The Walrus Hunters: A Romance of the Realms of Ice

Chapter Three.

Peace or War—Which?

Soon afterwards the Mangivik family received another visitor. This was the bellicose Gartok himself, whose heart had been touched by the fair Nootka.

Like his rival, he sat down opposite the maiden, and stared at her impressively across the cooking-lamp. This would seem to be the usual mode of courtship among those children of the ice; but the girl’s mode of receiving the attentions of the second lover varied considerably. She did not drop her eyes shyly under his gaze, but stared him full in the face by way of a slight rebuff. Neither did she prepare for him a savoury rib, so that he was obliged to help himself—which he did with much coolness, for the laws of hospitality in Eskimo-land admit of such conduct.

After some desultory conversation between Gartok and his host, the latter asked if it was true that there was a talk of the tribe paying a visit to Whale River.

“Yes, it is true,” answered the young man. “I came to see you about that very thing, and to tell you that there is to be a meeting outside the big hut to-day. We shall want your advice.”

“Why do the young men wish to go there?” asked Mangivik.

“To get food, and wood for our spear-handles and sledges, and berries, and to have a good time. Perhaps also to fight a little with the Fire-spouters.”

The youth glanced furtively at Mangivik as he concluded.

“To get food, and wood, and berries is good,” observed the old man; “but why fight with the Fire-spouters? We cannot conquer them.”

“You can ask that at the meeting. It is useless to ask it of me.”

“Good, I will do so. For my part, I am too old to go on long expeditions, either to hunt or fight—but I can give advice. Is Cheenbuk to be at the meeting?”

“Did you not know? Cheenbuk has already gone to the Whale River. We only propose to follow him. He may not like our business, but he’ll have to join us when we are there.”

Having picked his rib clean, and receiving no encouragement from Nootka to remain, Gartok rose and departed.

That afternoon there was a large meeting of the heads of families in front of what was known as the big hut. There was no formality about the meeting. Unlike the war councils of the Indians, it was a sort of free-and-easy, in which blubber and other choice kinds of food did duty for the red man’s pipe. The women, too, were allowed to sit around and listen—but not to speak—while the hunters discussed their plans.

Gartok, being the biggest, most forward, and presumptuous among them all, was allowed to speak first—though this was contrary to the wishes, and even the custom, of the tribe. He did not make a set speech. Indeed, no one thought of delivering an oration. It was merely a palaver on a large scale.

“We want spear-handles,” said Gartok, “and wood for our kayak-frames, and deer for food, as well as birds and rabbit-skins for our underclothing.”

“That is true,” remarked one of the elderly men; “we want all these things, and a great many more things, but we don’t want fighting. There is no use in that.”

“Ho! ho!” exclaimed several voices in approval.

“But we do want fighting,” retorted Gartok firmly; “we want the pretty coloured things that the Fire-spouters sew on their clothes and shoes; also the iron things they have for cutting wood; and we want the spouters, which will make us more than a match for them in war; and we can’t get all these things without fighting.”

“Do without them, then,” observed Mangivik sharply; “why should we want things that we never had, and don’t need? Listen to me, young men—for I see by your looks that some of you would like a little fighting,—even if we had the spouting things, we could not make them spout.”

“That is a lie!” exclaimed Gartok, with the simple straightforwardness peculiar to the uncivilised. “Once I met one of the Fire-spouters when I was out hunting at the Whale River. He was alone, and friendly. I asked him to show me his spouter. He did so, but told me to be very careful, for sometimes it spouted of its own accord. He showed me the way to make it spout—by touching a little thing under it. There was a little bird on a bush close by. ‘Point at that,’ he said. I pointed. ‘Now,’ said he, ‘look along the spouter with one eye.’ I put one end of it against my cheek and tried to look, but by accident I touched the little thing, and it spouted too soon! I never saw the little bird again; but I saw many stars, though it was broad daylight at the time.”

“Ho! hoo!” exclaimed several of the younger men, who listened to this narration with intense eagerness.

“Yes,” continued Gartok, who had the gift of what is called “the gab,” and was fond of exercising it,—“yes; it knocked me flat on my back—”

“Was it alive, then?” asked Anteek, who mingled that day with the men as an equal, in consequence of his having slain a walrus single-handed.

“No, it was not quite, but it was very nearly alive.—Well, when I fell the man laughed. You know his people are not used to laugh. They are very grave, but this one laughed till I became angry, and I would have fought with him, but—”

“Ay,” interrupted Anteek, “but you were afraid, for he had the spouter.”

Before Gartok could reply Mangivik broke in.

