Red Rooney: The Last of the Crew by R. M. Ballantyne (free e books to read .txt) đź“•
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- Author: R. M. Ballantyne
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“It is not long since I fed,” he replied, with a grim smile; “I have other work on hand just now.”
“I also have work—plenty of it; and I work best when stuffed full.”
So saying, Simek put a full stop, as it were, to the sentence with a mass of blubber, while the wizard went off, as he said, to consult his torngak as to state affairs of importance.
Meanwhile Ippegoo went careering over the ice, plying his long-lashed whip with the energy of a man who had pressing business on hand.
Arrived at the village, he sought his mother’s hut. Kunelik, as his mother was named, was seated therein, not exactly darning his socks, but engaged in the Eskimo equivalent—mending his waterproof boots. These were made of undressed sealskin, with soles of walrus hide; and the pleasant-faced little woman was stitching together the sides of a rent in the upper leather, using a fine sharp fish-bone as a needle and a delicate shred of sinew as a thread, when her son entered.
“Mother,” he said in a somewhat excited tone, as he sat down beside his maternal parent, “I go to the hut of Okiok.”
Kunelik bestowed an inquiring glance upon her boy.
“Ippe,” she said, (for Eskimos sometimes use endearing abbreviations), “has Nunaga turned you upside down?”
The lad protested fervently that his head was yet in its proper position. “But,” he added, “the mother of Oki—no, the grandmother of Okiok—is sick—very sick—and I am to go and fetch the mother of—no, I mean the daughter of—of Okiok, to see her, because—because—”
“Take time, Ippe,” interrupted Kunelik; “I see that your head is down, and your boots are in the air.”
Again Ippegoo protested earnestly that he was in the reverse position, and that Nunaga was no more to him than the snout of a seal; but he protested in vain, for his pleasant little mother believed that she understood the language of symptoms, and nodded her disbelief smilingly.
“But why do you say that Kannoa is very ill, Ippe?” she asked; “I have just come from her hut where she was seemingly quite well. Moreover, she has agreed to sup this very night with the mother of Arbalik, and she could not do that if she was ill, for that means much stuffing, because the mother of Arbalik has plenty of food and cooks it very fast.”
“Oh, but it is not Kannoa’s body that is ill,” said Ippegoo quickly; “it is her mind that is ill—very ill; and nothing will make it better but a sight of Nunaga. It was Ujarak that told me so; and you know, mother, that whatever he says must be true somehow, whether it be true or not.”
“Ujarak is a fool,” said Kunelik quietly; “and you are another, my son.”
We must again remind the reader here that the Eskimos are a simple as well as straightforward folk. They say what they mean and mean what they say, without the smallest intention of hurting each other’s feelings.
“And, mother,” continued the son, scarce noticing her remark, “I want you to prepare for a journey.”
Kunelik looked surprised.
“Where to, my son?”
“It matters not just now. You shall know in time. Will you get ready?”
“No, my son, I won’t.”
“But Ujarak says you are to get ready.”
“Still, my son, I won’t.”
“Mother!” exclaimed Ippegoo, with that look and tone which usually follows the saying of something very wicked; but the pleasant little woman went on with her work with an air of such calm good-natured resolution that her son felt helpless.
“Then, mother, I know not what to do.”
“What did he tell you to do?” asked Kunelik abruptly.
The youth gave as much of his conversation with the wizard as sufficed to utterly perplex his mother’s mind without enlightening it much. When he had finished, or rather had come to an abrupt stop, she looked at him calmly, and said—
“My son, whatever he told you to do, go and do it. Leave the rest to me.”
From infancy Ippegoo had rejoiced in his wise little mother’s decisions. To be saved the trouble of thinking; to have a straight and simple course clearly pointed out to him, so that he should have nothing to do but shut his eyes and walk therein—or, if need be, run—was the height of Ippegoo’s ambition—next to solid feeding. But be not hard on him, good reader. Remember that he was an ignorant savage, and that you could not expect him to be as absolutely and entirely free from this low type of spirit as civilised people are!
Without another word, therefore, the youth leaped on to his sledge, cracked his whip, and set off on his delicate mission. Poor lad! disappointment was in store for him. But compensation was in store also.
While he was galloping along under the ice-cliffs on the east side of a great berg, not far from the end of his journey, Okiok, with his wife and daughter on a sledge, chanced to be galloping with equal speed in the opposite direction on the west side of the same berg. It was a mighty berg—an ice-mountain of nearly half a mile in length—so that no sound of cracking lash or yelping dogs passed from the one party to the other. Thus when Ippegoo arrived at his destination he found his fair bird flown. But he found a much more interesting personage in the Kablunet, who had been left under the care of Angut and Ermigit. This great sight effectually banished disappointment and every other feeling from his breast.
He first caught a glimpse of the wonderful man when half-way through the tunnel-lobby, and the sight rooted him to the spot, for Red Rooney had just finished making a full-dress suit of clothes for little Tumbler, and was in the act of fitting them on when the young Eskimo arrived.
