Tales of the Eskimo E-Book

Henry Toke Munn

• Herausgeber: Alien Ebooks
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 228

Beschreibung

These stories were mostly written to pass a few hours of the long Arctic nights. Some are wholly fiction, others fact, or founded on fact, and the reader will easily discriminate.

Leseprobe

A Comely Matron.

Tales of the Eskimo

Being Impressions of a Strenuous, Indomitable,

and Cheerful Little People.

. With Photographs by the Author .

BY

Captain HENRY TOKE MUNN

LONDON: 38 Soho Square, W.1

W. & R. CHAMBERS, LIMITED

EDINBURGH: 339 High Street

Printed in Great Britain.

W. & R. Chambers, Ltd., London and Edinburgh.

TO

MY WILLING WORKERS

CHEERFUL COMPANIONS

AND

VERY FAITHFUL FRIENDS

THE BAFFIN-LAND

ESKIMO

PREFACE.

These stories were mostly written to pass a few hours of the long Arctic nights. Some are wholly fiction, others fact, or founded on fact, and the reader will easily discriminate.

Many were told me in snow igloos on my travels, when a howling blizzard and its fog of fine, drifting snow enforced a halt, maybe for two or three days on end. Others I gathered lazying outside the skin tents in the warm brilliant sunshine of the brief summer days, when the snow-buntings piped their little lark-like song overhead, or the midnight sun was high in the sky to the northward; this is the Eskimo’s happiest time—especially for their children shouting and playing amongst the rocks, or along the sandy beaches of the yet ice-bound sea.

I am painfully aware of the literary shortcomings in this little volume, but I have endeavoured faithfully to record the life of the native Eskimo as it was, or as it might have been, in the incidents related. That there are very black sheep amongst them my tales will show, and certain kinds of half-breed—notably the ‘Portuguee’—often seemed to me to be unreliable and faithless; other half-breeds, again, I have found as true as steel, and indistinguishable from the pure-bred native in their customs or outlook on life.

If I have succeeded in conveying the impression of a strenuous, indomitable, cheerful little people, in general kindly to their old folk and affectionate to their children, I have done them bare justice; to this may be added that they meet life, or death, with a high and gallant bearing, and I have always found them faithful to their word with the white man to whom they have given their confidence and in whom they trust. Arctic explorers, travellers, and scientists—such as Peary, Amundsen, Stefansson, Hanbury, Anderson, and Jenness—confirm this view. A quotation from Amundsen’s book, The North-West Passage, epitomises it: ‘The best wish I can make them (the Nechilling tribe of King William Land) is—“May civilisation never reach them.” ’ The wish, alas! was a vain one, for sixteen years later the ethnologist Jenness records them—or their near neighbours—‘doomed to become the economic slaves of the great world to the South of them.’

They are, I fear, a passing race, destined to disappear under the blighting shadow of a complex civilisation they can so well go without, until it once reaches them.

Before I too pass on, I raise my hand and salute them, for many of them have been my brave companions and true friends.

Henry Toke Munn.

CONTENTS.

Spirit Island

9

The Winning of Oo-lai-you

52

The Great Herd

65

The Law of the North

82

A Man-Child of the Arctic

108

The Raiders

132

Nest-Robbers

151

Where the Rainbow Ends

164

King of the Arctic: The Life-Story of a Polar Bear

178

Nat-ka

184

Of Greenland Whales

193

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

A Comely Matron

Frontispiece

facing page

Kyak-jua

9

A Well-Loaded Sled

17

A N. Baffin Land Group

33

An Arctic Village

41

Maternal Cares

49

Dog Team Adrift on an Ice Pan

57

Spring-Time. Moving to the Deer Grounds

65

Ay-you’s Wife

73

A Summer Tent

81

A Winter Hut

89

Baby-Hood

97

The Younger Generation

105

A Man-Child

121

A Happy Mother

129

The Arctic Jumper

145

Gossiping

161

Captain Munn’s Farewell—‘Tabow-eetay’ (Good-bye)

185

The Carver

193

Kyak-jua.

