by Ken Altabef
“You will lead them in the chant,” he said, “Halala, halalalee, halala, halaalalee!”
Manatook drew five fragments of crimson stone from his pouch. He arranged these helper spirits around Putuguk’s body, ignoring their pitiful cries, and knelt before the platform.
The shaman emptied his mind and let the people’s emotions fill it back up again, tasting the mood of the crowd. Restless movements and stray chatter had all been banished by the repetitive chanting. Their minds were now full of well-wishes for poor Putuguk, coming even from those that thought him old and lazy.
There remained a few pockets of resistance and discontent, most notably a familiar lack of commitment from Kigiuna. The presence of even one person who did not share the same outlook as the others was disruptive. Manatook considered having Kigiuna removed, but he was confident he could heal Putuguk despite Kigiuna’s lack of support. He worried that expelling Alaana’s father would have a negative effect on the girl’s concentration. No matter, he thought, perhaps a lesson was in store for them both, father and daughter.
Now to begin. His questing eyes roamed the room. “Word wants to come up!” he said. “Who here has broken faith with the spirits?”
Tikiquatta, still kneeling beside her father, made a small, desperate squeak.
“Yes, Tiki?”
“It is — this is my fault. It’s surely all my fault.” Speaking hesitantly, Tikiquatta confessed how the bottoms of Putuguk’s kamiks had worn through. “Rather than mending the holes,” she said, “I was lazy and neglectful of my father.”
Tears streaked her face.
Tikiquatta had always been regarded as very pretty; her light brown hair was the fairest among all of the Anatatook. But she had been widowed twice at a young age, and was considered very bad luck by all the men. Yet for all the hardships she had endured they had never before seen her fallen so low as this — sobbing fitfully, her head resting against Putuguk’s chest as Old Manatook bent to inspect the man’s feet. After a long moment the shaman pronounced that she was not to blame as there were no signs that evil spirits had entered from his boots, but Tikiquatta could neither be consoled nor wrenched from her father’s side.
Putuguk’s cousin Mequsaq also claimed responsibility. He stood up, saying, “Three sleeps ago, I had a nightmare in which I stabbed a man through the chest.”
Old Manatook’s formidable eyebrows rose up. “Was it Putuguk?”
“No, it was someone else.” Mequsaq hesitated. His face had a distinctly fox-like appearance, especially about the eyes which were keen and narrow and the nose, which was short and sharply pointed. He looked uncomfortably around the room, his eyes resting on Alaana for a brief, searing moment before he revealed, “It was Kanak.”
“What was the reason for this?”
“In the dream, he took my wife by force. But I know he wouldn’t steal my wife away. He’s my friend. He’s not a bad person.”
Old Manatook noticed a tell-tale flash from Kanak’s eyes, and thought it best to quickly draw attention back to himself. He raised his arms to quell the rustling crowd. “This is a very troubling situation,” he said, aiming his words in Kanak’s direction. “But for now let us put it aside. It has no relation to Putuguk’s problem.” He also caught a guilty look from Tugtutsiak’s wife. “And you Aolajut?”
“Yes, I… I have done something, but…” She nudged her head in Alaana’s direction.
“She understands,” said Old Manatook. “I have made it clear these things are never to be spoken of again. She knows.”
“She shouldn’t be here,” said Tugtutsiak forcefully. The headman had a deep, resonant voice that carried a lot of weight. “A healing is no game for young girls to play. Women are not allowed on the hunt, for fear their presence will cause insult to the spirits. Many times you’ve told us so. And unmarried women are not allowed in the karigi, for the same reason. You risk poor Putuguk’s life with this nonsense. If she is leading the chant, what chance does he have?”
Manatook now faced a sea of discontented faces. The headman’s words, raising doubt in everyone’s minds, did more to risk failure than the presence of the girl. With his spirit-vision the shaman could see that Alaana’s soul now held the angakua, the special light of the shamans. But the people, blind to the spirits, were not so easily convinced. Generations of tradition spoke against her. “Putuguk has every chance,” Manatook reassured them. “He will be healed if the people wish it so. Believe it!”
Manatook turned again toward the headman’s wife, “Now tell us what happened.”
Aolajut hardly seemed reassured, but went on. “Not long ago I lay with my husband.” She lifted her eyes, having expected some reaction from the people, then realized more needed to be said. “It was the night before the caribou hunt. We knew it wasn’t allowed…” She looked incredibly pained and embarrassed, then added, “Twice in the same night.”
Tugtutsiak’s stolid face flushed red. Alaana looked quickly away.
One by one the people confessed their transgressions in hopes of aiding the stricken man. Alaana came to know a great deal about stinginess, bouts of bad temper, and other cruel acts she had never even imagined.
More secrets! With each confession Alaana drew herself further down into the folds of her parka. Every stray look, each pained expression drove her deeper.
Formerly she had been banned from the spirit-callings as were all children, but now that she had assumed the role of shaman-in-training everything had changed. She was charged with learning the Way as demonstrated by Old Manatook. She recalled the time she had snuck beneath the tent skin, so eager to learn what the adults did inside the karigi. Now she envied the rest of the children under the tender care of the storyteller in the companion tent. At this very moment her friends sat captivated by one of the old woman’s heroic tales, shielded from malignant spirits by time and distance, comfortable in their belief that stories were merely stories. She wished she could be with them. She felt certain she did not belong here, not dressed like this. The tall head piece she wore, with its representation of a snowy owl resting atop a spirit pole, was straining her neck.
Worst of all was the way her father turned quickly aside when their eyes met, so that she might not catch his disapproving glance. Gone was the affectionate softness with which that gaze had always warmed her in the past. Most of the other adults, even the women, peered at her in the same distasteful manner, making Alaana feel thoroughly unwelcome.
