sinister.
"Hearest that?" Ahningnetty asked.
"Yea," replied Papik, "_Qulutaligssuaq_, the monster who lives in the
sea, cometh with his hammers."
"He cometh to steal the children. In winter he is very hungry."
"They say he frightens people to death when a baby which is fatherless
screams."
"And after he heats his ladles, the babies often die."
Again the grating noise shuddered along the shore, and Ahningnetty,
frightened, fled to her house. Papik, pursuing his way, accosted Ootah.
As they were speaking they saw Otaq and his wife emerge from their
house. Between them they carried a small stark body. The woman was
weeping piteously. It was their child, which a brief while before had
died. The sea monster had again claimed its human toll.
Papik and Ootah disappeared--Papik to his shelter, Ootah to Annadoah's
igloo. The parents, left alone, dug up stones and ice and buried the
child. Then beneath the stars they stood in silent grief. Other
natives, emerging from their houses and seeing them, understood and
disappeared, for while relatives weep over their dead none dare disturb
their mourning. For five days, in commemoration of the death, the
parents would visit the grave of their child, During this time no
native dare cross the path leading from their igloo to the silent
resting place, and while they stood beneath the stars all alien to
their sorrow must remain within their houses. Only the Great Spirit,
who lives beyond the golden veils of the boreal lights, may hear the
sobbing of a stricken human creature over the thing of which it has
been bereft.
In the course of ten sleeps--as days are called--the first moon of the
long night sank below the horizon and the colorful stars fierily
glittered over a world of black silence. The cold increased to an
intolerable bitterness. Ootah, venturing from his igloo to dig up
walrus meat, found the earth frozen so solid that it split his steel
axe.
It was not long before many white mounds appeared beneath the liquid
|