CLOSING INCIDENTS OF THE IMPRISONMENT.
HANS had his story of adventure while at Etah. But the most important
item in his estimation, and that which might prove far reaching in its
results, was the fact that a young daughter of Sunghu appointed herself
his nurse during his sickness, bestowing upon him care, sympathy, and
bewitching smiles. She had evidently done what Godfrey tried in vain to
do--she had entrapped him, at the expense, too, of a young Esquimo lady
at Upernavik.
Hans had been successful in the hunt, and, besides what he had sent by
Godfrey, had deposited some walrus at Littleton Island. He was at once
sent after this, and intrusted at the same time with an important
commission. Dr. Kane had been for some time meditating another trip
toward the polar sea. To do this he desired more dogs. The Esquimo had
been reducing their stock to keep away starvation, but Kalutunah had
retained four. These, and such others as he could find, Hans was
authorized to buy or hire, at almost any price. This northern trip made,
the next move might be toward the abandonment of the "Advance." She
could never float, it was plain, for now, late in April, the open water
was eighty miles south.
While Hans was gone, the sick, yet numbering two thirds of the whole,
and in a measure all of the other third, except the commander, were
without fresh food, as they had been for several days. Yet the sunshine
and the occasional supplies had put them all on the improving list. They
could sit up, sew or job a little, making themselves useful, and keeping
up good spirits. But, hark! what sound is that breaking on the still,
clear air. It comes nearer. Bim, bim, bim, sounds upon the deck. It is
Hans, whose coming is ever like the coming of the morning. A rabbit-stew
and walrus liver follow his arrival, and over such royal dainties good
cheer pervades the family circle.
Hans brought Metek with him, and Metek's young nephew, Paulik, a boy of
fourteen. Metek and Hans spoke sadly of the condition of the Esquimo
settlements. We have seen that the escaping party found those of the
south flying northward from starvation. The report now was that they had
huddled together at Northumberland Island until that yielded to the
famine, and now they had come farther north. It was a sad sight to see
men, women, and children fleeing over the icy desert before their
relentless foe. Yet, says Hans, they sung as they went, careless of
present want, and thoughtless of the morrow. Many had died, and thus
year by year these few, scattered, improvident people decline, giving
earnest that in a few years all will be gone.
Though light-hearted, death did bring its sorrows to these benighted
heathen. Kalutunah lost a sister; her body was sewed up in skins, not
in a sitting posture but extended, and her husband, unattended, carried
it out to burial, and, with his own hand, placed upon it stone after
stone, making at once a grave and a monument. A blubber lamp was burning
outside the hut while he was gone, and when he returned his friends were
waiting to listen to his rehearsal of the praises of the dead, and to
hear the expressions of his sorrow, while they showed their grief by
dismal chantings.
If sorrow did not keep the deceased in the memory of the living, imposed
self-denials did. The Angekok, or medicine man, as our Indians would
call him, determines the penance of the mourner, who is sometimes
forbidden to eat the meat of a certain bird or beast, under the idea
that the spirit of the departed has entered into it; at another time the
mourner must not draw on his hood, but go with uncovered head; or he may
be forbidden to go on the bear or walrus hunt. The length of time of
these penances may be a few months or a year. The reader will recollect
the widow with her birds, who appeared so often in the narrative of the
escaping party.
Though thus mourning for the dead, these Esquimo do not hold life as a
very sacred trust. The drones and the useless are sometimes harpooned in
the back merely to get rid of them. Infants are put out of the way when
they greatly annoy their parents. Hans, on one of his returns from Etah,
had a story to tell illustrative of this. Awahtok, a young man of
twenty-two, had a pretty wife--_pretty_ as Esquimo beauty goes--sister
of Kalutunah, and about eighteen years old. Dr. Kane had regarded this
couple with some interest, and the husband "stuck to him as a plaster."
Their first-born was a fine little girl. Well, Hans reported with
becoming disgust and indignation that they had buried it alive under a
pile of stones! When Dr. Kane next visited Etah he inquired of his
friends Awahtok and his wife after the health of the baby, affecting not
to have heard about its hard fate. They pointed with both hands
earthward, but did not even shed the cheap, customary tear. The only
reason reported for this murder was, that certain of its habits, common
to all infants, were disagreeable to them!
