Our Story: Aboriginal Voices on Canada's Past (6 page)

Then he spotted one loose dog out of the corner of his eye, and felt a bit better.

Where is that thing running to?
he thought. It disappeared into the haze of thickening snowfall.

He was startled by an odd noise, a thin cry. He turned back toward the approaching figures and realized they were running at him.

There was no time to reach his bow. He could think only to fumble about for his spear. But the figures did not attack. Instead, they turned out
to be a mixed group of Tunit men, women, and children, dark faces twisted up in fear. Some were carrying babies, awkwardly, in their arms. The men and women among them were marked by odd hairstyles. Both had great lengths of it twisted up tightly, but the men wore theirs in a peculiar ball atop their heads, while the women wore clusters over each temple. All they shared was their shabby, sooty tops, their bear-fur pants, and their short, squat frames.

No wonder there are so few dogs here
, Kannujaq thought.
I've stumbled into a Tunit camp
. He, like his dogs, no doubt, had assumed that this was a human encampment. What a mistake. Now he would be ripped apart by Tunit.

Yet the Tunit did not attack. They caught sight of Kannujaq and ground to a halt. Then they turned and ran in a different direction.

Not attacking. Running. From what?

Only a single boy, hooded and not quite of proper hunting age, did not run. Instead, he paused, seemingly mesmerized by Kannujaq's dog team. Kannujaq went forward with raised arms, to show that he meant no harm.

The boy began to speak excitedly, but Kannujaq had some difficulty understanding the words. It was almost normal language, but different—a Tunit dialect. Strangely, the boy was grinning from the depths of his vast hood, which mostly concealed a sooty face.

The boy kept pointing at him. In a few moments, Kannujaq seemed to grasp what he was saying: he was glad Kannujaq had come, and … he was late? The boy had expected him? Also …
they
were here. Them. They had come. There were other words as well, words Kannujaq couldn't quite make out. And there was one word that the boy kept repeating, but it was no use—Kannujaq simply couldn't penetrate the weird dialect.

He did, however, realize that the boy was not pointing at him. He was rambling on about the necklace around Kannujaq's neck. Upon it were strung claws from Kannujaq's first bear, along with a special bauble his grandfather had given him. There a tiny piece of his namesake was strung, a reddish loop of
kannujaq
. It was all that remained of his grandmothers
awl acquired back in the west, where people sometimes melted the stuff from rocks. It was hard and cold and pretty; but, annoyingly, if not constantly polished, the reddish
kannujaq
turned green.

The boy seemed fixated upon it.

With gentle touches at his arm, the boy began to lead Kannujaq into the Tunit camp. There was something desperate about the boy, something that compelled Kannujaq to indulge him. As they went, the boy's grin faded, and his pronunciations became impossible to understand. Increasingly, his voice became wrung by emotion. Stiffly, Kannujaq forced one foot in front of the other, somehow feeling more childlike than the one he followed.

I am in a dream
, he thought.
Yes, that's it. These are not real Tunit. I'm asleep
.

Yet the weather would not let him remain convinced that this was fantasy. It was worsening, and quick, sharp gusts were whipping crystalline particles about like sand. Whenever they relented for a moment, Kannujaq could see a squat figure or two in frantic flight, as before. Sometimes he stiffened upon hearing a scream.

In a few moments, he spotted a row of seven glowing fires—the peculiar way in which Tunit kept their cook-fires—lined up outside an enclosure of flat rocks, about waist-high. The boy led him around it, slightly downhill, toward the shore. When the snow was not stinging his eyes, he could see the corners and walls of other stone dwellings, as well as …

Bodies?

Upon the ground lay several dark heaps. The boy led Kannujaq, stumbling, past the dead, who lay like so many seals dragged up from the shore. The Tunit site was all bare stones, devoid of old snow or ice, but wherever Kannujaq's eyes were allowed to rest for longer than a heartbeat, he could see new, wind-driven particles becoming caught upon rocks, sticky with dark vital fluid already freezing. The boy began to lead him quickly. Other details were lost to him, but he had spotted enough for his brain to begin whispering:
This is a place of murder …

No! He should have turned back as soon as he saw that this was a Tunit encampment. If they were involved in a feud with another community, he wanted no part in it. He wheeled, looking for his dogs.

