We furthermore agreed to travel seven days from the wreck, and if we found no help or deliverance from any quarter, then we would return, which would require seven days more—about as long as we supposed our provisions would last us.
The direction we took was towards the east and south, along shore, which was less difficult to travel than farther back in the country; besides, there were less snow and ice on the seaboard at that time.
We had traveled, as was supposed, about fifteen miles, when we saw two natives, some little distance before us, in an inland direction. At first they were unwilling to stop, probably aware from our appearance that we were foreigners. While we all kept together the natives continued on their way.
Captain Norton and two of his officers separated themselves from the rest of the company, making signs, thus indicating peaceable intentions, and advanced towards them. The natives then stopped. The captain and those with him approached them and shook hands with them. The natives appeared to understand the signals and signs, and at once desired that all the company that was behind some distance would come forward to them. This they did. The natives pointed in the direction of their settlement, and furthermore desired all the company to follow them. We followed them until we came in sight of their huts. Here the whole company was requested to stop, with the exception of the captain and two of his officers. We went with the natives into the settlement, and were immediately conducted into the presence of a very old woman, who marked one side of our faces with two lines, and our hands in the same manner, with a burnt stick. After this singular manœuvre was over, she made signs to the captain to call all his men, and they also were marked upon their faces and hands.
It is altogether probable that the marking of our faces and hands by this old woman with a burnt stick was some sacred rite, and that she might have been a sort of priestess or prophetess among the natives, and that the ceremony was a mark of her approval, or that she secured the protection of some divinity in our behalf.
It was ascertained afterwards, that this old woman was held in very high repute among the natives, and that she was supposed to be a personification of a certain deity which inhabited some remote mountain in the interior of the country.
We also learned that the purpose she had in view in marking our faces and hands, was, that we might not poison those with whom we should eat, or contaminate any thing we should take hold of with our hands.
We were distributed among the several huts, and remained there that night. The natives set before us something to eat in the form of whale and walrus blubber, and deer meat. This "bill of fare" had not the recommendation of being cooked, but in its original state, with no other condiment than what age imparted to it. But whether the whole company found their appetites or necessities such as to pass immediately into this new regimen, was quite, if not altogether, improbable.
This settlement appeared to be of a temporary character; the natives with their families having come from another region or section of the country for the purpose of trading and hunting. There were but five huts in all. Our company, therefore, of thirty-three persons, occupied all the room they had to spare. It was close stowage but far better for us than to be exposed and unprotected during a long and chilly night.
After our arrival at this settlement, and some time during the night, word was sent by the natives, as we afterwards learned, to another and larger settlement, to inform the natives there that a company of shipwrecked mariners (raumkidlins) had come, and wanted shelter.