KALUTUNAH RETURNS.--AN ESQUIMAU FAMILY.--THE FAMILY
PROPERTY.--THE FAMILY WARDROBE.--MYOUK AND HIS
WIFE.--PETER'S DEAD BODY FOUND.--MY NEW TEAMS.--THE
SITUATION.--HUNTING.--SUBSISTENCE OF ARCTIC ANIMALS.--PURSUIT
OF SCIENCE UNDER DIFFICULTIES.--KALUTUNAH AT HOME.--AN ESQUIMAU
FEAST.--KALUTUNAH IN SERVICE.--RECOVERING THE BODY OF MR.
SONNTAG.--THE FUNERAL.--THE TOMB.
Kalutunah came back after a few days, according to his promise, and
brought along with him the entire Kalutunah family, consisting of his
wife and four children. It was a regular "moving."
[Sidenote: AN ESQUIMAU FAMILY.]
The chief had managed in some manner to get together another team of
six good dogs, and he came up in fine style, bringing along with him
on his small sledge every thing that he had in the world, and that
was not much. The conveniences for life's comforts possessed by these
Arctic nomads are not numerous; and it is fortunate that their desires
so well accord with their means of gratifying them, for probably no
people in the world possess so little, either of portable or other
kind of property. The entire cargo of the sledge consisted of parts
of two bear-skins, the family bedding; a half-dozen seal-skins, the
family tent; two lances and two harpoons; a few substantial harpoon
lines; a couple of lamps and pots; some implements and materials for
repairing the sledge in the event of accident; a small seal-skin bag,
containing the family wardrobe (that is, the implements for repairing
it, for the entire wardrobe was on their backs); and then there was
a roll of dried grass, which they use as we do cork soles for the
boots, and some dried moss for lamp-wick; and for food they had a few
small pieces of walrus meat and blubber. This cargo was covered with
one of the seal-skins, over which was passed from side to side a line,
like a sandal-lacing, and the whole was bound down compactly to the
sledge; and on the top of it rode the family, Kalutunah himself walking
alongside and encouraging on his team rather with kind persuasion than
with the usual Esquimau cruelty. In front sat the mother, the finest
specimen of the Esquimau matron that I had seen. In the large hood of
her fox-skin coat, a sort of dorsal opossum-pouch, nestled a sleeping
infant. Close beside the mother sat the boy to whom I have before
referred, their first-born, and the father's pride. Next came a girl,
about seven years old; and another, a three year old, was wrapped up in
an immense quantity of furs, and was lashed to the upstanders.
As the sledge rounded to, near the vessel, I went out to meet them.
The children were at first a little frightened, but they were soon
got to laugh, and I found that the same arts which win the affections
of Christian babies were equally potent with the heathen. The wife
remembered me well, and called me "Doc-tee," while Kalutunah, grinning
all over with delight, pointed to his dogs, exclaiming with pride,
"They are fine ones!" to which I readily assented; and then he added,
"I come to give them all to the Nalegaksoak;" and to this I also
assented.
What surprised me most with this family was their apparent indifference
to the cold. They had come from Iteplik in slow marches, stopping when
tired in a snow shelter, or in deserted huts, and during this time
our thermometers were ranging from 30° to 40° below zero; and when
they came on board out of this temperature it never seemed to occur to
them to warm themselves, but they first wandered all over the ship,
satisfying their curiosity.
[Sidenote: MYOUK AND FAMILY.]
A few hours afterward there arrived a family of quite another
description,--Myouk and his wife of the ragged coat. They had walked
all the way up from Iteplik, the woman carrying her baby on her
back all of these hundred and fifty miles. Myouk was evidently at a
loss to find an excuse for paying me this visit; but he put a bold
front on, and, like Kalutunah, discovered a reason. "I come to show
the Nalegaksoak my wife and Daktagee," pointing to the dowdy, dirty
creature that owned him for a husband, and the forlorn being that
owned him for a father. But when he perceived that I was not likely to
pay much for the sight, he timidly remarked, with another significant
point, "_She_ made me come," and then started off, doubtless to see
what he could steal.