Such is the mildest heathenism without Christianity. These and other
similar gross sins were common among the South Greenland Esquimo, but
have disappeared before the teachings of the Moravian missionaries.
Hans returned with the walrus he had deposited at Littleton Island, but
he had made no progress in getting dogs, so Dr. Kane resolved to go to
Etah for that purpose himself. Besides, having learned that Godfrey was
playing a high game there and defying capture, and also fearing his
influence over the friendly relations of the Esquimo, he resolved to
bring him back to the brig. Metek was just starting for Etah, so he
invited himself to return with him, while Paulik, his nephew, remained
with Hans. This arrangement effected, Dr. Kane was soon approaching
Etah, perfectly disguised in the hood and jumper of Paulik, whose place
on the sledge he occupied. The whole city ran out to meet their chief,
among whom was the deserter, who shouted, and then threw up his arms
with the most savage of them. He did not perceive his commander until a
certain well understood summons entered his ear, and a significant
pistol barrel gleamed in the sunlight near his eyes. He surrendered to
this "boom" argument without discussion, and trotting or walking, he
kept his assigned place ahead of the sledge through the eighty and more
miles to the brig, halting only at Anoatok. We hear nothing of further
attempt at desertion.
A little later Dr. Kane made another visit to Etah. The hunt had become
successful, and the famine was broken; all was activity and good cheer.
The women were preparing the green hides for domestic use. Great piles
of walrus tushes were preserved for various useful purposes; some of
these the children had selected as bats, and were engaged in merry
sport. Their game was to knock a ball made of walrus bone up the
slanting side of a hummock, and then, in turn, hit it as it rolled down,
and so keep it from reaching the floe. They shouted and laughed as the
game went on, much as our boys do over their sports.
Dr. Kane observed on this trip a way of taking walrus which has not, we
think, been noted before. The monster at this early season sometimes
finds the ice open near a berg only. He comes on the ice to sun
himself; finds the change from the cold sea very agreeable, stays too
long, the water freezes solid, and he cannot return. As he is unable to
break the ice from above, he either waits for the current about the berg
to open the ice again, or works himself clumsily to some already open
place. In this helpless state the dogs scent him afar off, and the
hunters, following their lead, make him an easy prey.
Hans came in on the twenty-fourth of April, accompanied by Kalutunah,
Shanghee, and Tatterat, each of the Esquimo having sledges, and sixteen
dogs in all. Hans had been sent to Cape Alexander, where Kalutunah was
sojourning, to invite him to the brig in order to secure his aid in the
proposed northern trip. He was fed well, and propitiated by a present of
a knife and needles. He said, "Thank you," and added, "I love you well,"
which might uncharitably be taken to mean, "I love your presents well."
The result of the presents, feasting, and flattery was a start north by
the three Esquimo, with Dr. Kane and Hans, all the dog teams
accompanying. The old route across Kennedy Channel to the west side, and
so north-poleward, was attempted. First came a very fair progress; then
came the hummocks, over which, by the aid of their dogs, they clambered
until thirty miles from the brig had been made. Then Shanghee burrowed
into a snow-bank and slept, the cold being thirty degrees below zero;
the rest camped in the snow and lunched. Just as a fair start was again
made, the party neared a huge male bear in the act of lunching on seal.
In vain the doctor attempted to control either dogs or drivers.
"Nannook! nannook!" shouted the Esquimo as they clung to their sledges,
and the dogs flew over the ice in wild and reckless pursuit. After an
exciting chase the bear was brought to a halt and to a fight, which the
rifles and spears soon terminated against bruin. A feast by dogs and
men, and a night's halt on the ice followed, to Dr. Kane, at least, both
vexatious and comfortless.
The next day he would press on to the north. But bear tracks were
every-where, and the savage chiefs preferred hunting to exploring;
besides, they had, they said, their families to support, and there was
no use trying to cross the channel so high up. The English of it was, we
are "going in" for the bears, and you may help yourself. A day more was
spent in a wild hunt among the bergs, and the party returned to the
brig.
A little later still another attempt was made to unlock further the
secrets of the extreme icy north, this time by only Kane and Morton with
a six-dog sledge, the explorers walking. This, the last effort of the
kind, ended in the usual way, excepting some additions to the surveys.