TALES OF THE ESKIMO.

SPIRIT ISLAND.

I have told this story to only a few people, and my attempt to get a hearing before the Natural History authorities, both in New York and in London, completely failed, the secretaries treating me in pretty much the same manner. ‘Oh yes,’ they said indulgently, looking at my card, ‘that’s all right. We have heard about it, and we’ll take the matter up sometime. But don’t call again; wait till we write you.’ Then they rang, and one of the attendants was told to show me round, if I cared to see the place, and put me on the way to where I was staying. Of course, they thought I was a crank.

I publish the narrative, therefore, rather reluctantly, accepting the fact that it will not be believed, but with a hope that it may inspire some credulous and courageous naturalist, with a taste for adventure, to visit Spirit Island, and return with a live or a dead specimen of what I saw there. If he can do this, his name will go down in history, and the museums—and the circuses—of the world will grovel at his feet for its possession. But he needn’t ask me to accompany him.

In 1914 I was sent to the Arctic by my employers (a London firm well known in the mining world) to investigate certain localities for alluvial gold, and others for tin ore. In 1914-15 I wintered at Ponds Inlet, the north-east end of Baffin Land—lat. 72·48° N., long. 76·10° W. I made the investigations according to my instructions, and in August 1915 returned to the depot to await the arrival of my ship. By 15th October no ship had appeared, and I knew I was in for another winter. I had with me a Scottish lad to look after the depot in my absence—for the Eskimo will steal if no white man is about, and we were not short of supplies.

In the event of the non-arrival of my ship, and a second winter being enforced, I had been asked to try to investigate a certain locality on the north coast of a large island, known as Prince of Wales Land, about five hundred miles west of my depot. This island lies at the south-west end of Barrow Strait, and between Peel Sound and Franklin Strait to the east and M‘Clintock Channel and M‘Clure Strait to the west. It can be seen on any Arctic map.

I set out from the depot in February, with seven natives and three dog-sleds, leaving orders for the ship to come for me to Leopold Island in Lancaster Sound if I did not return before the ice broke up. My party were Panne-lou, my head man, who drove my sled with ten dogs; Akko-molee, who had his own sled and team of nine dogs; and Now-yea, who also had his own sled and eleven dogs, four of which were only three-quarter-grown puppies. Each man had his wife, without whom no native will make a prolonged journey, and Akko-molee had the only child in the party, a lad of about eleven years old, named Kyak-jua.

A word as to my natives. Panne-lou was a steady, reliable fellow, a good seal-hunter and dog-driver. His wife, Sal-pinna, was a disagreeable, cross-grained—and cross-eyed—woman, but capable and a good worker. Akko-molee was taken mainly because he was a native of Admiralty Inlet, two hundred miles west of my depot, and had hunted bear on the North Somerset coast. He was only moderately useful, and very inclined to sulk on any provocation. His boy, Kyak-jua, was a capital little fellow, the life of our party, full of energy, and a great favourite with all of us. I had given him a .22 rifle, and he was constantly getting me ptarmigan and Arctic hares with it when we were on the land. His mother, Anno-rito, was a quiet, pleasant woman, and entirely devoted to her boy.

Now-yea, my third native, was an active, merry little man, willing and tireless, but irresponsible and very excitable. His number two wife (he had a couple), In-noya, was the best woman, and eventually proved to be the best man, in the party. I shall have more to say about her later on. Now-yea had left his number one wife and four children, all of whom were hers, at my depot, and I had agreed to provide for them till our return.

