Red Rooney: The Last of the Crew Part 24

"Then you believe in other men's spirits as well as your own spirit,"

said Rooney, "though you have never seen, heard, tasted, smelt, or felt them?"

For a moment the Eskimo was puzzled. Then suddenly his countenance brightened.

"But I _have_ felt my own," he cried. "I have felt it moving within me, so that it made me _act_. My legs and arms and brain would not go into action if they were dead, if the spirit had gone out of them."

"In the very same way," replied the seaman, "you may _feel_ the Great Spirit, for your own spirit could not go into action so as to cause your body to act unless a greater Spirit had given it life. So also we may feel or understand the Great Spirit when we look at the growing flowers, and hear the moving winds, and behold the s.h.i.+ning stars, and feel the beating of our own hearts. I'm not much of a wise man, an angekok-- which they would call _scholar_ in my country--but I know enough to believe that it is only `the fool who has said in his heart, There is no Great Spirit.'"

"There is something in what you say," returned the Eskimo, as the lines of unusually intense thought wrinkled his brow; "but for all that you say, I think there are no torngaks, and that Ujarak is a liar as well as a fool."

"I agree with you, Okiok, because I think you have good reason for your disbelief. In the first place, it is well-known that Ujarak is a liar, but that is not enough, for liar though he be, he _sometimes_ tells the truth. Then, in the second place, he is an a.s.s--hum! I forgot--you don't know what an a.s.s is; well, it don't matter, for, in the third place, he never gave any proof to anybody of what he and his torngak are said to have seen and done, and, strongest reason of all, this familiar spirit of his acts unwisely--for what could be more foolish than to choose out of all the tribe a poor half-witted creature like Ippegoo for the next angekok?"

A gleaming glance of intelligent humour lighted up Okiok's face as he said--

"Ujarak is wiser than his torngak in that. He wants to make use of the poor lad for his own wicked ends. I know not what these are--but I have my suspicions."

"So have I," broke in Nuna at this point, giving her pot a rap with the cooking-stick by way of emphasis.

Rooney laughed.

"You think he must be watched, and his mischief prevented?" he said.

"That's what I think," said Okiok firmly.

"Tell me, what are the ceremonies to be gone through by that poor unwilling Ippegoo, before he can be changed into a wise man?"

"Oh, he has much to do," returned Okiok, with his eyes on the lamp-flame and his head a little on one side, as if he were thinking. "But I am puzzled. Ujarak is cunning, though he is not wise; and I am quite sure he has some secret reason for hurrying on this business. He is changing the customs, and that is never done for nothing."

"What customs has he changed?" asked Rooney.

"The customs for the young angekok before he gets a torngak," replied the Eskimo.

Okiok's further elucidation of this point was so complex that we prefer to give the reader our own explanation.

Before a.s.suming the office of an angekok or diviner, an Eskimo must procure one of the spirits of the elements for his own particular familiar spirit or torngak. These spirits would appear to be somewhat coquettish and difficult to win, and marvellous tales are related of the manner in which they are wooed. The aspirant must retire for a time to a desert place, where, entirely cut off from the society of his fellows, he may give himself up to fasting and profound meditation. He also prays to Torngarsuk to give him a torngak. This Torngarsuk is the chief of the good spirits, and dwells in a pleasant abode under the earth or sea. He is not, however, supposed to be G.o.d, who is named Pirksoma, i.e. "He that is above," and about whom most Eskimos profess to know nothing. As might be expected, the weakness of body and agitation of mind resulting from such exercises carried on in solitude throw into disorder the imaginative faculty of the would-be diviner, so that wonderful figures of men and monsters swim before his mental vision, which tend to throw his body into convulsions--all the more that he labours to cherish and increase such symptoms.

How far the aspirants themselves believe in these delusions it is impossible to tell; but the fact that, after their utmost efforts, some of them fail to achieve the coveted office, leads one to think that some of them are too honest, or too strong-minded, to be led by them.

Others, however, being either weak or double-minded, are successful.

They a.s.sert that, on Torngarsuk appearing in answer to their earnest pet.i.tion, they shriek aloud, and die from fear. At the end of three days they come to life again, and receive a torngak, who takes them forthwith on a journey to heaven and h.e.l.l, after which they return home full-fledged angekoks, prepared to bless their fellows, and guide them with their counsels.

