Ice Drift (9780547540610) (5 page)

The villagers always came out when Inu spoke his words of wisdom. Inuit believed that the powerful spirits,
tuungait,
could be influenced only by a shaman. The shamans worked with the supernatural and had their own secret language. Inu spent most of his time searching for stolen souls and fighting bad spirits, the people were told.

What made Inu most special was that he could communicate with his polar bear spirit, his
tornaq.
He had gone to the moon and back with his
tornaq,
and had even talked with the long-dead Inuit hunters who lived in the skies.

Inu wore a caribou-skin headband, and a caribou pouch hung from his long neck. No one knew what secrets were hidden in the pouch. Around his waist was a belt of wolf teeth. If bad spirits were attacking the village, he might wear a hideous mask made of whalebone. The people of Nunatak were afraid of Inu's powers, but he did seem able to cure certain illnesses, and he could communicate with the animals and birds, especially bears and ravens. His raven, Punna, was always at his side. It was said that they talked back and forth when alone.

There were good spirits and bad spirits living with the Inuit. The very worst were the
tupilait.
They were evil liars and could cause illness and pain. If a good shaman like Inu caught them, he would end up covered with blood, and only the urine of a musk ox could wash it away.

The flickering blue flame of the large oil lamp lit Inu's long, narrow face, smooth despite his years. He had a white goatee, and it was said his eyes were capable of seeing through stone.

Kussu and Maja sat with the others on the musk ox carpeting, waiting for Inu to speak. Maja chewed on sealskin, which she had planned to use to make summer trousers for Alika and Sulu. Feeble Miak had stopped by in the late afternoon to explain again how he'd survived on his floe many years before. He'd told and retold that story constantly in the village. It was the only memory he had that was substantial. Everyone in the village remained concerned about Alika, Sulu, and Jamka. Like Miak, they'd come by Kussu's dwelling to offer their concerns and thoughts. They all knew the dangers of a drifting floe.

The drumbeater had finished, and Inu, looking directly at Kussu and Maja, said, "They are alive, along with Jamka. They have built an
iglu
and are safe. I can see them..." The silence of the people was as full as that of the mock moons.

Miak, his chin whiskers white and his lips quivering from old age, shouted from the packed audience of eighty-one men, women, and children, "I told you so!"

"Hush, Miak," Kussu said.

Inu spoke again. "The dangers they face are
nanuk
and hunger. I do not know how many bears are on the floe with them, but Jamka is there to warn them. As you know, the farther they drift south, the scarcer seals will become. Alika must try to kill foxes and birds, the dovekies and ptarmigan, with arrows. They should not starve, no matter how long they have to sail."

Miak insisted on interrupting. "I was down to eating pieces of my clothing before rescue!" he called out. Hunters in the Arctic, unable to find any game, were occasionally forced to eat pieces of the skins that covered their bodies. They ate sealskin ropes. It was a last resort.

Miak continued, "Pieces of the floe kept coming off as I went south, until I was sitting on ice no bigger than three musk oxen..."

Inu, eyes as sharp as lance points, said, "Be quiet, Miak. Nuliajuk will take care of them. I promise she will."

Nuliajuk was the goddess of the sea. She was half woman and half fish, and she could communicate with bears, seals, walrus, and all the fish.

When they heard Inu talk of Nuliajuk, Kussu and Maja smiled widely. If the queen of the sea was watching over Alika and Sulu, they would survive.

The beat of the drum was measured and slow as Inu went into his prayer stance. In the most common séance, the shaman summoned his spirits and questioned them. It was said that when he was alone, he could go underground or take flight to the moon. Punna always went with him. He could also go to other lands in the sky. The people of Nunatak believed all this was possible.

When he came out of his prayer stance, Inu said to Kussu, "You must make one last effort to find them. You must take the
umiak
and paddle south with your neighbors and search for them before another gale reaches us."

There was immediate response from the men, even though most had just returned that day from the caribou hunt, and the big skin-boat was launched with twelve paddlers. Shooting stars crossed the sky above, sometimes forming a silver thread from the point where one first appeared until it faded out. Kussu thought they might have luck in finding the boys. He was certain Inu had summoned the shooting stars.

In the Greenland Strait above the Arctic Circle is
slush ice, rind ice, cake ice.
There is
land-fast floe-edge
ice, sometimes an ice foot along the edge of the shores,
and glacier ice tongues; fields of pack ice a hundred
miles square. There is broken sea ice, sometimes
submerged, honeycombed and rotten.

"I'm so scared," Sulu said.

"About that bear?" Alika asked.

"Yes."

Supper over, the flame in the
qulliq
extinguished, they were on the sleeping platform with Jamka. A thin shaft of moonlight was shining down from the new ice window.

"I am, too," Alika admitted. They'd talked about the baby walrus and the bloody violence of the bear as they walked back to the snowhouse. It was not a memory that would soon go away.

"How many
nanuk
are out here?" Sulu asked.

"I don't know, but I want them to stay away," Alika replied.

Sulu, rubbing Jamka's back, said, "We're lucky to have him. He'll always warn us if
nanuk
comes, won't he?

"Yes, always."

"I think we should give Jamka more meat so he's always strong and can fight
nanuk.
"

"That's a good idea, Sulu," Alika said with a smile.

The polar bear was as much a part of Inuit life as the seal. In the very darkest part of the winter, Papa sometimes talked about
nanuk
while he carved a knife of walrus tusk or a spoon from musk ox horn. Mama would sit and listen while chewing on sealskin.

