“Yes,” the Kabluna answered, while his kind blue eyes held Kak’s. “We call it a rifle—it is for hunting. To-morrow I will show you how it kills animals from a great distance.”
The boy beamed. He liked this stranger; and the stranger liked him. He had spotted Kak as a bright youngster during the first half hour, and was willing to take some trouble and tell him stories of the far-away country, wording them simply so they could be understood. Our everyday life and surroundings are so strange to the Eskimos they could not possibly conceive them from just hearing the names spoken. If you had never seen a wheel you would find it difficult to think of a great, puffing, railroad engine. These people had never seen wheels nor any means of going about but the dog-drawn sleds, skin boats called kayaks, and their own legs; so the white man did not talk about street cars or telephones or automobiles, but described our homes built up and up, one room on top of another, till they were six rooms high, and twice six rooms high, occasionally even six times six rooms high. These Eskimos cannot count above six, so this was his only way of conveying an idea about the height of our tall buildings.
Kak worked it out next morning with snow blocks.
“Six times six rooms high!” he marveled, gazing at the pile.
It seemed unbelievable. Why should anybody want to build up into the air that way with all the open ground to spread on? He looked over his flat, white world, stretching bare and vast north, east, south, and west, and muttered: “Unbelievable!”
Kak had heard many stories of their shamans, or medicine-men, going to sleep and visiting the moon in their sleep, and seeing things quite as extraordinary as houses six times six rooms high. None of these, however, had fired him with a desire to follow. Now he tried to imagine climbing up the outside of such a house to the very top, pinching himself all the way to be sure he was awake. The notion made him chuckle, but not loud enough to interrupt. He intended to be very polite and hear more and more. So he sat quiet listening with his mouth a little open and his eyes wide and round; and at the end of each tale, while the others cried their amazement, he nodded, saying in his heart:
“Some day I will travel to the Kabluna’s country and see these marvels for myself.”
They sat late over breakfast next morning listening to more queer talk, till at last their neighbor roused them calling in the tunnel:
“I am Hitkoak. I am coming in.”
This is the polite way for an Eskimo to announce his visit.