"Now, you must know," said Okiok, after explaining all this, "what puzzles me is, that Ujarak intends to alter the customs at the beginning of the affair. Ippegoo is to be made an angekok to-night, and to be let off all the fasting and hard thinking and fits. If I believed in these things at all, I should think him only a half-made angekok. As it is, I don't care a puff of wind what they make of poor Ippegoo--so long as they don't kill him; but I'm uneasy because I'm afraid the rascal Ujarak has some bad end in view in all this."

"I'm _quite_ sure of it," muttered Nuna, making a stab with her stick at the contents of her pot, as if Ujarak's heart were inside.

At that moment Nunaga entered, looking radiant, in all the glory of a new under-garment of eider-duck pelts and a new sealskin upper coat with an extra long tail.

"Have you seen Angut lately?" asked Rooney of the young girl.

"Yes," she replied, with a modest smile that displayed her brilliant teeth; "he is in his own hut."

"I will go and talk with him on this matter, Okiok," said the seaman.

"Meanwhile, do you say nothing about it to any one."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

SOLEMN AND MYSTERIOUS DOINGS ARE BROUGHT TO A VIOLENT CLOSE.

Angut was seated at the further end of his abode when his friend entered, apparently absorbed in contemplation of that remarkable specimen of Eskimo longevity, the grandmother of Okiok.

"I have often wondered," said Angut, as the seaman sat down beside him, "at the contentment and good-humour and cheerfulness, sometimes running into fun, of that poor old woman Kannoa."

"Speak lower," said Rooney in a soft voice; "she will hear you."

"If she does, she will hear no evil. But she is nearly deaf, and takes no notice."

"It may be so; poor thing!" returned the sailor in a tender tone, as he looked at the shrivelled-up old creature, who was moving actively round the never-idle lamp, and bending with inquiring interest over the earthen pot, which seemed to engross her entire being. "But why do you wonder?"

"I wonder because she has so little to make her contented, and so much to ruin her good-humour and cheerfulness, and to stop her fun. Her life is a hard one. She has few relations to care for her. She is very old, and must soon grow feeble, and then--"

"And then?" said Rooney, as the other paused.

"Then she knows not what follows death--who does know?--and she does not believe in the nonsense that our people invent. It is a great mystery."

The Eskimo said the last words in a low voice and with a wistful gaze, as if he were rather communing with himself than conversing with his friend. Rooney felt perplexed. The thoughts of Angut were often too profound for him. Not knowing what to say, he changed the subject by mentioning the object of his visit.

At once Angut turned, and gave undivided attention to the subject, while the seaman described his recent conversation with Okiok. As he concluded, a peculiar look flitted across Angut's countenance.

"I guess his reason," he said.

"Yes; what may it be, think you?"

"He fears to meet Okiok in a singing duel."

Rooney laughed. "Well, you know best," he said; "I daresay you are right. Okiok is a sharp fellow, and Ujarak is but a blundering b.o.o.by after--"

A low chuckle in the region of the lamp attracted their attention at this point. They looked quickly at Kannoa, but that ancient's face was absolutely owlish in its gravity, and her little black eyes peered into her pot with a look of intense inquiry that was almost philosophic.

Resuming their belief that she was as deaf as a post, or an iceberg, Rooney and Angut proceeded to discuss Ujarak and his probable plans without any regard to her. After having talked the matter over for some time, Angut shook his head, and said that Ujarak must be closely watched.

"More than that," said Rooney, with decision; "he must be stultified."

The seaman's rendering of the word "stultified" into Eskimo was curious, and cannot easily be explained, but it was well understood by Angut, and apparently by Kannoa, for another chuckle came just then from the culinary department. Again the two men glanced at the old woman inquiringly, and again were they baffled by that look of owlish intensity at the stewing meat.

"She hears," whispered Rooney.

"Impossible," replied Angut; "a dead seal is not much deafer."

Continuing the conversation, the seaman explained how he thought it possible to stultify the wizard, by discrediting him in the eyes of his own people--by foiling him with his own weapons,--and himself undertook to accomplish the task of stultification.