The boy's hand clamped down upon his wrist. Kannujaq froze in shock, momentarily forgetting his panic. No one had ever dared behave so aggressively toward him. Among his own kind, physical aggression occurred only between the most dire enemies—and never openly. Otherwise, it was a symptom of madness.

Yet these are not people, but Tunit
, he thought.

He could hear shouting near the beach, much of it the unintelligible roars of men. Kannujaq realized that living Tunit were now passing him and the boy. Some were staggering about dazedly, barely noticing them. Most were kneeling on the ground, weeping over the dead.

As though suddenly realizing how aggressive he was being, the boy released Kannujaq. Then he spoke that odd word again, the one Kannujaq had had trouble understanding before.

He's saying “Help,”
Kannujaq suddenly realized.
It's “Help.”

The boy repeated “Help” one more time, pointed toward the beach, then raced to the side of a staggering Tunik.

Kannujaq was alone now. He could easily disappear, forget about this place. But he had been jarred out of his panic; it had been replaced with a kind of … curiosity.

So the boy wants my help
, he thought.
Against what?

He approached the shore.

In moments, he could almost see the beach past the snow. There were fires down there, figures moving about. Perhaps two or three? He realized that they were running toward the water. In a moment, he realized that they were not Tunit.

Giants. There were giants down there. Manlike. Hulking. Monstrous. Giants.

Then the snowfall somewhat abated, and Kannujaq almost fell back at the colossal thing revealed by the water's edge. The giants were nothing in comparison.

Impossible
, he thought.
A bird. A loon. No… not a loon. Not truly
.

It was akin to a loon, a great, dark, majestic shape, larger than any creature or structure that Kannujaq could conceive of, larger than his sled, larger than any
iglu
he had seen before. Upon its back danced several swirling flames, and among these fires there strode a single, manlike being: the master of the giants. As the giants scrambled up onto the back of the loon-thing, this being turned toward Kannujaq, revealing a face that shone like the sun. Its flat features glowed like daylight upon waves.

One of the giants approached this Shining One, and an argument ensued. The giant pointed to the sky, saying something like “Elulang” or “Helulan.” A word for weather?

The Shining One began to holler at the giant, pointing to the sky. Then he shoved him backward, as one who cannot control his temper might kick a dog. The other giants had clambered onto the loon—which was looking less like a loon and more like a boat with each passing moment. They were using long oars to push off from the beach.

The realization that he was looking at a kind of boat snapped Kannujaq's mind out of its terrified fugue. This was a boat, after all. Just a boat, although it was the largest he had ever seen, great enough to hold several torches along its gunwales. It was long and streamlined, with an overextended, stylized prow that had given it a loon-like appearance. In fact, Kannujaq could now see that the prow was not bird-like at all but had been deliberately fashioned to resemble some kind of beast, perhaps a wolf.

Nor were its crew truly giants, but simply large men, given the appearance of even greater size by ambiguous layers of fur and tools strapped to every part of their bodies. Even so, they were peculiar men. What little of their skin that could be seen seemed pale, cadaverous. At first, Kannujaq had assumed that the lower halves of their faces sported coverings of dog fur. He could now see that these were beards of surreal proportions, the colour of Kannujaq's dogs.

With fear overpowered by amazement, Kannujaq stepped closer as the boat left the shore, the men at the oars turning it about as though they were used to commanding the water. Kannujaq studied the Shining One,
who did not row like the others but stood over them like a man over his dogs. Before that monstrous boat was at last obscured by the haze of snowfall, the shining face once more turned back toward Kannujaq. And while he thought it unlikely that the master of the boat could see him, Kannujaq could not help feeling as though the wide, dark eyes within that visage were fixed upon his own. It dawned on him then that this, too, was simply another man, one whose head was covered in
kannujaq
fashioned to look like a face.