The pay, arranged before starting, consisted of tobacco, sugar, tea, and biscuit for the trip—or as long as our supplies lasted—and to each man, on our return to the depot, a new rifle, ammunition, a box (twenty-two pounds) of tobacco, a barrel of biscuit, some tea, coffee, and molasses, and a spy-glass, or some equivalent if they already had one; also some oddments, such as cooking-utensils, day-clocks, needles, braid, scented soap, &c., for the women, and ten pounds of tobacco to each one. These were regarded as high wages by the other natives, of whom I could have had my pick, but they were fully earned, and many extras I threw in, as the sequel will show.

My outfit—besides the supplies already mentioned—consisted of twenty pounds of dynamite, some caps and fuse, also one of these new, very small, ‘Ubique’ batteries, six short drills, and a two and a half pound hammer. We had a rifle per man, and one spare one—all single-shot ·303 carbines, except mine, which was an ordinary English service magazine-rifle; plenty of ammunition; a complete sailing-gear for each man, and two spare harpoons and lances; a hand-axe for each sled; native lamps for cooking and heating, and cooking-utensils. We had og-juke (bearded seal) skins, for boot-soles later on, and seal-skins and deer-skin legs for cold-weather footwear, plenty of dressed deer-skin for stockings and socks, deer-skin blankets and heavy winter-killed hides to sleep on. We all had new deer-skin clothes, and expected to get young seal ‘white coats’ for wear on the return journey, when the others would be too warm.

My medicines were a flask of brandy, some tabloid drugs and antiseptics, a few bandages, and some surgical needles and thread. My personal luxury was a few dozen of the excellent ‘Cambridge’ soup-powders. I took a small kayak (skin canoe) as far as Leopold Island for sealing later, if we had to wait there, and also a tent.

One item of my outfit, a small Kodak camera, I was unfortunate enough to smash hopelessly a few days before starting. I shall for ever regret this disaster—for such it proved to be—and the irremediable loss it occasioned me.

This is not a story of Arctic travel, so I will omit the details of the journey. My route lay through Navy Board Inlet, and thence west along Lancaster Sound to Prince Regent Inlet, crossing to Leopold Island, and over the North Somerset Land—which is a flat tableland in from the coast—to Peel Sound and Prince of Wales Land. We had to make about six hundred and twenty-five miles of travelling, though, as I have said, it was only five hundred miles as the crow flies, and, of course, we had to depend on sea and land animals for ourselves and our dogs to live on, and for blubber for light, cooking, and warmth. Such journeys are made every winter by some of the Eskimo, either when visiting other parties or on hunting-trips, and are by no means unusual. The main, indeed the indispensable, thing being to find seals, halts of a day or two are made for the purpose.

Now, I want to emphasise the fact that Prince of Wales Land is by no means what literary people call a terra incognita, at least so far as the coast-line is concerned. Parry discovered it a hundred years ago, and Roald Amundsen sailed his famous little ship the Gjoa down Peel Sound and Franklin Strait when he made the North-West Passage. No natives have been found on North Somerset or on Prince of Wales Land, though hunting-parties visit North Somerset occasionally.

I had not told my destination to the natives beyond North Somerset, and when we arrived at Leopold Island, and I unfolded my plans in the igloo that night, there was great consternation. We should starve; the ice would go out and leave us stranded there; and, lastly—here was the real hitch—it was a ‘bad’ country.

‘Why bad,’ I asked, ‘when you say none of you have been there?’

There was a pause before Panne-lou said reluctantly, ‘It is full of Torn-ga [bad spirits]; we are afraid of them.’

It took me half the night, talking and cajoling, before I overcame this absurd objection. Finally they consented to go on, but stipulated that we should travel close to the shore at Prince of Wales Land, to which I, of course, willingly agreed.

A small building, once full of stores, stands on Leopold Island. Naturally, it had been completely looted by the natives, but it served excellently to store our kayak and tent in, out of the weather.

I will relate one incident of the journey, as it shows the stuff one member of our party was made of. The day after we left Leopold Island we camped on the tableland of North Somerset, and I decided to stay a day there, and try for some deer, both as a change from seal-meat, of which we were all tired, and also to provide a ‘cache,’ or store of meat against our return.