My arrangements were soon concluded with Kalutunah. He was to live over
in the hut at Etah, to do such hunting as he could without the aid of
his dogs, all of which he loaned to me; but, in any event, my stores
were to be his reliance, and I bound myself to supply him with all that
he required for the support of himself and his family.
On the following day the hut at Etah was cleared out and put in order,
and this interesting family took up their abode there, while Myouk, as
eager to place himself under the protection of a man high in favor as
if his skin had been white and he knew the meaning of "public office"
and lived nearer the equator, followed the great man to his new abode,
and crawled into a corner of his den as coolly as if he was a deserving
fellow, and not the most arrant little knave and beggar that ever
sponged on worth and industry.
[Sidenote: PETER'S DEAD BODY.]
Kalutunah brought a solution of the Peter mystery. As soon as the
daylight began to come back, one of the Iteplik hunters, named Nesark,
determined to travel up to Peteravik, and there try his fortunes in
the seal hunt. Arriving at the hut (these Esquimau huts are common
property) at that place, he was surprised to discover, lying on the
floor, a much emaciated corpse. It was that of an Esquimau dressed in
white man's clothing, and the description left no doubt that it was
the body of Peter. Nesark gave it Esquimau burial. And thus, after the
lapse of three months, this strange story was brought to a close; but
I was still as far as ever from an explanation of the hapless boy's
strange conduct.
I had now become the possessor of seventeen dogs, and awaited only one
principal event to set out on a preliminary journey northward. The sea
had not yet closed about Sunrise Point, and I could not get out of
the bay on that side. To travel over the land was, owing to its great
roughness, impracticable for a sledge, even if without cargo; and to
round the Point at that season of the year, through the broken ice and
rough sea, in an open boat, was, for obvious reasons, not to be thought
of.
My plan had always been to set out with my principal party, when the
temperature had begun to moderate toward the summer, which was likely
to be about the first of April; but I had looked forward to doing some
serviceable work with my dogs prior to that time. March is the coldest
month of the Arctic year; but while I had no hesitation in setting
out with dog-sledges at that period, the recollection of Dr. Kane's
disasters were too fresh in my mind to justify me in sending out a foot
party in the March temperatures.
[Sidenote: THE SITUATION.]
While waiting for the frost to build a bridge for me around Sunrise
Point, I was feeding up and strengthening my dogs. They soon proved to
be very inferior to the animals which I had lost, and it was necessary
to give them as much rest and good rations as possible. I went
repeatedly to Chester Valley in pursuit of reindeer. Along the borders
of the lake these beasts had flocked in great numbers during the
winter, and whole acres of snow had been tossed up with their hoofs,
while searching for the dead vegetation of the previous summer. The
rabbits and the ptarmigan had followed them, to gather the buds of the
willow-stems which were occasionally tossed up, and which form their
subsistence. During one of my journeys I secured a fine specimen skin
of a doe, but in order to do this I was obliged to take it off with
my own hands before it should freeze. The temperature at the time was
33° below zero, and I do not ever remember to have had my regard for
Natural History so severely tested.
I was exceedingly anxious to recover the body of Mr. Sonntag before I
left the vessel; and, desiring to secure the assistance of Kalutunah
for that purpose, I drove over to Etah a few days after he had become
fixed there. I had eleven of my new dogs harnessed to the sledge, and
Jensen "was himself again."
[Sidenote: KALUTUNAH AT HOME.]
I found Kalutunah very comfortably fixed and apparently well contented.
I carried with me as a present for a house-warming a quarter of a
recently-captured deer, and a couple of gallons of oil. Observing
our approach, he came out to meet us, and, some snow having drifted
into the passage, he scraped it away with his foot, and invited us to
enter. This we did on our hands and knees, through a sort of tunnel
about twelve feet long; and thence we emerged into a dimly lighted den,
where, coiled up in a nest of reindeer-skins which I had given them,
was the family of the chief and the wife and baby of Myouk. Kalutunah's
wife was stitching away quite swiftly at a pair of boots for my use,
and I brought her some more "work," and also some presents, among
which was a string of beads and a looking-glass, which much amused the
children. Myouk's wife, on the other hand, was quite idle, not even
looking after her child, which, startled by our approach, rolled down
on the floor about our feet, and thence into the entrance among the
snow which lay scattered along the passage. The poor little creature,
being almost naked, set up a terrible scream, and its amiable mother,
promptly seizing it by one of its legs, hauled it up and crammed into
its mouth a chunk of blubber which quickly stopped its noise.
