard working hordes of modern cities in the face of poverty and
starvation; the dread of savage and civilized races alike of the
incomprehensible factor in the universe which wreaks destruction, that
original and ultimate evil which all the world's religions recognize,
interpret, and offer to placate--the force that is hostile to man and
the happiness of man.
On the smooth tossing waters, reflecting the glory of the sky, there
was no sign of those who had perished.
Then, after the first crushing sense of helplessness, an instinctive,
insurgent hope that would not be defeated asserted itself. Annadoah
called upon _Nerrvik_, for surely _Nerrvik_ was kind to men. She
pleaded with _Kokoyah_. She importuned the spirits of the sea and air
to return her beloved ones to her.
"_Nerrvik_! _Nerrvik_!" Annadoah supplicated persuasively, "gentle
spirit of the sea, lift Ootah unto me! Thou who art kind to man and
givest him fishes from the deep for food, give unto Annadoah's arms
Little Blind Spring Bunting."
She swayed her frail body to and fro, and in a tremulous, plaintive
chant told unto the gentle and gracious spirit of the waters all that
Ootah had been, all that he had done for the tribe; of his prowess, of
his love for her, of her own hardness, and how she had turned a deaf
ear to his pleading. Incident after incident she recalled. She told
of the long night, when Ootah went by moonlight into the mountains, how
he had braved the hill spirits, how they struck him in the frigid
highlands, and how the beneficent _quilanialequisut_ had brought him
home. Her exquisite voice rose to a splendid crescendo as she
described that valorous adventure, and in the chant ran the _motifs_ of
the hill spirit's anger, the brave leaping steps of Ootah, the tremor
of the mountains as they were struck, and the deep tenderness of
Ootah's love. In that customary chanting address to the spirits,
Annadoah told of Ootah's return from the mountains, of the suffering he
endured, and how, when she soothed him, she thought of the great trader
from the south. She recalled how he had staggered from the igloo, the
agony in his eyes, and how she heard him sobbing his heart-break in the
auroral silence without her igloo through the long sleep.
Extending her arms over the sea, Annadoah reiterated, after each
statement of Ootah's bravery, her plea to _Nerrvik_ that Ootah be given
back to her.
"_Nerrvik_! _Nerrvik_!" she called, "surely thou art kind! O thou
whom, when the great petrel raised a storm, wast cast into the depths
by those thou didst love, thou whose heart achest for affection--hear
me, hear me, and Annadoah will surely come to thee very soon and comb
thy hair in the depths of the cold, cold sea." [2]
Tears fell from her eyes. With self-reproach she told of her old
longing for Olafaksoah, the blond man from the south, whose grim,
fierce face had cowed her, yet whose brutality had thrilled her, to
whose beast-strength and to whose beast-passion all that was feminine
in her had surrendered itself. But he had left her--he said that he
would come back in the spring. Now, she knew he would not come
back--and she did not care. As if to convince the spirit of this, she
compared Olafaksoah with Ootah; she knew now that he had used her to
rob her people, that his heart was as stone. Ootah, she had once said,
had the heart of a woman; but now she realized the difference between
them. She knew the arms of Ootah were strong, that the words of Ootah
were true, that the heart of Ootah was kind. And she felt stirring in
her bosom things she could not express; a vague comprehension of the
pure spirituality of the man who had died to save her child, a response
to the love that had stirred in the bosom now cold beneath the sea.
All the primitive deep profundity of the devotion of that wild-hearted
man who had brought a wealth of food to her from over the mountains,
who had faced death for her on the frozen seas, who had tended her in
her time of trial with the gentleness of a woman, his indomitable
heroism, the splendor, the dauntless unselfishness and bravery of his
offering to father her sightless child--all this--all this, and
more--welled up in the heart of Annadoah.
"_Nerrvik_! _Nerrvik_! To him who loved her Annadoah lied. Dead, she
told him, was her heart as a frozen bird in wintertime--but her heart
was only sleeping! And now the wings are beating--beating within her
breast! _Ootah_! _Ootah_! _Ioh-h, ioh-h_!"
Her voice broke. She beat her little breasts. She bent over the sea
and listened. For a long while she watched.
Then, from the shadows in the clouds, the answer came. Truly Ootah was
brave, and his heart was marvellously kind; unsurpassed was his skill
on the hunt and of every animal did he kill; and great was his love for
Annadoah. Even the spirits had marvelled and spoken of it among
themselves; but Annadoah had chosen her fate; she had denied the love
that had unfalteringly pursued her, and now that she desired it, even
so to her was that love to be denied. That was fate.
Then in a clamorous outbreak did Annadoah plead with Kokoyah. She
grovelled on the ground. She called upon all the spirits of the winds
and air. In a tremulous, heart-broken plaint she finally called upon
the spirits of her father, her mother, and those who had gone before
them.
But unrelenting, passionless, the answer came--from the shadows in the
clouds, from the winds, from the moaning sea. To warm the wild heart
under the water was beyond the power of all the spirits. They repeated
to her, as in mockery, all that she had told them that Ootah had done,
of his mighty love for her; but nevermore might she soothe his injured
limbs, nevermore might she touch his gentle hands, nevermore might she
look into his tender and adoring eyes. His hands were cold, his eyes
were closed, his heart was still. It throbbed with the thought of her
no more--and that would be forever. That was fate.
