The Eternal Maiden

by T. Everett Harré

Meanwhile Annadoah began melting snow over her lamp. The others plied Ootah with questions. Did he go far into the mountains? Were there many ahmingmah? Did Koolotah perish? Was he in the mountains when the spirits struck? To all of this he could only move his head in response. While he sipped the warm water gratefully, Annadoah cut away his leather boots and bathed his injuries. His flesh was torn and one ankle was sprained—by a miracle not a bone had been broken in the fall. With unguents left years before by white men, Annadoah treated his many cuts and bruises and bound them securely with clean leather. After he lay back on the couch she bathed his face, and rubbed into the wounds salves which her father had given to her mother and which for years had been preciously preserved.

Ootah lay with his eyes closed; he seemed to float in the auroral skies without, in the very happy land of the dead. He forgot the pain in his limbs, the furnace in his forehead. He felt only the soothing touch of Annadoah's dear hands, and her breath at times very near, fanning his face; he heard her voice murmuring to the onlooking natives. Not satisfied with these ministrations, in which they really had little faith, the others presently brought a young angakoq, one better loved than the dead Sipsu. For being young he had not prophesied many deaths.

All moved away as the magician began beating his membrane drum over Ootah's body. Working himself into frenzy, he called upon his familiar spirits. For, according to their belief, illness, and the suffering resultant from wounds, are actually caused by the spirits of the various members of the body falling out of harmony. Then the angakoq must persuade his friends in the other world to restore peace among the spirits of the human hands, feet, head, or whatever limbs may be affected. The soul, or great spirit, they say resides in one's shadow, and sometimes this falls out of agreement with the minor spirits of the body. Then one is in bad shape, indeed.

For half an hour the chant and dance continued. Meanwhile Ootah opened his eyes and often smiled at Annadoah. He was better, he told them, and motioned the angakoq to go. He bade Annadoah sit beside him. He felt unquestionably better.

"You have asked me whether I went far over the mountains? Yea, we travelled many sleeps, yet we scarcely rested. The world was white about us. The spirits carried us over dark places in the hills, wherein Perdlugssuaq makes his home. But he did not strike. We were borne over abysses. The spirits of one's ancestors are often kind. We went through the world of the fog, she who was the wife of that hill spirit who carried the dead from their graves and ate them. Yea, she passed beneath our feet. We came to the high mountains. We passed upward where the eyes of strange beasts glared upon us. I was afraid. But I called upon my father. Then the spirits of the great dead came down upon us. They wove kamiks and ahttees of fire. Their eyes burned as the great light of the stars. They did not regard us. We came unto the ahmingmah . . . But upon our return the hill spirits who live in the caves wakened and struck with their great harpoons. They shook the mountains. Then the good ancestors carried me through sila—the world of the air—yea, my dogs, my sledge, and the ahmingmah meat. I had called upon those who went before me. I woke at the bottom of the mountain, three of my dogs were crushed, my sledge was broken . . . I lay there a while . . . I slept again . . . often . . . Then I lashed the sled, ate a little of the ahmingmah meat, and came . . . hither . . . How . . . Ootah knows not . . . It was hard at times . . . I could hardly walk . . . the ice moved about me . . . always . . . so—" He described a circle with his hand. "But I bethought me of Annadoah—" he smiled—"and I said I go to Annadoah . . . That is how I came . . . I said Annadoah is hungry—yea, as I said it when the eyes looked at me on the mountains, when the hill spirits made my heart grow cold, when Koolotah desired to return . . . Koolotah—he hath gone . . . Koolotah's dogs are gone . . . But I called upon my dead father, my dead grandfather, and the older ones—and I thought of Annadoah." He leaned toward her yearningly, his voice trembling. Fearfully the girl drew away. "It is she who brought the ahmingmah meat," he said. "It is she who led me to the ahmingmah. Yea, she brings you the ahmingmah meat. For the thought of her brings Ootah back after the spirits strike . . . It is she, who lives in the heart of Ootah, who has done all this . . . But you are hungry. Come!"

He rose slowly and crept through the underground tunnel leading from the igloo. The others followed. Without, most of the tribe were waiting. At Ootah's command the men unlashed the sledge-load of meat, and the division began. To Annadoah Ootah gave one-eighth of the load, enough to last by frugal use for more than two moons, or months. Among the others, of whom there were about twenty-five, the remainder was proportionately divided. For himself Ootah reserved only as much as he gave the others.

Outside Annadoah's igloo all engaged in a joyous revel. Hungrily they feasted upon the raw meat. Then they beat drums and danced. Their voices rose in hilarious chants. Wild joy shook them. Ootah was acclaimed hero of the tribe. Although they have no chiefs, he was accorded the honor of being the bravest and strongest among them. And to the strongest and most heroic the last word in all things belongs.

Of all who were able to participate in the celebration, Maisanguaq alone retired. From the seclusion of his igloo entrance he watched the scene with rancor in his heart.

Over the northern skies the auroral lights played, lighting the scene of spontaneous rejoicing with magical glory. Great silver coronas—or rings of light—constantly arose in the north, passed to the zenith and melted as they descended to the south. Luminous curtain-like films closed and parted alternately like the veils of a Valhalla drawn back and forth before the warrior souls of the north. Tremendous fan-shaped shafts of opalescent fire shot toward the zenith and like search-lights moved to and fro across the sky. The clouds became illumined with an interior flame and glowed like diaphanous mists of gold half concealing the vague faces of the beauteous spirits of the dead. Their billowing edges palpitated with a tremor as of quicksilver. Within and through this empyreal web of light marvellous scenes were simultaneously woven. They lasted a moment's space and vanished. The natives, dancing unrestrainedly, saw heavenly mountain slopes covered with grass of emerald fire and glittering with starry flowers. They saw the gigantic shadows of celestial ahmingmah passing behind the clouds . . . and here and there were the cyclopean adumbrations of great caribou, and creatures for which they did not have a name. A tossing sea of rippling waves of light was presently unfolded, and over it they saw millions of birds, with wings of fire, soaring with bewildering rapidity from horizon to zenith . . . This faded . . . Monstrous and gorgeous flowers of living rainbow tints burst into bloom—fields of them momentarily covered the heaven. These the natives regarded with only half accustomed wonder, for they knew there were strange flowers in the land of the dead.

As they danced, the colored imageries steadily faded in the growing intensity of the great banded coronas that rose from the north. A light of cold electric fire increasingly blazed over the heavens until a frigid silver day, brighter than any day of sunshine, reached its brief noon upon the earth.