Red Rooney: The Last of the Crew. Robert Michael Ballantyne
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did you say was the name of your country?” asked Angut, during a brief pause in the consumption of the meal.
“England,” said Rooney.
“That was not the name you told me before.”
“True; I suppose I said Ireland before, but the fact is, I can scarcely claim it as my own, for you see my father was Irish and my mother was Scotch. I was born in Wales, an’ I’ve lived a good bit o’ my life in England. So you see I can’t claim to be anything in particular.”
As this was utterly incomprehensible to the Eskimo, he resumed his bit of blubber without saying a word. After a brief silence, he looked at the Kablunet again, and said—
“Have they houses in your land?”
“Houses? O yes; plenty of ’em—made of stone.”
“Like the summer-houses of the Innuit, I suppose?” said Angut. “Are they as big?”
Rooney laughed at this, and said, Yes; they were much bigger—as big as the cliffs alongside.
“Huk!” exclaimed the Eskimos in various tones. Okiok’s tone, indeed, was one of doubt; but Angut did not doubt his new friend for a moment, though his credulity was severely tested when the seaman told him that one of the villages of his countrymen covered a space as big as they could see—away to the very horizon, and beyond it.
“But, Angut,” said Rooney, growing somewhat weary at last, “you’ve asked me many questions; will you answer a few now?”
“I will answer.”
“I have heard it said,” began the sailor, “that Angut is a wise man—an angekok—among his people, but that he denies the fact. Why does he deny it?”
The Eskimo exchanged solemn glances with his host, then looked round the circle, and said that some things could not be explained easily. He would think first, and afterwards he would talk.
“That is well said,” returned Rooney. “‘Think well before you speak’ is a saying among my own people.”
He remained silent for a few moments after that, and observed that Okiok made a signal to his two boys. They rose immediately, and left the hut.
“Now,” said Okiok, “Angut may speak. There are none but safe tongues here. My boys are good, but their tongues wag too freely.”
“Yes, they wag too freely,” echoed Mrs Okiok, with a nod.
Thus freed from the danger of being misreported, Angut turned to the seaman, and said—
“I deny that I am an angekok, because angekoks are deceivers. They deceive foolish men and women. Some of them are wicked, and only people-deceivers. They do not believe what they teach. Some of them are self-deceivers. They are good enough men, and believe what they teach, though it is false. These men puzzle me. I cannot understand them.”
The Eskimo became meditative at this point, as if his mind were running on the abstract idea of self-delusion. Indeed he said as much. Rooney admitted that it was somewhat puzzling.
“I suppose,” resumed the Eskimo, “that Kablunets never deceive themselves or others; they are too wise. Is it so?”
“Well, now you put the question,” said Rooney, “I rather fear that some of us do, occasionally; an’ there’s not a few who have a decided tendency to deceive others. And so that is the reason you won’t be an angekok, is it? Well, it does you credit. But what sort o’ things do they believe, in these northern regions, that you can’t go in with? Much the same, I fancy, that the southern Eskimos believe?”
“I know not what the southern Eskimos believe, for I have met them seldom. But our angekoks believe in torngaks, familiar spirits, which they say meet and talk with them. There is no torngak. It is a lie.”
“But you believe in one great and good Spirit, don’t you?” asked the seaman, with a serious look.
“Yes; I believe in One,” returned the Eskimo in a low voice, “One who made me, and all things, and who must be good.”
“There are people in my land who deny that there is One, because they never saw, or felt, or heard Him—so they say they cannot know,” said Rooney. Angut looked surprised.
“They must be fools,” he said. “I see a sledge, and I know that some man made it—for who ever heard of a sledge making itself? I see a world, and I know that the Great Spirit made it, because a world cannot make itself. The greatest Spirit must be One, because two greatests are impossible, and He is good—because good is better than evil, and the Greatest includes the Best.”
The seaman stared, as well he might, while the Eskimo spoke these words, gazing dreamily at the lamp-flame, as if he were communing with his own spirit rather than with his companion. Evidently Okiok had a glimmering of what he meant, for he looked pleased as well as solemn.
It might be tedious to continue the conversation. Leaving them therefore to their profound discussions, we will turn to another and very different social group.
Chapter Seven.
Treats of Cross-Purposes and Difficulties
Partially concealed in a cavern at the base of a stupendous, almost perpendicular, cliff, stood the wizard Ujarak and his pupil Ippegoo. The former silently watched the latter as he fitted a slender spear, or rather giant arrow, to a short handle, and prepared to discharge it at a flock of sea-birds which were flying about in front of them within what we would call easy gunshot.
The handle referred to acted as a short lever, by means of which the spear could be launched not only with more precision but with much greater force than if thrown simply by hand like a javelin.
“There, dart it now!” cried Ujarak, as a bird swept close to the cave’s mouth. “Boh! you are too slow. Here is another; quick! dart!”
Ippegoo let fly hastily, and missed.
“Poo! you are of no more use than the rotten ice of spring. There; try again,” said Ujarak, pointing to a flock of birds which came sweeping towards them.
The crestfallen youth fitted another spear to the handle—for he carried several—and launched it in desperation into the middle of the flock. It ruffled the wings of one bird, and sent it screaming up the cliffs, but brought down none.
“Boo!” exclaimed the wizard, varying the expression of his contempt. “It is well that your mother has only a small family.”
Ippegoo was accustomed to severe backhanders from his patron; he was not offended, but smiled in a pathetic manner as he went out in silence to pick up his weapons.
Just as he was returning, Arbalik, nephew to the jovial Simek, appeared upon the scene, and joined them. The wizard appeared to be slightly annoyed, but had completely dissembled his feelings when the young man walked up.
“Have the hunters found no seals?” asked Ujarak.
“Yes, plenty,” answered Arbalik cheerily, for he had a good deal of his old uncle’s spirit in him, “but you know variety is agreeable. Birds are good at a feast. They enable you to go on eating when you can hold no more seal or walrus blubber.”
“That is true,” returned the wizard, with a grave nod of appreciation. “Show Ippegoo how to dart the spear. He is yet a baby!”
Arbalik laughed lightly as he let fly a spear with a jaunty, almost careless, air, and transfixed a bird on the wing.
“Well done!” cried the wizard, with a burst of genuine admiration; “your wife will never know hunger.”
“Not after I get her,” returned the youth, with a laugh, as he flung another spear, and transfixed a second bird.
Ippegoo looked on with slightly envious but not malevolent feelings, for he was a harmless lad.
“Try again,” cried Arbalik, turning to him with a broad grin, as he offered him one of his own spears.
Ippegoo took the weapon, launched