The People of the Polar North/Chapter 2
The spring gales had blown themselves weary; it was far into the month of May; the sudden thaw had reduced the hillsides to tears, and the melted snow poured off them, while a few of the larger streams of water had even made an attempt to rend the covering ice. The sun sailed hot across the heavens and was so delighted at the approach of summer that he forgot to hide behind the horizon at all.
But the Eskimos, who knew that June, "the breeding month," always sees the final convulsions of the winter, regarded this rapid change to heat and sunshine merely as a curiosity. The snowstorms were only gathering strength, they thought, and time was to prove them in the right.
Still, there was no doubt that summer was really on the way. The ice round the village was torn by the current, and on the floes lazy seals lay sunning themselves. From out at sea came a long, monotonous roar and whistling,—the old he-walruses, who recognised the signs of the times, and were beginning to make their way in towards the land; they knew that the ice was doomed. Down below the houses, in some of the larger openings in the ice, long-tailed ducks and black guillemots swam to and fro and wrangled, till their cries re-echoed from the steep cliff side. The eider-ducks had begun to ramble about the promontory; you could hear the musical swish of their wings in the distance long before their arrival, in bevies, in the breeding islands, each endeavouring to be first. Groups of women and children had taken up their position below the great bird-rock; they lounged about on the loose stones in intent listening clusters; the whole side of the cliff was alive, and a voluminous murmur pealed out from all the moving mites on its ledges. The petrels and the razorbills had arrived!
Right up on the peak live the petrels; they sail through the air like white swirling flakes of snow, and look down with contempt on the razorbills, who build much lower, midway up the rock.
The razorbills arrive literally in shoals, and have hard work to find a resting-place; they patter about the shelves of rock, and look charmingly festive, with their white shirt-fronts. There is room enough, but there is quarrelling as to the particular dwelling; they peck at one another and screech vehemently, but their angry abuse melts together, in human ears, to one great rolling wave of sound.
At the bottom, on the lowest of the rugged rocks, the gulls and the tiny kittiwakes make their homes and marvel at any one making such a fuss. They peer up at the swarms above, stretch their wings, hop about a little, then fold themselves up together again, and sink into profound reflection. Gulls are such wise birds.
But, occasionally, in the midst of all the uproar, a rattle and thunder will be heard from the summit and a mountain slide rush down. The heavens are darkened for a moment, as a cloud of petrels, razorbills, black guillemots, and gulls spreads screaming over the sea.
"Things are beginning to wake up out there; the summer is coming!" the Eskimos say then. The children race up to the rock to pick up the dead birds. And soon large fires are alight, to cook the first bird-catch of the year. And of that every one must taste.
It was just such a day as I have described: there was growth in the very air, and unrest among men and women. Some of the young girls had flung off their clothes, and were playing catch on a flat open space; this roused the men to mirth too, and merrily they joined in the game.
One old Eskimo had spread out a reindeer skin on the ground, and was revelling in the sunshine without a stitch upon him. By his side sat his daughter, in the same Edenic costume, nursing her little baby. Down on the seashore, at the edge of the ice, lay the dogs with tongues hanging out of their mouths, panting with the heat. All over the country hung the heavy spring haze which the sun sometimes draws up out of the awakening earth; and everybody was happy and good, and took no thought save for the day the sun gave.
Then a shout rang through the village, and brought all to their feet. The effect of it was like that of an avalanche of stones on the birds. The shout was not repeated; it had been heard, and all hurried down towards the house where Sagdloq lived.
Sagdloq was the greatest and oldest magician of the tribe, and he had just announced to his fellow-villagers that he was about to conjure up spirits. His wife was ill, and he wished to try to cure her.
His hut was near the sea. The people, therefore, collected down at the ice's edge; the sick woman was seated on a sledge among the rest, and her son stood by her side. Up on the roof, close to the window, sat the magician Kale, who had learnt his art from old Sagdloq; he must consequently be near his master; but Sagdloq himself was alone in the house.
All work in the settlement ceased: none dared to move. When I came up, I was enjoined to stand still. Every face bore the imprint of earnest reverence.
Such a man was Sagdloq.
He had not conjured spirits for a long time, for he had been ill. That very day he had been drawn about among the houses on a sledge, for his legs were stiff with rheumatism. And yet now he was preparing to go through these exhausting ceremonies.
When I had gone up to the house, I peeped in at him through the window. He was sitting alone on the raised stone sleeping-place, which in the daytime serves as a seat in Eskimo houses, beating on his drum. When he saw my face at the window he stopped beating the drum, laughed up at me, and said: "All foolery, silly humbug! Nothing but lies!" ("pilugsingnartunga, maungainarssuaq oqalutsiarnialermiunga, sagdlutsiarnialermiunga!")
And he wagged his head apologetically.
I nodded, and was about to ask him a question, when I was violently seized by the shoulder from behind and dragged from the window. My assailant was one of our Christian Greenlanders, Gabriel by name, who cherished a very great respect for the heathen mysteries.
"Art thou mad, going right up to him?" he whispered in my ear.
But Kale, sitting on the roof, and waiting upon the words of the old wise man, looked down on us ignorant Christians, and said with dignity—
"Go aside, and be still. No one moves while spirit conjurations are proceeding!"
I took up my position by a neighbouring house and waited for what should come. All foolery! the old man had said, with genuine Eskimo sham modesty. A magician always precedes his conjurations with a few depreciating words about himself and his powers. And the more highly esteemed he is, the more anxious he is to pretend that his words are lies.
The drum began again inside the house, and the people round stood listening silently. Soon a murmur mingled with the beating of the drum, and the old man's voice grew gradually louder and stronger; before long the spirit song was sounding steadily and monotonously from the inside of the hut.
