Alaska (11 page)

'Idiot! Had you stabbed it too, it would have faltered!' and as the day proceeded, the headman returned to this supposition so repeatedly that all in the umiak came to believe that Oogruk's inability to use his lance properly had been the sole cause of this second failure. Finally the censure became so strong that the cross-eyed fellow had to defend himself: 'I had no lance. I was given none.' And when the others inspected the umiak they had to know that this was true, but they were so eager to blame another for their own error that they continued to grumble: 'If Oogruk had used his lance properly, we would have taken that whale.'

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During the second mystical night, with the whale occasionally visible as it raised its gigantic tail above the waves, the headman distributed fragments of food and allowed his men to take small drinks of water, and when all understood how meager the remainder of the ration was, they knew that on the coming day they must make their supreme effort. So early in the morning the headman brought the umiak once more into the position he favored slightly behind, slightly to the east and with great skill he positioned the forward harpooner right where he could do the most damage, but as the man delivered his blow, the point of the harpoon struck bone and was diverted. The man seated ahead of Oogruk again struck a good blow, a deep one but not fatal, and now came Oogruk's turn. As he rose, he felt his fatherin-law kicking him, so he reached out with his borrowed spear, located it perfectly, and with all his strength bore down, driving the spear deep into the whale.

But he was inexperienced, and in this moment of triumph he forgot to brace his knees and feet against the side of the umiak, and even more important, he did not let go his spear, and he was dragged into the water.

As he splashed into the icy sea, caught between the umiak and the passing whale, he heard his fatherin-law curse and saw him thrust his spear properly into the whale, protecting himself from falling as he deftly pulled the spear free, the way a man should, so as to plunge it deeper on his next try.

Aboard the umiak there was commotion as some cried: 'After the whale! It's wounded!'

while others: 'Catch Oogruk! He's still alive!' and the headman, after brief hesitation, decided that since the whale could not escape and Oogruk could not swim, he had better attend to the latter. When Oogruk was hauled aboard, salt water dripping from his lucky labret, his fatherin-law snarled: 'You've cost us the whale . . . twice.'

This was true only in part, because the whale was less seriously damaged than the men had at first supposed, and with its remaining strength it moved ahead so fast that by the close of that third day it was obvious to the Eskimos that they had lost it. In their despair at having been so near the capture of a champion whale, they again focused on Oogruk, berating him for their defeat, citing his failure to lance the whale and his falling overboard, and a legend was born there in the sullen umiak that they would surely have taken that whale had they not stopped to rescue Oogruk: 'Yes, clumsy fellow that he is, he fell right out of the umiak, and when we stopped to save him, our whale escaped.'

As he listened to the accusations, he bit on his labret and 69

thought: They forget it was me who brought them the whale. And when his fatherin-law, in a spell of truly ridiculous reasoning, began to scold him for having lost the kayak, Oogruk concluded that the world had gone mad: He ordered me to leave it. I asked twice, and he ordered me twice.

It was in these ugly moments, as bitter as a man could know, when the members of his community have turned against him and have for irrational reasons vilified him, blaming him for their own deficiencies, that Oogruk realized it was useless to try to defend himself against such irresponsible charges. But his silence did not win him respite, for now the men in the umiak faced another problem: How were they to make it back home in a trip that might require three days when they had no food and little water? In their extremity they renewed their attacks on Oogruk, and one crew member even suggested throwing him overboard to appease the spirits whom he had offended.

From the rear of the umiak the leader said grimly: 'No more of that,' but he continued to voice his unfavorable opinion of the hapless one.

And then, to the east, the men saw for the first time the headlands of the country that lay on the opposite side, and in the late afternoon sunlight it looked inviting and a place worthy of attention. It was constructed, they saw, not of mountains like the ones they had known far to the west on their side of the sea, but of rolling hills, treeless but nevertheless attractive. They had no way of knowing whether the place was inhabited or not, and they had no assurance that there they would find food, but they did believe that there it would have water, and all agreed that the headman should turn the umiak toward the shore and begin seeking a safe spot at which to land.

It was with the gravest apprehension that the men neared the shore, for they could not anticipate what might happen if this otherwise appealing place contained people, and as they breasted a small headland protecting a bay, they saw with quaking hearts that within its shelter it did have a small village. Before the headman could stop the forward motion of the umiak, seven swift one-man kayaks sped from shore and surrounded the larger boat. The strangers were armed, and they might have discharged their spears had not Oogruk's fatherin-law raised his empty hands high over his head and then dropped them to his mouth in a gesture of drinking.

The strangers understood, came close to the umiak and with their eyes searched it for weapons, and when they saw that Oogruk and another man were gathering the whaling lances and holding them aside in one bundle, they allowed 70

the umiak to follow them ashore, where an elderly man, obviously their shaman, bade them a generous welcome.

They remained three days at Shishmaref, as the site would later be known, eating food much like what they had at home and learning words that were close to their own. They could not converse easily with these people of the eastern shore of the Bering Sea, but they could make themselves understood. The villagers, obviously Eskimos, said that their ancestors had lived in this bay for many generations, and it was clear from the bones used in building their houses that they lived on just about the same sea animals as did the people of Pelek. They were friendly, and when Oogruk and his fellow boatmen departed, farewells of real emotion were shared.

This visit to the east enabled the men of the west to survive the trip home, and on this long journey the old antagonism against Oogruk solidified, so that by the time they landed at Pelek the official judgment had become: 'Shaktoolik and Oogruk both fell overboard. Evil demons caused us to lose the good man and save the bad.'

