The Eternal Maiden | Page 8

of air touched
the sea.
To the lee a group of small icebergs passed. They rocked and eddied,
and from their glacial sides the light poured in changing colors.
"O spirit of the light, carry thy bright message to the eyes of Annadoah,
tell her Ootah has loved her for many, many moons."
The bergs crashed into one another, and in the impact sank into the sea.
Ootah bit his lips. A vague misgiving was cold within his heart.
A flock of gulls passed low over the waters.
He called to them--that they should take his love to Annadoah. They
were to tell Annadoah that he would soon return, laden with food and
fuel for the winter. Their raucous cries mocked him. He demanded
what they meant. "Ootah--Ootah," they seemed to call, "how foolish art
thou, Ootah, how foolish art thou to love Annadoah. For fickle is
Annadoah--fickle, fickle the heart of the maiden Annadoah!"
Ootah shrieked an enraged defiance. His eyes sought the horizon.
Kokoyah, the sea god, was breathing deeply, and in the mists which
rose like fire-shot smoke before the sun, singular forms took shape.

Ootah saw the magnified shadows of great dogs. They seemed to be
dashing along the horizon. Then, with crushing strides, behind the
adumbration a great sled, a titan figure gathered substance in the clouds.
It moved with terrific speed; it dominated the sky. Its dress was not that
of the northern tribes. Ootah felt a resentful stirring, as, looking upward,
in the clouds overhead, a white face, hard, fierce, scowling, with
burning blue eyes, momentarily appeared.
"A white warrior from the south," Ootah murmured. "And he comes
with swift tread. What can it mean?"
In common with many primitive peoples, Ootah possessed the soul of a
poet--nature was vocal with him, and the disembodied beings of other
worlds made themselves manifest and spoke in the light and in the
clouds. To him everything lived; the clouds were the habitation of
spirits, the waves were alive, all the animals and fish possessed souls;
the very winds were endowed with sex functions and loved and
quarreled among themselves. The interrelation of man and the forces of
the universe were inseparably intimate and familiar; integral parts of
one another, their destinies were bound together. And to Ootah nature
found much to gossip about in the affairs of men.
Eagerly Ootah sought the clouds. Along the horizon they resolved
themselves into a phantasmagoria of Eskimo maidens and white men
resembling the Danes who came each summer to gather riches of
ivories and furs. And the Eskimo maidens and white men danced
together. As these mirage-forms melted, Ootah glanced into the water
by his side. Looking up from the ultramarine depths he saw something
white. For an instant it assumed the likeness of the face of Annadoah.
He saw her golden skin, her cheeks flushed with the pink of spring
lichen blossoms, her lips red as the mountain poppies of late summer.
He started back and called aloud:
"Annadoah! Annadoah!" For she had smiled, cruelly and disdainfully.
Hoarse laughter answered him--the laughter of white men from the
south. A flock of hawks passed over the water. He was about to shout
when he heard the sound of kayak paddles behind him. He recalled
himself and beckoned silence.

II
"_The thought of Annadoah in the embrace of the big blond man, of her

face pressed to his in the white men's strange kiss of abomination,
aroused in Ootah a sense of violation. . . . He heard Annadoah murmur
tenderly, 'Thou art a great man, thou art strong; thy arms hurt me, thy
hands make me ache.'_"
Slowly, with silent paddles, the hunters moved over the limpid waters
to the north of the floe. On the far side they saw a horde of walrus bulls
dozing in the sunlight. Behind a ridge of ice they landed, drawing their
kayaks after them. With skin lassos, harpoons and floats, the party
crouched low and crept toward the prey. Thus they would be mistaken
for other walrus by the unsuspecting animals. Ootah was ahead. Softly
they all muttered the magic formulas to prevent themselves from being
seen:
"_Nunavdlo sermitdlo-akorngakut-tamarnuga_!" In the rear, his eyes
evilly alight, Maisanguaq followed.
As they approached the herd they scattered. Along the edge of the floe
lay about twenty monstrous animals, steam rising from their nostrils as
they snorted in their slumber. There were a half dozen mother walrus
with half-grown young about them. Now and then they sleepily opened
their eyes and made low maternal noises.
Before the others realized what had happened, Ootah sprang toward a
bull and delivered his harpoon. It rose in the air and roared deafeningly.
Ootah struck a second time. The animal floundered in a pool of blood,
whipping the floe