A frail, pitiful figure, Annadoah stood on the cliff, wringing her
hands toward the declining sun. In the midst of that wild
golden-burning desolation, Annadoah felt her utter loneliness, her
tragic helplessness. In all the universe she felt herself utterly
alone.
Far away, awed by the heroism, the very splendor of the bravery of the
man who had perished, the tribe stood murmuring. In their hearts was
no little unkindness toward Annadoah. But, forsaken, outcast, she did
not care.
Over the aureate shimmering seas she wrung her little hands and into
the waves lapping at her feet her tears fell like rain. For the heart
of Annadoah ached. Nothing in the world any more mattered. All that
she had loved had perished in the sea. And she loved too late.
Gazing at the low-lying sun, veiled as in a vapor of tears, remote, and
sadly golden in its self-destined isolation, an instinctive
wild-world-understanding of that tragedy of all life, of all the
universe perchance--of that unselfish love that is too often denied and
the unhappy love that accents only too late--vaguely filled her
primitive heart.
Sinking to her knees, convulsed sobs shaking her, she wrung her hands
toward the sun, the eternal maiden _Sukh-eh-nukh_, the beautiful, the
all-desired.
"_I-o-h-h-h_!" she moaned, and her voice sobbed its pathos over the
seas. "_I-o-h-h-h! I-o-h-h-h! I-o-h-h-h, Sukh-eh-nukh! I-o-o-h-h,
Sukh-eh-nukh_! Unhappy sun--unhappy sun! _I-o-o-h-h-h-h_, Annadoah!
_I-o-o-o-h-h-h-h_, Annadoah! Unhappy, unhappy Annadoah!"
Annadoah's head sank lower and lower. Her weeping voice melted in the
melancholy sobbing of the aureate sea. One by one the natives
departed. She was left alone. To the north the sky darkened with one
of those sudden arctic storms which come, as in a moment's space, and
blast the tender flowers of spring. A cold wind moaned a pitiless
lament from the interior mountains. Yellow vapors gathered about the
dimming sun. Ominous shadows took form on the shimmering sea.
"_I-o-h-h-h--iooh_! Unhappy sun--unhappy, unhappy Annadoah!"
Taking fire in the subdued sunlight--and descending from heaven like a
gentle benediction of feathery flakes of gold--over and about the dark,
crouched figure, softly . . . very softly . . . the snow began to fall.
[1] Annadoah's flight, extraordinary as it is, is not without even more
remarkable precedents. In one case a woman who had been rejected by
her husband made a forty-mile journey during winter to a spot south of
her village where a child, some years before, had been buried. There
the woman wept and thus consoled herself. Having exhausted her grief,
she returned to her people. On the trip she had no food whatever.
[2] _Nerrvik_, a beautiful maiden, according to the legend, married a
storm-petrel who had disguised himself as a man. When she discovered
the deception she was filled with horror, so that later, when her
relatives visited her, she determined to escape with them. When the
petrel returned from a hunting trip and discovered that his wife had
gone, he followed, and flapping his great wings raised a terrible storm
at sea. Water filled the boat in which _Nerrvik_ was escaping. When
they realized that _Nerrvik_ was the cause of the storm her brothers
cast her into the sea. With one hand she clung to the boat; her
grandfather lifted his knife and struck. _Nerrvik_ descended into the
ocean and became the queen of the fishes. Possessing only one hand she
cannot plait her hair. A magician who can go to _Nerrvik_ in a trance
and arrange her tresses wins her gratitude and can secure from her for
the hunters quantities of fish. It is interesting to note the
similarity of the legend of _Nerrvik_ to that of Jonah. But just as
the Eskimos have changed the masculine sun of southern mythologies to
the feminine, so the victim of the mythological sea storm in the arctic
becomes a woman.
FINALE
_According to the legends of the tribes, not for many long and aching
ages shall the melancholy moon win the radiant but desolate
Sukh-eh-nukh. For having refused love she is compelled to flee in her
elected lot from the love she now desires but which she once denied,
and this by a fate more relentless than the power of Perdlugssuaq, a
fate which they do not comprehend, but which is, perchance, the Will of
Him Whose Voice sometimes comes as a strange whistling singing in the
boreal lights, and Who, to the creatures of His making, teaches the
lessons of life through the sorrows which result from the acts of their
own choosing . . . Sometime--when, they do not know--the sun and moon
will meet. They will then, having endured loneliness and long
yearning, be immeasurably happy, and in the consummation of their
desire all mankind will share . . . For as ultimate darkness closes,
all who have been true to the highest ideals of the chase will be
lifted into celestial hunting grounds, where no one is ever hungry nor
where is it ever cold; all who have done noble deeds will be hailed as
celestial heroes. He who died to save another will attain immortal
life; he who gave of his substance to feed the starving will find
ineffable food and in abundance; he who loved greatly, who suffered
rejection uncomplainingly, and who sought untiringly--even as the moon
pursued Sukh-eh-nukh for ages--will, in that land where the heart never
aches and where there are no tears, see the very fair face of his
beloved smiling a divine welcome, and her eyes filled with a radiant
response, gazing into his own. The end of the world will come, and
with it will cease the suffering struggles of all the world's races.
And then all the highest hopes of men will find their realisation in an
undreamed-of heaven to which all who have lived without cowardice,
ingratitude or taint of selfishness in their hearts, will be translated
as the world's last aurora closes its mystic veils in the northern
skies._