chiding chants to Annadoah the story of her life; how her worthy mother
and august grand-parents had died, hoping she would choose a husband
from the hunters, and how she had refused all who sought her; they
told, with reiterant detail, how she had caused quarrels among the men,
and sent many of the warriors in their competitive hunts to death; and
how, finally, when Ootah, the bravest of the hunters, wanted to wed
her, she had chosen a foreign man, who deserted her and left her a
burden on the tribe. Sometimes they shook her roughly.
To the native women the brutality and virility of the men from the
south exert a potent appeal; and the fact that Olafaksoah had chosen
Annadoah many moons since still made their mouth taste bitter. This
jealousy rankling within them, they now with angry exultation took
occasion to mock and abuse her. The girl lay still and did not reply.
Her heart indeed seemed like a bird lying dead in wintertime.
Then one of three women who stood by Annadoah's couch leaned forward
and whispered a terrible thing. The others looked at the girl and
fear, mingled with hatred, shone in their eyes.
"Thou sayest this thing," said one, "how dost thou know?"
And the other, pointing accusingly to the girl who lay before them, her
face hidden in her arms, replied:
"The night my baby died . . . I heard her voice."
They stood in silence, rigid, implacable, bitter.
During the latter dark days a terrible calamity had made itself felt
among the tribe. This was the death of many of the newly born.
Outside the igloos during the past months, as the babies had come, the
number of tiny mounds had increased, and when the aurora flooded the
skies heart-broken mothers could be seen weeping over these graves of
snow. It is not uncommon in this land for babies to die at birth or
come prematurely; but the number of recent deaths and tragic accidents
to expectant mothers was unprecedented. This was undoubtedly due to
the depleted vitality of the starving mothers--but to the natives there
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