Kale sat on the roof, more and more affected; involuntarily he joined in the singing, at first only humming to himself. Old Sorqaq, who was also a magician, stood in the midst of the crowd and gave vent to approving grunts at intervals. He had come just as he was from his flensing, with upturned sleeves and crimson arms. All the rest stood mute and motionless, gazing up at the house whence the sound issued.
Suddenly the singing ceased; drum beats followed each other more and more quickly. Old Sagdloq began to groan, as though he were lying beneath a heavy weight that almost robbed him of breath. All at once he uttered a wild shriek which made his hearers start.
"ajornarê, ajornarê! atdliulerpunga! ikiorniarsinga, artorssarpavssualeqissunga!" ("Ow! ow! it is impossible! I am underneath! He is lying on me. Help me! I am too weak, I am not equal to it!")
And the shrieks, which seemed the expression of genuine horror, died away in convulsive sobbing. But the drum beat on, wildly and more wildly! Old Kale, on the roof, with tears in his eyes, sang a spirit song with all his might.
"Make haste! Put out all your strength!" (agsororsingnarit) bawled Sorqaq excitedly. Then the drum stopped for a moment, and there was a deep silence. The excitement of the auditors grew.
But soon old Sagdloq seized his drum again, and, after a few introductory beats on the skin, called out, in a voice so loud that it might have been the effort of a young pair of lungs: "perdlugssuaq, tornârssugssuaq, qavdlunârssuit" ("The Evil Fate,—misfortune-bringing spirit,—the white men")! The words came jerkily, disconnectedly, and did not fail of the mystic effect intended. The rest was awaited in breathless suspense, but his voice broke off in a long-drawn, moaning groan. Kale was shrieking himself hoarse with his spirit song, Sorqaq kept on shouting. It seemed as though Sagdloq were fetching his words from a long distance, as though he were struggling with an invisible being.
Then again there was a long howl, and when excitement was at its height, Sagdloq called out the whole pronouncement. It produced a shock.
"The white men brought the Evil Fate with them, they had a misfortune-bringing spirit with them. I saw it myself, there are no lies in my mouth; I do not lie, I am no liar, I saw it myself!"
Gabriel the Greenlander's face blanched at his words. "He means us!" he whispered. "He will bring evil upon us.' And all looked in our direction.
Sagdloq went on to explain that we had met the Evil Fate on our way, in the shape of a spirit, and that it had touched Harald Moltke's sledge; that was the reason he had fallen ill. We others had only had our dogs infected, and that was why illness had broken out among the dogs.
His elucidation was difficult to follow, as he frequently made use of a special spirit language, and often broke off his speech with howls.
Which, translated, means:—
He left the words unfinished, and broke off without concluding clauses, in the midst of a frightful hubbub; the house seemed to be full of people wrestling and groaning and dealing violent blows.
Kale sat on, repeating his master's fragmentary sentences: he was hoarse from singing. But Sorqaq, the old bear-hunter, was indefatigable in his shouts: "Make haste! make haste!" and only when the old man, as usual, had worked the excitement of his hearers up to its highest pitch, did he give utterance to his explanations, slowly, and with effort, as though he had to wrest each word from an invisible opponent.
The white men had come with the illness, but only the dogs would be ill. So no human beings were to eat dog's flesh.
"Has Mikissoq (the Little One: this was his wife) eaten dogs' flesh?"
"Has Mikissoq eaten dog's flesh?" called down Kale.
"Mikissoq, hast thou eaten dog's flesh?" asked Sorqaq of her. The words passed from mouth to mouth. The son, Agpalinguaq, bent down over his sick mother, and she nodded.
"Yes, just a very little, I wanted a little dog's meat so badly," replied the woman.
"Thy wife has eaten dog's flesh," repeated Kale from the roof, in through the window.
Then a savage roar was heard from within the house, and the drum began again: Too—too—to—too, repeated interminably, and with extraordinary vigour. It was like the snorting of a locomotive engine. Sagdloq was in a state of complete ecstasy; the rheumatic old man sprang about the floor like a wounded animal. His eyes were shut and he moved and twisted his head and body in remarkable contortions to the music of the drum. Then he uttered one long howl, with peculiar refrains. Human laughter seemed to be mingling with the lament, which ended at last in a quiet sobbing.
He could not save his wife!
The people separated and went back to their work and play. Soon the village rang once more with the laughter of happy men and women. The thought that the summer was coming drove away all care, and who was going to trouble their heads about the warnings of an old magician?
Sorqaq was the only one who looked distressed. He was engaged in the flensing of four seals that his sons had brought home.
"Sagdloq is growing old," he said to me. "Sagdloq is losing his power. His wife will die."
This was Sagdloq's last great inspiration; his wife died when the summer came.
Shortly after her burial, people began to report that Sagdloq would not leave his tent. No one could get him to take food, and he refused to speak.
I went down then to see him. He was sitting in a heap on the stone sleeping-place, and had already grown strangely yellow in the face. His excoriated eyelids were bleeding.
When I went in, he signed to me, with a movement of his hand, to sit down; and, interrupted by constant fits of coughing, he explained himself: "You are a stranger, to you I am glad to speak; I act as I am doing because life is no longer good, for me. I am too old to be alone. She who looked after my clothes and prepared my food for so many years is dead. For many years I have lived with her, and it is best that I follow her."
I went softly away; I did not like to intrude upon him. And I did not visit him again.
The villagers came and brought him food, which they left in his tent. But he was never heard to speak after that. Old Sagdloq literally starved himself to death; but all the gifts of meat that his countrymen had brought to the last in the tribe who had inherited the wisdom of his forefathers, lay heaped up by his body.