“Boo!” he exclaimed contemptuously, “it is of no use your talking so much. I too have been to the Whale River, and have seen the fire-spouters, and I know they are not nearly alive. They are dead—quite dead. Moreover, they will not spout at all, and are quite useless, unless they are filled with a kind of black sand which is supplied by the white men who sell the spouters. Go to the Whale River if you will, but don’t fight with any one—that is my advice, and my hair is grey.”

“It is white, old man, if you only saw it,” murmured Anteek, with native disrespect. He was too good-natured, however, to let his thoughts be heard.

“Come, Oolalik,” said Mangivik, “you are a stout and a wise young man, let us hear what you have got to say.”

“I say,” cried Oolalik, looking round with the air of a man who had much in his head, and meant to let it out, “I say that the man who fights if he can avoid it is a fool! Look back and think of the time gone away. Not many cold times have passed since our young men became puffed up—indeed, some of our old men were little better—and made a raid on the Fire-spouters of the Whale River. They met; there was a bloody fight; six of our best youths were killed, and numbers were wounded by the little things that come out of the spouters. Then they came home, and what did they bring? what had they gained? I was a boy at the time and did not understand it all; but I understood some of it. I saw the fighters returning. Some were looking very big and bold, as if they had just come from fighting and conquering a whole tribe of bears and walruses. Others came back limping. They went out young and strong men; they came back too soon old, helped along by their companions. Two were carried—they could not walk at all. Look at them now!”

Oolalik paused and directed attention to what may be called an object-lesson—two men seated on his right hand. Both, although in the prime of life, looked feeble and prematurely old from wounds received in the fight referred to. One had been shot in the leg; the bone was broken, and that rendered him a cripple for life. The other had received a bullet in the lungs; and a constitution which was naturally magnificent had become permanently shattered.

“What do you think?” continued Oolalik. “Would not these men give much to get back their old strength and health?”

He paused again, and the men referred to nodded emphatically, as if they thought the question a very appropriate one, while some of the peacefully disposed in the assembly exclaimed “ho!” and “hoo!” in tones of approval.

“Then,” continued the speaker, “I passed by some of our huts and heard sounds of bitter weeping. I went in and found it was the wives and sisters of the men whose bodies lie on the banks of the Whale River. There would be reason in fighting, if we had to defend our huts against the Fire-spouters. Self-defence is right; and every one has a good word for the brave men who defend their homes, their women, and their children. But the Fire-spouters did not want to fight, and the men who lost their lives at the fight I am speaking of, threw them away for nothing. They will never more come home to provide their families with food and clothes, or to comfort them, or to play with the children and tell them of fights with the walrus and the bear when the nights are black and long. Most of those poor women had sons or man-relations to care for them, but there was one who had no relation to hunt for her after her husband was killed—only a little daughter to take care of her. I speak of old Uleeta, who is—”

“That is a lie!” cried Gartok, springing up and looking fierce. “Old Uleeta is, as you all know, my mother. She had me to hunt for her when father was killed, and she has me still.”

“You!” exclaimed Oolalik, with a look of scorn, “what are you? A hunter? No, only a fool who wants to be thought very brave, and would leave his mother and sister to the care of old men and boys while he goes away to fight with the Fire-spouters! No,” he continued, turning away from the angry young man with cool contempt, “old Uleeta has no son.”

Gartok was so taken aback with this behaviour of Oolalik, who was recognised as one of the gentlest and most peacefully disposed of the tribe, that he stood gaping for a moment in surprise. Then, observing the half-amused, half-contemptuous looks of the men around him, he suddenly caught up the unfinished handle of a spear that leaned against the wall of the hut beside him, and made a desperate blow with it at the head of Oolalik.

But that youth had expected some such demonstration, and was prepared for it. Being very agile, he made a step swiftly to one side, and the handle came down on the skull of a walrus which hung on the wall, with a violence that would have surprised its original owner had it been within.

Before the blow could be repeated Oolalik sprang towards his assailant.

Eskimos know nothing of a blow “straight from the shoulder,” but they know how to cuff. Oolalik brought his open hand down on Gartok’s cheek with a pistol-shot crack that tumbled that fire-eater head over heels on the ground.

The man was too strong, however, to be knocked insensible in that way. He recovered himself, sitting-wise, with his mouth agape and his eyes astonied, while the whole assembly burst into a hearty fit of laughter. High above the rest was heard the juvenile voice of the delighted Anteek.

What the fire-eater thought we cannot tell, but he had the wisdom to accept his punishment in silence, and listened with apparent interest while Oolalik concluded his remarks.