From Papa and the other hunters, Alika had learned a lot about
nanuk,
the royalty of the Arctic. The bears lived much of the year on the sea ice and gave birth to their cubs in snowdrift dens on land. As well as respecting the bears, all Inuit were afraid of them.

Over the years, Alika had seen a few lumbering along the floe edges in the distance. He had run, fearing they'd scent him. Outside his family's dwelling, buried in snow much of the year, were five honored skulls of bears his papa had killed. The skulls warned other roaming bears not to intrude. So the boys had grown up with reminders of
nanuk.

Alika knew that with its thick fur, huge paws,
small ears, and stubby tail, a bear could weigh up to fifteen hundred
kabloona
pounds. They were once brown in color, legend said, but became white to blend in with the snow and ice. They dated back millions of winters, Alika had heard.

Alika and Sulu liked the old stories about
nanuk
best, particularly the ones passed down from the
illupiruq,
the great-grandparents. The boys asked the same things over and over. Papa answered each time as if the questions were new. Mama often nodded.

When the hunters of Nunatak gathered together in the long darkness, Alika and Sulu listened with the other villagers. The stories were often about
nanuk
and the old times when the people speared the great white nomad, the times before guns. They always spoke of
nanuk
with reverence. When they killed
nanuk,
they asked for forgiveness. When they escaped his wrath and were not eaten alive, they thanked him.

Old Sipsu said, "A hungry bear kept me inside my hunting
iglu
for five days until I used my knife to dig out the back of it. The bear chased me and took off part of my leg and was ready to chew the rest of me until I stabbed his nose. My mama made a clean cut of my stump and my papa made a crutch to replace the part that
nanuk
had eaten."

Old Arutaq laughed when he talked about outrunning bears, but everyone knew he had been paralyzed the one time
nanuk
had surprised him at a seal hole. He'd jammed his spear into the bear's black nose and taken off across the floe. Sulu had laughed long about that, imagining what bowlegged Arutaq had looked like running away.

Then Appa told of being out in his kayak, trying to spear a beluga whale, when
nanuk
swam up from behind, more interested in him than the whale.

There were many stories like these passed down by the brave men who hunted
nanuk
with spears and dogs on open ice.

As Alika and Sulu lay together on their sleeping platform in the dark, Sulu said, "Tell me all the old stories again."

Alika said, "Well, animals ruled the lands everywhere, thousands and thousands of winters ago, well before the first two-legged hunter was born. Caribou and musk oxen were ten feet tall back then. Other animals were even larger than icebergs, with tails twenty feet long."

"Where are they now?" Sulu asked.

"They've been dead a long, long, long time."

"How long?" Sulu asked.

"I don't know," Alika answered. "But as time went by,
nanuk
became smaller, as did the caribou and the musk oxen, the size we have today."

Sulu said, "Why don't the caribou and musk oxen have souls like bears?"

"I think they do," said Alika. "Maybe Inu knows for sure. But I do know about the souls of bears. Papa always made certain that the souls of the ones he killed were satisfied and went to
nanuk
heaven. He smeared caribou fat on their mouths and hung his lance over their heads for five days. He would not kill another bear for many months, and that satisfied their souls."

Both Alika and Sulu knew about Papa's fight with one bear before they were born. He had been gone three days and came home with the
nanuk
carcass on his sledge and with frightful wounds on his back. They'd seen his scars. He'd shared the bear meat with the whole village.

Sulu said, "Is it true what Inu has said, that bears can hear us talk?"

"I think so," Alika answered. Inu would not say what wasn't true.

"After they are dead, can they hear us talk?"

"Their souls can. They never really die," Alika said.

Sulu said, "When Papa killed his last bear, he put its skull over in a corner and Mama decorated it with beads. Why?"

"To make its spirit happy. Inu said to always do that."

Sulu asked, "How does Inu know so much about the spirits of the bears?"

"Because Inu has been to bear country on the other side of the moon. Like I said, the soul of the bear, the
tornaq,
does not die with the body," Alika said.

Sulu asked, "Do you think
nanuk
is part human?"

"It is said that when the bears are in their own houses, they are naked like us, but they put their hides back on when they go outside."

Sulu asked, "Is it true that long ago
nanuk
took turns being human and even married humans?"

Alika nodded. "They are much like us. As you know, they can stand on their hind legs, sit down or lean against a hummock. You know the skinned carcass of the bear resembles our bodies. Think about that, Sulu."

Sulu asked, "Is there any time of the year when
nanuk
is more dangerous?"

Alika replied, "It all depends on the food supply. One time before you were born, the seals just disappeared. No one knows why they swam away, but the bears were starving and so were we. Then some of the bears came to our village, and Papa stood guard and shot them. It was their survival or ours."

Sulu asked, "What makes the bear so dangerous?"

"Papa said that the thin bear is always more dangerous than the fat bear. It is only hunger that causes them to attack humans. I think they are the most dangerous in late summer, when the water is still open and they haven't had many meals. Remember Jimi?"

"Yes."

A bear had come into the village and carried Jimi away. He was ten years old, the same age as Sulu. His remains were found two miles from the dwellings, causing much sorrow as well as fright.

"I hope that doesn't happen to us," Sulu said. "A bear eating me!"

"Papa always told us to stay away from
nanuk
until we are very experienced hunters. And we must never mistake its speed. It looks slow when it walks along, but an eyeblink will show you just how fast it can run. Suddenly, those jaws that can take an arm off have you by the shoulder. But remember this, Sulu: The bear will let off a slight puff of air before it attacks. If you hear it, shoot. This has happened to Papa a few times. The bear surprised him, and he heard the soft puffs. One time the bear was only five arm-lengths away. Hungry bears will stalk you and come up behind you."