A mask
, he thought.
A leader who wears a mask
.

The realization did little to comfort him. The owl-like appearance of that mask was raising the hair on the back of his neck. The ptarmigan was Kannujaq's animal; but the owl was his traditional enemy.

The boy had misplaced his faith, Kannujaq realized. He was unsure of what, or who, these men were, but he had a feeling there was no helping anyone against them. Unless it was to advise flight.

Where is that boy?

Kannujaq found him nearby, weeping over a fallen Tunik, a youngster who had perhaps been a friend. A dead person was not very much like a seal, after all. The blood was much darker, blending with the colour of the stones beneath. Somewhat nauseated, refusing to look toward the sounds of other Tunit weeping around him, Kannujaq stood over the boy, who no longer seemed to register his presence. None of the other Tunit even seemed to realize that Kannujaq was there. Respectfully, he tried to keep his eyes averted from the dead.

Instead, he regarded the weeping boy for some time, watching soot-laden tears dropping steadily from his chin. He was seeing the boy in a new light. The boy was somehow more real, not at all a sort of character from a dream, as he had at first seemed. Kannujaq's eyes followed sooty trails of tears down the sides of the boy's neck, where lay a partially covered necklace of raven skulls. Among his own kind, it was something an
angakoq
—a master of the Hidden world—might wear; but here, it might simply be a boy's eccentric ornamentation. After all, the Tunit were strange.

But they are human, after all
, he thought.
They are
.

He hunkered down next to the lad, and as he watched this mourning boy, who had so vainly hoped for his help against the Shining One, he felt tears well in his own eyes. He had not even bothered to ask the boy's name.

Who would murder like this?
he thought.
Who would do this to these people?

“What is your name?” he asked.

Instead of answering, the lad wiped his face against the back of his sleeve and turned to Kannujaq as though noticing him for the first time. He removed his hood.

A chill ran through Kannujaq.

Blue. They're blue …

The boy's eyes were like twin shards of ice, the coldest blue of frigid depths.

Kannujaq understood then. The raven skulls. The obsession with his grandfather's
kannujaq
. Those unearthly eyes, one of any number of unusual features that mark the Half Hidden. This boy was an
angakoq
.

A shaman.

Unsurprisingly, the boys name turned out to be Siku (“ice”), and he was indeed the resident
angakoq
in this camp. The boy himself didn't seem to make much of this but simply walked Kannujaq to a nearby shelter. Kannujaq had heard that an
angakoq
was an
angakoq
, that his kind and the Tunit were the same in this respect. If so, was he endangering himself by openly befriending the boy? It would depend entirely upon the boy's personal reputation. All the Half Hidden were feared. Some, however, were able to make their powers of use to the community. Others were so terrible or mad as to warrant exile, perhaps even death. Every
angakoq
was eccentric, without exception, and the community was lucky if its
angakoq
was content to hunt and rear a family in peace. Fortunately, it was a good bet that there was only Siku here—the Half Hidden were jealous and did not
like to share territory with one another. Siku was probably powerful. It was rare to find a child
angakoq
, and his eyes were a very strong sign. Who had tutored him?

The Shining One and his men had left quite a mess. There were bodies to gather up, homes to restore, people to comfort. Kannujaq was led past an old man who knelt alongside one of the rectangular Tunit homes. He was piling the stones of its low walls back together, but doing so dazedly, haphazardly. When Kannujaq saw his face, it was carved with agony, glistening with rheum. The eyes were wide and mad, as though gazing off at nothing in particular. Kannujaq barely tore his gaze away from the old creature in time to avoid stepping over two women who were literally lying atop a dead man, their hands clawing and gripping spastically. Their faces were hidden, but their long, despairing wails seemed to merge into a single voice.

The Shining One's giant men had killed without purpose, seemingly laying into whoever had made themselves most available. It was an angry, insane sort of thing, and even accounts Kannujaq had heard of vendetta attacks between families had not seemed as awful as this. Where people had not been available for murder, the giants had scattered cook-fires and kicked in the feeble little walls that made up the Tunit homes.