Ashore they circulated this dogma so persuasively that those waiting in the huts accepted it, and Oogruk was ostracized, but now an enemy more powerful than anyone in the umiak rose against him, for the shaman, that mixture of saint, priest, necromancer and thief, began to circulate the theory that Oogruk, because of the insolent way he had crossed in front of the whale, had also been the specific cause of Shaktoolik's death, for that harpooner was known to be highly skilled and more than able to protect himself from normal dangers. It was obvious that some evil force had exercised an adverse spell against him, and the logical perpetrator had to be Oogruk.

And then the shaman, shaking his long and matted locks, betrayed the animus that motivated him in this attack: he whispered to various listeners that it was not proper for a pitiful man like Oogruk to possess a labret with magical powers, with a whale carved on one face, a walrus on the other, and he began to initiate those devious maneuvers which had worked to his advantage in similar situations in the past. His immediate goal, announced to no one, not even the spirits, was to gain possession of that labret.

He noisily bemoaned the death of the harpooner Shaktoolik, weeping in public over the loss of such a noble young man, and he tried to enlist the help of both Oogruk's fatherin-law and Nukleet, the pretty daughter married to Oogruk. But there he ran into difficulties, because to everyone's surprise including her father's, Nukleet did not turn against her feckless husband; she defended him. And as she began to 71

point out the various unfairnesses in the attacks upon him, she gradually convinced her father that Oogruk had in some ways been the hero of the expedition, not the villain.

Why did she do this? She knew that their daughter was not properly Oogruk's and that her father and most others had been distressed when she married the cross-eyed fellow, but as the years passed, four of them now, she had seen on numerous occasions that her husband was a man of great character. He was honest. He worked to his ability.

He cherished their daughter, tending her as if she were his own, and always he had shared his meager possessions with her when young men of far greater favor treated their wives with contempt.

In these four years she had especially compared Oogruk's behavior with that of Shaktoolik, the real father of her child, and the more she had seen of that handsome man's behavior the more she had grown to respect her ungainly husband. Shaktoolik had been arrogant, he had abused his two wives, he had ignored his children, and had displayed his inherent meanness in a score of malicious ways. He stole other men's lances and laughed about it. He took their women and dared them to resist. Brave he was, all men agreed to that, but in all other human responses he had been an ugly man, and she admitted it if others did not. So when the shaman made a great fuss about Shaktoolik's death, she watched, and listened, and deduced what webs that evil man was weaving.

Characteristically, for although she now believed that Oogruk was good, she could still not admit that he was intelligent, she took her fears to her father and not to her husband: 'The shaman wants to drive Oogruk from Pelek.'

'Why would he do that?'

'He wants something that Oogruk has.'

'What could that be? The fool has nothing.'

'He has me.'

With remarkable instinct Nukleet had uncovered the shaman's other reason for getting rid of Oogruk. He did covet the beautiful labret, but that was merely to enhance his powers as a shaman; that would increase his public power. For himself, as a man living apart in a hovel on the edge of the village, he wanted Nukleet, and her daughter, and her favorable relationship to the headman. He recognized her as one of those women, not many in number according to him, who brought grace to whatever she did.

Four years ago he had been perplexed as to why she would marry Oogruk instead of becoming Shaktoolik's third wife, but now he realized that she had done this through the force of her remarkable character and determination: She wanted to be first in line, not third. He convinced himself that if she now had an opportu-72

nity to become his woman, attendant to the most powerful man in the community, she would leap to the chance.

In a hundred ways this bizarre man deluded himself. Because the arctic world was a dangerous place where the successful capture of a walrus might mean the difference between life or death, the Eskimos had to placate the spirit of the walrus, and who could ensure this but the shaman? It was he who could turn the heavy blizzards away in winter, and bring rains to ease the droughts in summer. Only he could guarantee that a childless woman would become pregnant or that her child would be a son. With conviction he identified those Eskimos who were possessed by devils, and at a great price he exorcised the devils just before the clan rose up to punish the bewildered carrier of evil. In two extreme circumstances he had known that the clan's only hope of survival lay in appeasing the spirits and without qualm had identified the offending member who must be banished.

No one in Pelek would have thought of challenging this despot, for all knew that strange forces ruled the world and that the shaman alone knew how to master them, or at least propitiate them so they did minimum damage. In this way he served several useful purposes, for when an Eskimo died the shaman properly guided the spirit to its resting place through intricate rituals, reaffirming for the clan that malevolent forces would not roam the shore and drive away the seals and walruses. He was especially helpful when hunters went forth in their umiaks, for they found reassurance in his incantations for protection against malignant spirits that could bring disaster to the already dangerous hunt. In the depths of the coldest winters, when it seemed as if all life had disappeared from earth, the clan found renewed hope as he placated the spirits to prevail upon the frozen seas and bring the warm breezes of spring again to Pelek. No community could survive without a powerful shaman, so that even those who suffered at his hands conceded that their shaman's ministrations were essential.

The most that anyone would say was: 'I wish he was a kinder man.'

The shaman of Pelek had begun to acquire his mastery of others in a quiet, almost accidental way. As a boy he had sensed that he was different, for he could look into the future when others could not. He was also sensitive to the presence of good and evil forces. But above all, he discovered early that the world is a mysterious place, that the great whales come and go according to rules which no man by himself can unravel, and that death strikes arbitrarily. He was concerned with these mysteries, as were all men, but unlike other men, he proposed to conquer them.

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He did so by collecting lucky and powerful objects with which to excite his intuitions; that was why he longed for Oogruk's potent labret. He made himself a pouch of beaver skin, shiny fur outside, choice stones and bits of meaningful bone inside. He taught himself to whistle like a bird. He developed his> powers of observation so that he saw conditions and relationships which others did not. And when he was satisfied that he had the capacity to be a shaman, and a good one, he mastered the art of speaking in different voices and even throwing his voice from place to place so that those who consulted him in their fears or anguish could hear the spirits addressing their problems.