The People of the Polar North/Chapter 36
One evening after dark I went for a walk in the hills with Puarajik, baptized in the name of Henrik, a young man of nineteen.
A stiff north wind had been blowing all day, with sleet and rain, but towards evening the sun had come out and the wind moderated. It was difficult to find our way in the dark, and we splashed again and again into pools of water that we could not see. It was a lovely evening. A broad belt of northern lights shot out over the hills in the background, and cast a flickering glow over the booming sea.
"Those are the dead, playing ball," said Henrik, of the northern lights. "They say that they run about up there without trousers on. . . . See! how they fly about.
"Oh! it is so pleasant here among the Christians," went on the newly-baptized Henrik; "for here you do not go about always dreading lest you should be murdered. I was never really safe, on the East coast, for I was an orphan. It was horrible with all the murders; when they once began murdering they would get quite mad.
"There was once a murderer who drank the blood of his victim; he ate seaweed with it. He ended by quite draining the body.
"I was always in terror of Christian over there. It is true that it was my father who taught him to be a magician; but all the same—you never can tell.
"Now you shall hear how a whole family was wiped out in the course of one winter.
"Oqartaqangitseq had lost several children, they having died of illness, one after the other. He was a great magician, 
"Oqartaqangitseq then murdered Aviaja, and Christian helped him.
"As usual, they cut the body to pieces, put the head in a kayak bladder, and threw it into the sea. The rest of the dismembered body was covered up with stones.
"But the eyes were cut out of the head, and old Perujuvatsiaq, Christian's mother, had them in her stone lamp all the winter. This was to blind the soul, if it wanted to avenge itself.
"The evening after the murder, Aviaja's wife came in despair to inquire after her husband. She knew nothing of what had happened.
"'He must have been murdered!' she cried, weeping, in through the window, and then ran off to look for him. It was late at night before she came back, wailing. She had found him.
"And then she shut herself in her house with her six children to mourn.
"We were living at Anoritôq then; it was towards the end of the autumn when Aviaja was murdered. Later in the winter a famine broke out in the place; south-west wind, snow, and no seal-catching. We were obliged to eat our kayak skins, and a bear-skin that had been put away to trade was cut up and eaten too.
"Aviaja's widow could not keep herself alive through the famine time. None of the others helped her and her six children—no, it is true, she had killed the smallest one soon after the murder; she had crushed the little one's chest against a stone and buried it with the father.
"When the woman saw that they would all perforce die of hunger before long, she preferred to kill herself and the children at once. They were very weak with hunger, and could hardly rise to their feet. The two eldest, who were almost grown up, threw themselves into the sea when their mother told them to do it; the others the mother was obliged to throw in herself.
"Yes, and then there was the youngest little son; he ran down to the beach himself; he was the least emaciated, for the older ones had always given him food from their portions.
"The mother then explained to him that he was to go down to the dead who lived in plenty and free from care under the sea; he had only to jump into the sea and his mother would follow him. The boy did it, and was drowned.
"But the mother herself walked out on a rock, turned her back to the sea, and jumped over backwards.
"Thus Aviaja and his whole family died."
Henrik has ended his narration; we are sitting on the stone in silence.
A man looms out of the dark and stands on a ridge of rock. He has not seen us, and calls us, by name.
It is Christian, come to invite us to a meal of freshly-caught seal.