uplifted threateningly--the spectre of suffering and famine.
This wraith, brought into being by the gathering blackness in the
gulches and crevices of the mountains, filled the hearts of the natives
with unwonted foreboding.
Profound silence prevailed.
Already the sea for miles along the shore was frozen. The open water
lay at so great a distance from the land that the sound of the waves
was stilled. The birds had disappeared. Even the voices of the
sinister black guillemots and ravens were heard no more.
Annadoah's sobs rose softly over the ice.
"Spirit of my mother, thou who wast carried by the storm-winds into the
sea! Hear me! Annadoah loved one Olafaksoah, a chief from the south;
for him the heart of Annadoah became very great within her. And now
the heart of Annadoah aches. For he hath gone to the south. And not
until the birds sing in spring will he return. And Annadoah is left
alone. _Ookiah_ comes with the lash of wicked walrus thongs, and there
is no blubber buried outside Annadoah's shelter. Neither is there oil.
And the couch of Annadoah is cold--so very cold. Yea, listen, spirit
of my mother, and bring Olafaksoah back, that he may bruise Annadoah's
hands, that he may cast Annadoah to the ground and crush Annadoah if he
wills with his feet! Io-oh-h!"
She moaned this in a curious sing-song sort of chant. Over the ice the
voices of the other women rose, and each, to her departed relatives and
friends who had died in the sea, told about the important incidents of
the year and the misgivings for the winter, in a varying crooning song.
Annadoah passed Tongiguaq, who jumped and danced in a frenzy of grief.
Tongiguaq had lost three children; two had been drowned, and a new-born
baby, three months before, was born maimed. According to the custom of
the people, a fatherless defective child is doomed to death. So
rigorous is their struggle to survive, so limited the means of
existence, that a tribe cannot bear the burden of a single unnecessary
life. So in keeping with this Lycurgean law, worked out by instinct
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