People of the Deer (26 page)

The sunlit meadow seemed to darken as I walked among these somber relics of an unknown tragedy. I seemed to hear the echoes of that fatal tale, and a confused babble of soundless voices filled my ears, trying desperately to tell me of what had come to pass in this lovely and hidden place. They spoke of the nemesis which had fallen upon this camp with such savagery that men gave no heed to their most precious possessions as they fled. But—
had
they fled? What terror could have made a woman abandon this elaborately carved meat tray—a thing of enduring value—to split and whiten under the long summer suns? And how could men flee when their kayaks and winter sleds remained in the deserted camp?

At its last life the camp must have held many people, for the tents had been immense, many of them twenty feet across the base. Most of the present tents of the Ihalmiut are dwarfed little cones, half that size, and yet they shelter families of seven or eight, and sometimes more. The great tents by Angkuni could each have held a dozen people comfortably, and this one camp may have contained a hundred souls who appeared to have mysteriously vanished out of time. Vanished, yes— but where?

The question was soon answered. A few hundred feet behind the camp there was a broken outcropping of black rock—and here I found the people whom I sought. Each lay in an igloo-shaped stone crypt; each in his ageless home, surrounded by some few tools which he had used in life. The graves were so closely crowded, in the limited space suitable for making tombs, that many overlapped and some had been forced to house more than one occupant. I counted thirty-seven in one place, that had all been built hurriedly and at the same time—or at least within a few weeks of each other. The scanty nature of those structures and the paucity of tools within them proclaimed that death had allowed no time for careful ceremony. Evidently whole families had perished at one time, and the few tools and weapons belonging to the family had been thinly divided amongst many souls who would have need of them in the world of Kaila—God of the Skies.

Not yet surfeited with horror, I searched farther afield, and beyond the main graveyard I found where the dwindling survivors of the terror had abandoned all efforts to give the dead their due. Here the bones lay in shallow hollows scraped in the moss and no one had bothered to provide these ghosts with the tools they would need on their eternal journey. The terror must have been nearing its peak when these naked ones were buried, and the camp must have been all but deserted then. Certainly if any had still lived on they would have been quick to move away as the graves multiplied, for it is an inflexible rule amongst the people that tents must not be pitched near where the dead lie at rest. The dead had come to occupy the place and the camp was given over to them, while the few surviving Kinetuamiut attempted their escape.

Before I left that camp the dead spoke to me and told me of the terror. Though there was no other sound than the harsh piping of the wind, the voices spoke in such a way that I could not misunderstand. I knew how the Kinetuamiut had died. It was not from starvation, for there had been funeral presents of deer quarters on many of the graves. It was not from violence, for the bones of the dead were unscarred and whole. The Kinetuamiut died because they had received our gift. It was the Great Pain of Kakumee's tale.

Perhaps, I thought, a few had escaped; but where had they gone and what was their ultimate fate?

I found the answer to those questions, too, as I walked away from the sunlit meadows, out into the browning plains which stretched away inland. A few miles from the shore I stumbled on a tiny tent ring consisting of half a dozen stones, barely sufficient to anchor the flimsiest shelter; and in this circle lay one who had fled the terror. The wolverines had given him what burial he needed. Twice in the next mile I found rock crevices into which men's bodies had been roughly stuffed to find what protection there might be from the weather and the beasts. These were the men who had fled the camps beside Kinetua Bay—and they had not escaped.

I walked back to the shore and followed it to the mouth of the river, a distance of ten miles. And I found three other great camps that had died under the plague. Beyond the last of these was an ancient burial ground which had existed long before the Great Pain came, and in it I saw the manner in which the Kinetuamiut cared for their dead when death gave them the time. A tall gray pole marked one burial mound whose roof had been constructed of the owner's long winter sled. The openings had been neatly filled with rocks and thatched with willow, and the whole was so well made that the crypt had remained almost intact. Beside the grave were deer spears, a snow knife, bow drills, arrows and a stone lamp containing five wonderfully made stone pipes and many other needful things to show that this man had left the world well prepared to face the next. This was a peaceful grave, and it was in startling contrast to the ones near the plague camps.