I sent the three men off with all the dogs early in the morning; not feeling very well, I remained at the igloo. I had taken my rifle to pieces to clean it, and had all the parts in my lap, when I heard a cry outside, and Sal-pinna said, ‘Quick! He says a bear.’ My rifle was, for the moment, useless, so I plunged out of the igloo to get the spare rifle, which was always in In-noya’s care in the other igloo. Outside I saw little Kyak-jua, about a hundred yards away, running for his life towards the igloos with a very large bear within fifteen or twenty paces of him. In-noya was out of the igloo, with the rifle, running towards them. I did not think the boy had a chance, for he was directly between the rifle and the bear, and one blow of those formidable paws would have brained him, but suddenly In-noya called sharply, ‘Tella-peea-nin; tella-peea-nin’ (‘To the right; to the right’). The boy, instantly divining he was in the line of fire, doubled to the right like a hare. A shot rang out, and the bear roared with pain, then turned and savagely bit his hind-quarter, which had been hit. The next instant he was charging full tilt at In-noya. She had dropped on one knee to shoot, and, without moving, coolly levelled her rifle again. So close was the bear when she shot, and laid him dead with a bullet in his brain, that as she sprang on one side the impetus of his charge carried him half his length over where she had knelt; the record was written plainly on the snow.

A Well-Loaded Sled.

I asked In-noya later why she did not fire sooner. ‘I had only taken two cartridges, when I ran out of the igloo,’ she said indifferently, ‘and I had to make sure of him.’ It was as fine an exhibition of coolness and steady nerve as I have ever seen.

We reached my objective on 25th March, crossing Peel Sound from North Somerset in one day’s travel of about forty-five miles. We kept very close to the Prince of Wales Land shore, and I noticed we always built our igloos now on the land, even if suitable snow was not so handy as on the ice, though we often had to negotiate some rough ground-ice before getting to shore.

A very disastrous mishap occurred the day after we arrived. Seven of our dogs, divided amongst the three teams, ate something poisonous they found along the shore, and died the same night; three more were very bad, but recovered. I cannot imagine what an Eskimo dog could find to poison him in his own country, but this was certainly the cause of death. The natives, of course, blamed the Torn-ga, and were greatly disturbed.

By 27th March I had seen all I needed to. The reported tin-vein was a vein of iron pyrite ore. I do not know who started this yarn about tin, but the description and locality of the vein agreed so closely with the data given me that I have always concluded the information was found in one of the private logs of the old Arctic voyagers, perhaps one of Parry’s or Ross’s crews.

Seals had been very hard to find since we crossed Peel Sound, and our dogs were getting hungry, so, after wasting the 28th looking for seals, which refused to come to the breathing-holes we found, we started the return journey on the 29th, and reached the north-east end of Prince of Wales Land on the 31st, only getting one small seal in that time.

About fifteen miles north of Prince of Wales Land lies a large island, and Panne-lou volunteered the information that the Eskimo name of it was ‘Spirit Island’; but he could not, or would not, tell me anything more, the subject being strictly taboo by him, and also by the others.

When we left the next morning early, a south-east breeze was blowing up Peel Sound, and it looked as if it would be a fine day for the crossing. We had made only about half-way over when one of those sudden Arctic storms swept down on us, shutting out all sight of land at once. The natives had a discussion whether to go ahead or return, and decided to push on. Panne-lou complained he was feeling ill, and was on the sled all day. Soon after the storm broke, the wind must suddenly have changed, for by five o’clock no land came in sight, and the storm was increasing in violence every minute. Panne-lou became very ill, so there was no alternative but to camp where we were.

Next morning it was blowing a blizzard, and Panne-lou was delirious and in a high fever. Even if it had been fit weather, it would have killed him to move him.