Both this woman and her husband were evidently a great annoyance to
the frugal proprietors of the hut; but, with a generous practice of
hospitality which I have not found elsewhere, in history or fiction,
except in Cedric the Saxon, such a worthless crew are suffered to
settle themselves upon a thrifty family without fear of being turned
out of doors.
I sat for some time talking to Kalutunah and his industrious wife.
There was not room, it was true, with so many people in the hut, to be
greatly at one's ease, and I had to dodge my head when I moved, to
keep from striking the stone rafters. Besides, the smell of the place
had rather a tendency to fill one's mind with longings for the open
air; but I managed to remain long enough to conclude some important
arrangements with my ally and his useful spouse, and then I took my
leave with mutual protestations of friendship and good-will. I said to
him at parting, "You are chief and I am chief, and we will both tell
our respective people to be good to each other;" but he answered, "Na,
na, I am chief, but you are the great chief, and the Esquimaux will
do what you say. The Esquimaux like you, and are your friends. You
make them many presents." I might have told him that this all-powerful
method of inspiring friendship was not alone applicable to Esquimaux.
[Sidenote: A MORNING CALL.]
This visit was a pleasant little episode. I was much pleased at the
honest heartiness with which Kalutunah entered into my plans; while the
childish simplicity of his habits and the frankness of his declarations
won for him a conspicuous place in my regard.
[Sidenote: AN ESQUIMAU FEAST.]
He was greatly amused with our guns, and begged for one of them,
declaring that he could sit in his hut and kill the reindeer as they
passed by. He would put the gun through the window, and he pointed to
a hole in the wall about a foot square, where the light was admitted
through a thin slab of hard snow. In the centre of it he had made
a round orifice, which he said, laughingly, was for the purpose of
looking out for the Nalegaksoak,--a well-turned compliment, if it did
come from a savage, and all the more adroit that the orifice was really
for ventilation, at least it was the only opening by which the foul air
could possibly escape. Both himself and wife were highly delighted with
the presents which I had brought them. Although they are surrounded by
reindeer, venison is a luxury which they rarely enjoy, as they possess
no means of capturing the animals. They have not the bows and arrows
of the Esquimaux of some other localities. Without waiting for it to
be cooked, Kalutunah commenced a vigorous attack upon the raw, frozen
flesh. His wife and children were not slow to follow his example,
crowding round it where it lay on the dirty floor; and, without
halting for an invitation, Mrs. Myouk joined in the feast. And I have
never witnessed a feast which seemed to give so much satisfaction to
the actors in it, not even hungry aldermen at a corporation banquet.
Kalutunah was grinning all over with delight. He was eminently happy.
His teeth were unintermittingly crushing the hard kernels which he
chipped from the frozen "leg," and a steady stream of the luscious food
was pouring down his throat. His tongue had little chance, but now and
then it got loose from the venison tangle, and then I heard much of the
greatness and the goodness of the Nalegaksoak. The man's enjoyment was
a pleasant thing to behold.
But if the reindeer-leg gave satisfaction, the oil gave comfort. The
hut was dark and chilly, not having yet become thoroughly thawed out.
Kalutunah now thought that he could afford another lamp, and in a few
minutes after we had entered a fresh blaze was burning in the corner.
I have before explained that the Esquimau lamp is only a shallow dish,
cut out of a block of soap-stone. The dried moss which they use for
wick is arranged around the edge, and the blaze therefrom gives their
only light and heat. Over the lamps hung pots of the same soap-stone,
and into these Mrs. Kalutunah put some snow, that she might have the
water for a venison-soup, of which she invited us to stay and partake.
I knew by former experience too well the nature of the Esquimau
_cuisine_ to make me anxious to learn further, so I plead business, and
left them to enjoy themselves in their own way. How long they kept up
their feast I did not learn, but when Kalutunah came over next morning,
he informed me that there was no more venison in the hut at Etah,--a
hint which was not thrown away.