When I turned back I found myself hurrying and I felt an almost hysterical desire to see living men again. I almost ran the last few yards to camp, where I was greeted by Ohoto, and in turn greeted the Eskimo with an effusiveness which startled him. Ohoto told me he had found no deer, but he said the land to the north appeared to have been one of the greatest highways the deer had ever used. This was small comfort, for we had expected to find the deer themselves at Angkuni and we had counted on stocking up with meat so we could continue our explorations into the unknown lands to the northwest. Our food supplies brought from Windy Camp were almost exhausted and we did not care to risk missing the deer by starting off to a distant part of the Barrens which the deer might never visit.

So we began a period of waiting that stretched into days, then into weeks. As patiently as possible we waited for the deer, but patience was soon exhausted by the hordes of flies which also waited hungrily, but that were willing to accept us as substitutes until the deer did come. For days on end we three were forced to stay in our tents while viscous masses of mosquitoes and black flies hung like living tapestries on the outside of our mosquito nets. We partially escaped the blood-hungry throngs by keeping inside, but we had other tortures to contend with, for the sun was without pity and the tiny cube of motionless air enclosed by our tent was often heated to the point where our water bucket grew surprisingly hot. Those were not pleasant days, but perhaps one day in three would bring a wind and then, as if by some benevolent sorcery, the flies would vanish and our imprisonment would be briefly broken. On one of these days I wandered for almost twenty miles along the shores of Angkuni looking for signs of living things; and I saw not a bird nor an animal. On another day I did manage to surprise a covey of half-grown ptarmigan in a swale and once I saw a single gyrfalcon, a great, gray-winged shadow that swept low over the crest of a hill, cried piercingly, and vanished swiftly. But there were no deer, no arctic hares, no ground squirrels, no foxes, and almost no other birds.

Deserted and empty as they were, the Angkuni plains did give me one rare gift and that lay in the opportunities I found for long talks with Ohoto. As our enforced idleness dragged on, Ohoto became almost garrulous and I had the unusual good sense to take advantage of it.

Just before dusk one day a strong south wind sprang up. Ohoto and I sallied gratefully out from our prison and climbed the crest of a high hill to scan the distant plains for deer. As usual we saw no sign of Tuktu, but it was a pleasant evening so we sat amongst the broken rocks of the hilltop, smoked our pipes and waited for the low sun to pass from sight. It was then Ohoto told me the Ihalmiut story of genesis and something about the early days of men.

“Things were not always as you see them now,” Ohoto began, then paused to drag furiously at his pipe...

In the beginning there was no sun in the sky, and the land of those far times was warm and dry. No snow lay on it and no rain fell. And it was so when Kaila, he who is Thunder in gray skies, knew it was time to bring life into the land.

First, Kaila made the hare and ptarmigan and sent them down through darkness and bade them multiply until their tracks covered all hills and valleys of the dark and hidden world. So the ptarmigan and the hare went into darkness and did as they were told.

There came the time when they were many, and Kaila saw that they were many, and he knew the land was ready. And Kaila took the first woman and the first man, and these two he sent into the world which lay ready to receive them.

Yet Kaila, who sees without eyes, in darkness as in light, forgot that men see nothing in the dark. But it was so, and the man could not see, and hunger came upon the first man and woman, for though the hares and ptarmigan were many, the first hunter could not see to make his kill.

Then the woman stood on a high place and cried out to Kaila, begging for his aid. And Kaila heard, and he sent fire into darkness, and then there was both light to see by, and heat to cook upon.

It became the woman's task to keep the fire alive, for it had been her gift from Kaila. But the man thrust his forefinger deep into the coals so that it caught fire and became a flaming torch. Then with this torch to light his way, the first man roamed the hills, and many were the hares and ptarmigan that fell beneath his hand.