This part of the Arctic lies north of the Magnetic Pole, and the compass variation is nearly one hundred degrees; it is so sluggish and unreliable that it is quite useless for making a course in thick weather. We did not know, therefore, if we were north or south of our course.

That night—1st April—the first two dogs disappeared. My log says: ‘At 11 p.m. dogs suddenly started howling; thought it was a bear, but dogs stampeded to igloo door much afraid. Suddenly one gave a queer stifled yap, and about same time door broke and dogs tumbled pell-mell into igloo . . .’ The ‘door’ is a block of snow set up on the inside of the igloo. Now-yea and In-noya were sleeping in my igloo, to help nurse Panne-lou—for he had to be constantly watched—and as soon as the row started Now-yea, at In-noya’s instigation, jumped up, and throwing his kouletang (deer-skin jumper) on the floor of the igloo from the snow sleeping-bench, stood on it naked—Eskimo always turn in thus—and held the snow ‘door’ till it broke in his hands, letting the dogs in.

Meantime I had slipped on my kouletang and some deer-skin stockings, and, as soon as the door was clear of dogs, cautiously crawled out with my rifle, expecting to find an unusually bold and hungry bear at our ‘storehouse,’ a small snow-house built against the side of the igloo, containing the meat, blubber, harness, &c., which the dogs might damage or eat. As a rule rifles are kept outside, to prevent the frost coming out of them; but the natives insisted that they must all be taken inside that night.

I saw or heard nothing; it was a very dark night, and the drifting snow was blinding, stinging the eyes like sand. I crawled back, half-frozen, and we put up another snow door. The other igloo, fifteen or twenty yards away, had the same experience, so there must have been two visitors, as we each lost a dog at the same time.

The blizzard lasted three days, and though we built porches for the dogs in front of igloo doors and shut them in, we lost two dogs each night in the same mysterious manner. The ‘doors’ were always broken inwards, and a dog quickly and neatly snatched away. Obviously no bear was doing this, for his methods would have been more clumsy.

On the third night I made a hole in the igloo over the ‘door,’ and as soon as the dogs yelped put my rifle through and fired three or four shots into the porch. Next morning Akko-molee’s dog was gone, but outside our porch our dog lay dead. His neck was broken and his throat torn out.

By this time the natives were completely demoralised, with the exception of In-noya. Now-yea sat shivering, as if with ague, the whole night, and Sal-pinna was little better. She had trodden on a knife-blade in the igloo, and cut her foot so badly that I had to put seven stitches in it. In Akko-molee’s igloo they remained in their blankets all the time, and he would hardly answer me when I called to him.

Meanwhile Panne-lou improved but little, and I kept him alive on a few spoonfuls of brandy-and-water every hour. On the third day the fever had abated, but he was still wandering and semi-conscious.

There was good excuse for the natives. An igloo is not the slightest protection against an attack; an arrow or a lance would go through it like paper. It was a trying job, therefore, to sit inside expecting something—one could not tell what—to happen. For the natives, who believed implicitly it was the Torn-ga, it was worse than for me. In-noya, however, never lost her self-control, and she and I fed and watched Panne-lou in turn.

On the morning of the fourth day—3rd April—the storm had blown itself out, but there was a dense fog, and we could not see more than a hundred yards or so. The natives would have harnessed the dogs and left at once, in spite of my urging that it would certainly kill Panne-lou to do so, but until it cleared they did not know which way to go, for till we saw some land, or even the stars to steer by, we were completely lost.

Akko-molee said the fog showed there was open water not far away, and vaguely opined it was a bad sign. A pressure-ridge was behind the igloos; in fact, it was at this we found snow suitable for building. I asked Akko-molee to walk in one direction along it for a short distance with a sealing-dog to try to find a breathing-hole, as we were completely out of feed, and the poor brutes were starving. I would walk down the pressure-ridge in the opposite direction for the same purpose. I arranged we should both return the moment the fog cleared. Now-yea, who was much too shaky to go away alone, was to remain at the igloo on guard.