The effect of this belligerent episode was to advance the cause of the peace-party considerably—at least for a time—and when the meeting broke up, most of the people returned to their various homes with a firm determination to leave the poor Fire-spouters alone.

But Gartok, who was still smarting under the disgrace to which he had been subjected at the hands of Oolalik, managed to rekindle and blow up the war-spirit, so that, two days later, a strong party of the more pugnacious among the young men of the tribe set off in their kayaks for the Whale River, taking with them a few of the women in one of their open boats or oomiaks—chiefly for the purpose of keeping their garments in repair.

Chapter Four.

War Prevails

It would seem, at times, as if there were really some sort of spiritual communication between people whose physical frames are widely sundered.

For at the very time that the Eskimos, in their remote home on the ice-encumbered sea, were informally debating the propriety of making an unprovoked attack on the Dogrib Indians—whom they facetiously styled Fire-spouters—the red men were also holding a very formal and solemn council of war as to the advisability of making an assault on those presumptuous Eskimos, or eaters-of-raw-flesh, who ventured to pay an uncalled-for visit to the Greygoose River—their ancestral property—every spring.

One of their chiefs, named Nazinred, had just returned from a visit to the river, and reported having met and fought with one of the Eskimos.

Immediately on hearing this, the old or head chief summoned the council of war. The braves assembled in the council-tent in solemn dignity, each classically enveloped in his blanket or leathern robe, and inflated, more or less, with his own importance. They sat down silently round the council fire with as much gravity as if the fate of nations depended on their deliberations,—and so, on a small scale, it did.

After passing round the pipe—by way of brightening up their intellects—the old chief held forth his hand and began in a low voice and deliberate manner.

“My braves,” said he, “those filthy eaters-of-raw-flesh have, as you know, been in the habit of coming to Greygoose River every spring and trespassing on the borders of our hunting-grounds.”

He paused and looked round.

“Waugh!” exclaimed his audience, in order to satisfy him.

With a dark frown the old chief went on.

“This is wrong. It is not right. It is altogether unbearable, and more than the Dogribs can stand. They won’t stand it!”

“Waugh!” again said the audience, for the old man had delivered the last sentence with considerable vehemence, and meant that it should tell.

Being apparently destitute of a flow of ideas at that time, the speaker had recourse to a not uncommon device among civilised orators: he cleared his throat, looked preternaturally wise, and changed the subject.

“When the sun of spring rises over the ice-hills of the great salt lake,” he continued, pointing towards the Pole, “when it melts the snow, opens the lakes and rivers, and brings the summer birds to our land, the braves of the great Dogrib nation take their guns, and bows, and canoes, and women, and travel nearly as far as the icy sea, that they may hunt and feed—and—sleep, and—and—enjoy the land. Nobody dares to stop us. Nobody dares to hinder us. Nobody dares even to look at us!”

He paused again, and this flight of oratory was received with a very decided “ho!” of assent, as it well might be, for during nearly all the year there was nobody in that uninhabited land to attempt any of those violent proceedings. Dilating his eyes and nostrils with a look of superlative wisdom, he continued:

“But at last the Eskimos dared to come and look at our hunting-grounds. We were peacefully disposed. We warned them not to come again. They came again, notwithstanding. We took our guns and swept them away like leaves that are swept by the winter winds. Are not their scalps drying in our lodges? What we did then we will do again. Has not one of our chiefs—Nazinred—been attacked by one of them? No doubt more will follow that one. My counsel is to send out a band of our braves on the war-path. But first we would like to know something. As the Eskimo did not take the scalp of Nazinred, how is it that Nazinred did not bring home the scalp of the Eskimo?”

The old chief ceased, amid many “ho’s!” and “hoo’s!” with the air of one who has propounded an unanswerable riddle, and all eyes were at once turned upon Nazinred. Accepting the challenge at once he stretched forth his hand:

“My father has spoken,” he said, “but his words are not the words of wisdom. Why should we fight the Eskimos again, and lose some of our best young men, as we lost them in the last great fight? The Eskimos have come near our lands, but they have not of late hunted on them. They have only looked and gone away. And even if they did hunt, what then? The land is wide. We cannot use it all. We cannot kill all the birds and deer, and even if we could we cannot eat them all. Would it not be wise to live at peace with the Eskimos? They have many great teeth of the walrus and skins of the seal. Might not the white traders, who take our furs and give us guns and powder, be willing to take these things too? Thus we could buy from the one and sell to the other, and fill our lodges with tobacco, and guns, and beads, and cloth, and powder and ball, and other good things.”