So for a long time the man and woman lived in peace, and with full bellies. But at length hares and ptarmigan grew wary of the hunter's torch and they fled into ground and into air. Hunger came again to the first man and woman. Once again the woman stood on a high hill and cried her sorrows, and once more Kaila heard and answered her. He heard, and spoke, telling her to dig a great hole in the ground, so deep that none might see its bottom.

When the hole was dug, Kaila bade the woman make a strong line from the plaited sinews of many hares, and a sharp hook from the wing bones of the ptarmigan. And this too was done as Kaila said that it must be.

Then Kaila bade the woman try her skill with the hook and line, in the deep hole that had been dug. The woman sat beside the hole, holding her line, while the man stood beside her letting the flame of his great torch send shadows dancing into the hole. Then came a sudden tug on the line. Quickly the woman hauled it up and dragged the first wolf from the bowels of the earth. But the wolf was an eater of meat, and no giver of meat, and so the woman cast him loose, bidding him multiply and to become many over all the land. The wolf heard the woman, and obeyed her words.

Again and yet again the woman flung her hook into the hole and always when a weight came on it, she drew it up. In this way she caught all the beasts of land: Amow the white wolf, Kakwik the gray wolverine, Akla the great brown bear, Hikik the red-haired squirrel, Omingmuk the shaggy muskox—and all other beasts which walk the world. And yet it happened that none of these was what the woman desired, and after speaking to each as she had spoken to the wolf, she freed them all, and cast her line again.

After the land beasts came the beasts of air: Tingmea the white goose, U-ulnik the long-tailed duck—and all the lesser beasts of air. But none of these was what the woman sought and so she freed them into darkness, speaking to them as she had spoken to the wolf.

After the beasts of air there came the beasts of water: Ichloa the red trout, Atnju the soft sucker—and all the lesser beasts of water. But still not one of these was what the woman sought, and so she freed them into lakes and rivers, speaking always as she had first spoken to the wolf.

Now came a time when no new weight fell upon the line, and the man grew weary of his vigil by the hole. He would have slept, for the world was filled with many kinds of game, and he was satisfied. But the woman rebuked him, for she was as stubborn as all her daughters have been ever since—and she had still not caught the one thing which she sought.

We do not know how long the woman lingered by the hole, for then there was no winter and no summer, no day or night. But in the end there came a great jerk on the line so that it was almost torn from the woman's hands. The man sprang to help her and together they pulled the sinew rope out of the pit. It was a mighty struggle, and yet man and his woman triumphed and so they at last beheld the antlered crown of Tuktu—first of all the deer!

The woman cried out with joy and flung her hook away, and the deep hole closed up and vanished. Then the woman spoke to the first deer, saying:

“Go out over the land and become as many as all other things which live in water, land or air—for it is you and your kind who will feed me and my children and my children's children for all time that there is yet to come.”

The first deer heard, and heeded what the woman said, and so it came about that there were many deer...

Ohoto ceased his tale, and together we looked out over the broad isthmus where the gravels and lichens bore the trails of many deer. Those trails were so many they were like a close-knit web covering all the land. We looked in silence, until at last I asked, “What of the first woman, and her man?”

For longer than I know [Ohoto continued], the first man and woman lived in the dark world. Yet though Tuktu was there and hunger had been banished, still the man's loins stayed dry and the woman's womb was empty as an ancient skull. So might it always have remained had not it been for Hekenjuk the sun, the giver of new life. And Hekenjuk came to us because of a great battle fought between the wolf and the wolverine in times long past.

Of all beasts in the land, Kakwik the wolverine is strongest and most cunning. Because of his great cunning, Kakwik learned to hunt in darkness. But Amow the wolf could never learn and often enough he blundered into rocks while the deer he chased so blindly laughed at him and fled away.

In those times Kakwik and Amow lived together in a cave sunken deep into the rocks, and once when they were digging at the back of the cave they chanced to uncover the bright face of Hekenjuk, who had been buried by Kaila at the first of things.