Akko-molee demurred at first, but finally consented to go, adding, ‘Only a very little way, though.’ In-noya looked after Panne-lou, who was now sleeping quietly and in a profuse perspiration. I made some soup for him, gave her a few instructions, then left with my sealing-gear and rifle, leading a dog.

It was nine o’clock in the morning. I walked along the pressure-ridge for eight or ten minutes, when, to my surprise, I came to open water. The tide ran strongly in Barrow Strait, I knew, and the gale must have opened the ice up. We had, therefore, got far to the north of our course to reach the floe-edge, as the ice fast to the land is called. The water seemed to be of some extent, but the fog made it impossible to see how large it was. As the floe-edge is generally very irregular, deep bights forming in it where the moving pack exercises pressure, it would be very dangerous to move before we saw where we were.

It was a mere chance that we had not driven into the water or on to the moving ice in the blizzard. Seeing a seal in the water a short distance from the pressure-ridge, I let the dog go, as I did not need him, and he ran back to the igloo; I then sat down and waited for the seal to appear. Presently I shot one, but found the tide was running away from the floe, and I lost him, so I waited till it turned, which it did in about three hours. I then shot two seals, though I had to wait another hour before they came in to the floe. By this time a fairly strong tide was running under it.

As I was tying the seals together to drag them back to the igloo, I caught through the fog, in the direction of the pressure-ridge, a glimpse of a man walking down to the water’s edge. It was only an uncertain impression, for the fog shut him out immediately. I rather wondered why Akko-molee had followed me, but remembering I had sent the dog back, supposed that had to do with it.

When I arrived at the pressure-ridge, I saw nothing of Akko-molee, but leading down to the water were large drops of blood, and at the floe-edge lay a little deer-skin mitten; it could only have been Kyak-jua’s. The snow was packed as hard as a pavement by the gale, so it was no use to look for tracks on it, but right at the water’s edge, where it was softer and wet, was an odd-looking track, rather as if it had been made by some gigantic bird with webbed feet. The claw-marks did not show, as the toes overlapped the edge of the ice.

What did the blood mean? How came little Kyak-jua’s mitten to be there? I felt sick at heart as I quickly thought it over. A tragedy had happened, I was sure. I ran back to where I had left the seals, about sixty yards from the water’s edge; hastily buried one in the snow to keep it thawed, cutting a hole with my sheath-knife for the purpose; threw the other on my shoulder—they were both small seals—and ran towards the igloo. The tell-tale drops of blood stopped about three hundred yards from the floe-edge.

At the igloo I found Now-yea pacing back and forth before the door, shouting ‘spirit-talk,’ and nearly crazy; Anno-rito, the boy’s mother, inside unconscious; and In-noya gray-faced and crying quietly, but faithfully tending Panne-lou as I had told her. My arrival upset her for a moment, however, as she cried out, ‘I thought you had gone too.’ I shut up Now-yea by cuffing him, and sent him into the igloo, where he sat and shivered.

In-noya told me the story succinctly. Kyak-jua had left his mother’s igloo to come and see In-noya, for they were great friends. Now-yea was inside, warming himself, at the time; by-and-by Anno-rito called out, and In-noya replied the boy was not there. The poor mother rushed out shrieking for the boy, and on entering our igloo fell unconscious. In-noya did not dare to leave Panne-lou, who was very restless—Sal-pinna was useless—but she made Now-yea go out and look about. The tears streamed down her face, for she loved the little lad dearly. ‘It is no good to look,’ she sobbed; ‘the Torn-ga have taken him.’ Akko-molee’s dog had returned, and In-noya said she feared for poor little Kyak-jua’s father. ‘I am going to fetch Akko-molee,’ I declared; ‘he is not far away.’

As I left the igloo I realised what had happened. Something had been lying hidden behind the pressure-ridge, and had crept close to the igloo