CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE DYING ESQUIMO.
CHRISTMAS and New Year's (1861) were not forgotten as holidays by the sojourners in the regions of cold and ice. Mr. Hall gave his friend Tookoolito a Bible as a memento of December twenty-fifth. She was much pleased, and at once spelled out on the title-page, Holy Bible.
Mr. Hall having heard that an Esquimo named Nukerton was seriously sick, invited Tookoolito to visit her with him. Sitting down with the sick one, with Tookoolito as an interpreter, Mr. Hall spoke to her of Jesus and the resurrection, while many of her friends stood listening with intense interest. Tookoolito bent over her sick friend weeping, and continued the talk about God, Christ, and heaven, after Mr. Hall had ceased.
Mr. Hall visited the sick one daily, administering to her bodily and spiritual wants. Going to see her on the fourth of January, he found that a new snow-hut had been built for the dying one, and her female friends had carried her into it, opening, to pass her in, a hole on the back side. It was at once her dying chamber and her tomb. For this purpose it was built in conformity to the Esquimo usage. He found Nukerton in her new quarters of stainless snow, on a bed of snow covered with skins, happy at the change though she knew that she had been brought there to die, and to die alone, as was the custom of her people. Mr. Hall proposed to carry her to die on board the ship. But even Tookoolito objected to this. It was better she should die alone; such was the custom of their fathers. Mr. Hall remained to watch alone with the dying one, but, on his leaving her igloo to do an errand at a neighboring tent, her friends sealed up its entrance. He threw back the blocks of snow piled against it and crept in. Nukerton was not dead; she breathed feebly; the lamp burned dimly, and the cold was intense; the solemn stillness of the midnight hour had come; sound of footsteps were heard, and a rustling at the entrance. Busy hands were fastening it up, not knowing, perhaps, that Mr. Hall was within. "Stop! stop!" he shouted, and all was silent as the grave. "Come in!" he again said. Koodloo, Nukerton's cousin, and a woman came in. They remained a few moments and left. Mr. Hall was alone again, and remained until the spirit of the dying woman departed. He gently closed her eyes, laid out the body as if for Christian burial, closed up the igloo, and departed.
Mr. Hall knew cases, later in his stay with this people, in which the dying were for some time alone before the vital spark was extinguished. The only attendance that the sick have is the howling and mummery of the Angekoks, who are sometimes women. They give no medicine.
Mr. Hall made several sledge excursions with his Innuit friends. One to Cornelius Grinnell Bay was full of thrilling incidents, of storms, of perils by the breaking up suddenly of the ice on which he had encamped, and one showing the wolfish rapacity of Esquimo dogs. He also had a bear chase and capture. But these, though full of exciting interest, are similar to those of other explorers, already related. The Esquimo themselves, with all their knowledge of the ice and storms, have many desperate adventures. A party of them was once busily engaged in spearing walrus, when the floe broke up and they went out to sea, and remained three months on their ice-raft! The walrus were plenty, and they had a good time of it, and returned safely.
We have given our readers an incident relating to Mr. Hall's dog, Barbekark—a not very creditable incident, it will be remembered, so far as that dog's discernment of moral right is concerned. But then we must remember that heathen dogs are not supposed to know much in that respect. Barbe, as we will call him for shortness, appears again in our story in a way which shows that he was very knowing about some matters at least.
One day, at nine in the morning, a party of the ship's company, attended by the native Koojesse, started for an excursion into Frobisher Bay. When well out of sight of the vessel a blinding storm arose, making farther progress both difficult and dangerous. Koojesse counseled an immediate construction of a snow-hut, and a halt until the storm subsided, which was the right thing to do. But the white leader ordered a return march. The dogs, as they generally will with a fierce wind blowing in their face, floundered about in reckless insubordination. Their leader, a strong animal, finally assumed his leadership, and dragged them for a while toward some islands just appearing in sight. But Barbe set back in his harness, pricked up his ears, and took a deliberate survey of the situation. To be sure he could see only a few rods in any direction, but his mind was made up. He turned his head away from the islands, and drew with such vigor and decision that all, both men and dogs, yielded to his guidance. Through the drifts, and in the face of bewildering clouds of snow which darkened their path, he brought the party straight to the ship! A few hours more of exposure and all would have perished.