[Sidenote: MY ESQUIMAU PEOPLE.]
My Esquimau people now numbered seventeen souls; namely, six men,
four women, and seven children; and they presented as many different
shades of character and usefulness. The inconveniences to which they
subjected us were amply compensated for by the sewing which the wives
of Kalutunah and Tcheitchenguak did for us; for, in spite of all
our ingenuity and patience, there was no one in the ship's company
who could make an Esquimau boot, and this boot is the only suitable
covering for the foot in the Arctic regions. Of the men, Hans was the
most useful; for, in spite of his objectionable qualities, he was,
Jensen excepted, my best hunter. Kalutunah came on board daily, and,
as a privileged guest, he sought me in my cabin. My journey over to
Etah made him supremely happy; for, like the sound of coming battle to
the warrior who has long reposed in peace, a new life was put into him
when I offered him the care of one of my newly acquired teams. He came
on board the next morning and took charge of the dogs; and when, a few
days afterward, I further exhibited my confidence in him by sending him
down to Cape Alexander to see if the ice was firm, the cup of his joy
was full to the brim.
[Sidenote: RECOVERY OF SONNTAG'S BODY.]
The report of Kalutunah being favorable, I dispatched Mr. Dodge to
bring up the body of Mr. Sonntag. He took the two teams, Kalutunah
driving one and Hans the other.
Mr. Dodge performed the journey with skill and energy. He reached
Sorfalik in five hours, and had no difficulty in finding the locality
of which they were in search, Hans remembering it by a large rock, or
rather cliff, in the lee of which they had built their snow-hut. But
the winds had since piled the snow over the hut, and it was completely
buried out of sight. They were therefore compelled to disinter the body
by laboriously digging through the hard drift; and it being quite dark
and they much fatigued when the task was completed, they constructed a
shelter of snow, fed their dogs, and rested. Although the temperature
was 42° below zero, they managed to sleep in their furs without serious
inconvenience. This was the first of Mr. Dodge's experience at this
sort of camping out, and he was justly elated with the success of the
experiment.
Setting out as soon as the daylight returned, the party came back by
the same track which they had before pursued; but, greatly to their
surprise, the tides and wind had, in the interval, carried off much
of the ice in the neighborhood of the cape, so that they had before
them the prospect of the very difficult task of crossing the glacier.
This, not particularly embarrassing to an empty sledge, would have been
exceedingly so to them. Fortunately, however, they succeeded with some
risk in getting over a very treacherous place where the ice-foot, to
which they were forced to adhere, was sloping, and one of the sledges
had nearly gone over into the sea. Kalutunah saved it by a dexterous
movement which could have been performed with safety only by one
familiar, by long experience, with such dangers and expedients.
[Sidenote: BURIAL OF SONNTAG.]
The body of our late comrade was placed in the observatory, where a few
weeks before his fine mind had been intent upon those pursuits which
were the delight of his life; and on the little staff which surmounted
the building the flag was raised at half-mast.
The preparations for the funeral were conducted with fitting solemnity.
A neat coffin was made under the supervision of Mr. McCormick, and the
body having been placed therein with every degree of care, it was,
on the second day after the return of Mr. Dodge, brought outside and
covered with the flag, and then, followed by the entire ship's company,
in solemn procession, it was borne by four of the sorrowing messmates
of the deceased to the grave which had, with much difficulty, been dug
in the frozen terrace. As it lay in its last cold resting-place, I read
over the body the burial-service, and the grave was then closed. Above
it we afterward built, with stones, a neatly shaped mound, and marked
the head with a chiseled slab, bearing this inscription:--
[Illustration:
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————+————
|
|
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AUGUST SONNTAG.
Died
December, 1860,
AGED 28 YEARS.
]
[Sidenote: SONNTAG'S TOMB.]
And here in the drear solitude of the Arctic desert our comrade sleeps
the sleep that knows no waking in this troubled world,--where no loving
hands can ever come to strew his grave with flowers, nor eyes grow
dim with sorrowing; but the gentle stars, which in life he loved so
well, will keep over him eternal vigil, and the winds will wail over
him, and Nature, his mistress, will drop upon his tomb her frozen tears
forevermore.
[Illustration]