That day Ermigit had managed to spear a huge raven. Rooney, being something of a naturalist, had skinned it, and it was while little Tumbler was gazing at him in open-eyed admiration that the thought struck him—Tumbler being very small and the raven very large.
“Come,” said he, seizing the child—with whom he was by that time on the most intimate terms of affection—“Come, I’ll dress you up.”
Tumbler was naked at the moment, and willingly consented. A few stitches with needle and thread, which the sailor always carried in his pocket, soon converted the wings of the bird into sleeves, a button at the chest formed the skin into a rude cut-away coat, the head, with the beak in front, formed a convenient cap, and the tail hung most naturally down behind. A better full-dress coat was never more quickly manufactured.
Ermigit went into convulsions of laughter over it, and the sailor, charmed with his work, kept up a running commentary in mingled English and Eskimo.
“Splendid!” he cried; “the best slop-shop in Portsmouth couldn’t match it! Cap and coat all in one! The fit perfect—and what a magnificent tail!”
At this point Ermigit caught sight of the gaping and glaring Ippegoo in the passage. With a bound he fell upon him, caught him by the hair, and dragged him in.
Of course there followed a deal of questioning, which the hapless youth tried to answer; but the fascination of the Kablunet was too much for him. He could do nothing but give random replies and stare; seeing which, Rooney suggested that the best way to revive him would be to give him something to eat.
In Eskimo land, as in England, power and industry result in the elevation and enrichment of individuals, though they have not yet resulted there, as here, in vast accumulations of wealth, or in class distinctions. The elevating tendency of superior power and practice is seen in the fact that while some hunters are nearly always pretty well off—“well-to-do,” as we would express it—others are often in a state of poverty and semi-starvation. A few of them possess two establishments, and some even go the length of possessing two wives. It is but just to add, however, that these last are rare. Most Eskimo men deem one wife quite as much as they can manage to feed.
Our friend Okiok was what we may style one of the aristocracy of the land. He did not, indeed, derive his position from inheritance, but from the circumstance of his being a successful hunter, a splendid canoe-man, and a tremendous fighter.
When it is added that his fights were often single-handed against the Polar bear, it may be understood that both his activity and courage were great. He was not an angekok, for, like his friend Angut, he did not believe in wizards; nevertheless he was very truly an angekok, in the sense of being an uncommonly wise man, and his countrymen, recognising the fact, paid him suitable respect.
Okiok possessed a town and a country mansion. That is to say, besides the solitary residence already mentioned, close to the great glacier, he owned the largest hut in the Eskimo village. It was indeed quite a palatial residence, capable of holding several families, and having several holes in it—or windows—which were glazed, if we may say so, with the scraped intestines of animals.
It was to this residence that Okiok drove on the afternoon of the day that he missed Ippegoo’s visit.
On finding that most of the men had gone southward to hunt, he resolved to follow them, for his purpose was to consult about the Kablunet, who had so recently fallen like a meteor from the sky into their midst.
“But you will stop here, Nuna, with Nunaga, and tell the women all about the Kablunet, while I go south alone. Make a feast; you have plenty to give them. Here, help me to carry the things inside.”
Okiok had brought quite a sledge-load of provisions with him, for it had been his intention to give a feast to as many of the community as could be got inside his hut. The carrying in of the supplies, therefore, involving as it did creeping on hands and knees through a low tunnel with each article, was not a trifling duty.
“Now,” said he, when at last ready to start, “be sure that you ask the liars and the stupid ones to the feast, as well as the wise; and make them sit near you, for if these don’t hear all about it from your own mouth they will be sure to carry away nonsense, and spread it. Don’t give them the chance to invent.”
While her husband was rattling away south over the hummocky sea in his empty sledge, Nuna lighted her lamps, opened her stores, and began to cook.
“Go now, Nunaga,” she said, “and tell the women who are to feed with us to-night.”
“Who shall I invite, mother?” asked pretty little Nunaga, preparing to set forth on her mission.
“Invite old Kannoa, of course. She is good.”
“Yes, mother, and she is also griggy.”
We may remark in passing that it is impossible to convey the exact meaning of the Eskimo word which we have rendered “griggy.” Enough to say, once for all, that in difficult words and phrases we give as nearly as possible our English equivalents.
“And Kunelik,” said Nuna, continuing to enumerate her guests; “I like the mother of Ippegoo. She is a pleasant little woman.”
“But father said we were to ask liars,” remarked Nunaga, with a sweet look.
“I’m coming to them, child,” said Mrs Okiok, with a touch of petulance—the result of a gulp of lamp-smoke; “yes, you may ask Pussimek also. The wife of Simek is always full of wise talk, and her baby does not squall, which is lucky, for she cannot be forced to leave Pussi behind.”
“But name the liars and stupid ones, mother,” urged Nunaga, who, being a dutiful child, and anxious to carry out her father’s wishes to the letter, stuck to her point.
“Tell Issek, then, the mother of Arbalik, to come,” returned Nuna, making a wry face. “If she is not stupid, she is wicked enough,
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