Now it was her mother’s turn to confess. Amauraq admitted to speaking unkindly of her son’s new wife, though she immediately pointed out that the criticism was well-deserved and stemmed from Pilarqaq’s own rampant vanity.
“It seems,” Amauraq added loudly, speaking less out of remorse than a desire to advertise Pilarqaq’s shortcomings to the whole of the Anatatook, “that she values her constant preening above doing any useful work. She spends more time coming her hair than anything else.”
Pilarqaq put her hand to her luxurious, neatly braided hair. Although she would not dare speak openly against her husband’s mother, her face flared deep purple with rage.
In his turn Kigiuna shook his head and said, “I haven’t done anything.” The eyes of the crowd circled around, dosing him with disapproval and suspicion. He glared back at them. He would admit to nothing.
CHAPTER 12
“I STRETCH FORTH MY HAND”
At a sign from her teacher, Alaana broke off the chant.
“Enough is said,” proclaimed Old Manatook. “I have decided to use the qilayuq method — the head lifting.”
To this end he tied a sealskin thong around Putuguk’s brow. Again he looked into the left eye at the last flickers of Putuguk’s soul-lights. He smiled slightly. “As I had guessed,” he said, “there is another spirit hidden here. It runs from my sight. It fears me.”
Putuguk groaned softly. As the spirit buried itself deeper, his soul faced an increasingly deadly stranglehold.
Old Manatook applied pressur
e to one of the crimson stones with the heel of his boot. The spirit within howled, a hideously inhuman sound, audible only to the ears of the shaman and his young student.
Some years ago Old Manatook had attempted to imprison the soul of a rival shaman in a fist of red stone but the strain had caused the rock to shatter. The rival had escaped, but small pieces of his soul had been trapped within the fragments. They cried out endlessly for their master, each with a different mournful tone. Old Manatook found their emotions useful in attuning his own mental state. He prodded this one and that, eliciting eerie wails in various pitches that drew his mind into closer alignment with Putuguk’s soul.
When he was ready, he said, “Angry spirit, why do you trouble this man?”
The question was loudly uttered, fired up into the air, aimed at nothing in particular. There was no answer.
“He is a good man, a father, ever faithful to the spirits, always fair in his dealings with others.”
No answer.
“Did he do something? Did he give cause to offend?”
Standing beside Putuguk, Old Manatook took hold of the thong. The unconscious man would reply by head weight alone. The head lifted easily. The answer was no.
“Did Kanak’s boastfulness cause you to come here?”
The head went up. No.
“Was it the laziness of Tikiquatta?”
No.
“Have you come from the Underworld?” The mention of such a dreaded realm brought a frightened murmur from the crowd. “Stay with me,” he grumbled, shaking off their fears.
The head lifted easily. No.
“The shadow world?”
No.
“The Outer Darkness?”
No.
“Are you one of us?”
The head was heavy. Yes!
A collective gasp erupted throughout the room.
Old Manatook looked back at them. His face revealed a surge of confidence. “What human name had you when you lived among us, I wonder? Which one of us? Are you Iakkasuq?”
No.
“Is it Old Kukkook?”
No.
“Avalaaqiaq?”
The sudden mention of her sister’s name shocked Alaana. She had very nearly come to accept that the face she had gazed upon with such joy day after day had left her forever, that a voice so familiar and dear to her heart was finally silenced, never to be heard again. Always remembered as smiling and cheerful, the idea that Ava might have been corrupted, that her twisted soul had brought suffering to Putuguk was too dreadful to bear. Thankfully, the answer resounded quickly.
No.
Old Manatook kept on. “Is it my dear fallen brother Kuanak?”
No
“Nalungiaq?”
The head could not be lifted. Yes!
This revelation was met with a mixture of sighs, groans, and lamentations from all those gathered inside the tent. Alaana saw Old Manatook’s intensely white soul-light flare around his eyes as they blazed with triumph.
She fondly remembered Nalungiaq, who had been a close hunting partner to her family and always kind to the children. He had been murdered by Yupikut raiders shortly after ice-melt of the year before.
“Ah, Nalungiaq, why do you pass among us again?”
No answer. The name laid bare before him, Old Manatook at last glimpsed the offending spirit lurking behind Putuguk’s left eye. “Hmmf,” he said. “No matter. I shall have it out!”
He turned to the semicircle of Anatatook who sat before the platform. One guilty face leapt out from among the rest.
“Mequsaq!” said Old Manatook. “How have you offended Nalungiaq?”
Mequsaq’s hands flew to his cheeks. “Me?” he protested feebly. His eyes darted wildly in his face, then settled full upon Old Manatook. “It is me!” he said, as if he’d suddenly found a revelation. “We had no newborn child in the family. So when Nalungiaq was killed I gave his name to a pup in the litter…”
“And?” demanded the shaman.
Mequsaq’s narrow eyes bulged slightly with realization of his error, his jaw sagged. “But the pup died, and I gave no more thought to the matter.”
Old Manatook glanced at Alaana. Alaana nodded. She understood. If a name was not passed on within one year of the death, it may turn into agiuqtuq, a twisted spirit causing sickness and death.
“Now we come to it,” said Old Manatook. As he stretched up his hand, the wide sleeve of his red parka settled at his elbow. Alaana noticed his wiry forearm, the pale skin frosted with fine white hair, tensed as if he were drawing something tremendous down out of the sky.
“I stretch forth my hand…”
Alaana noted the way the shaman spoke the words as if with great effort. Old Manatook’s ability to carry the audience along and inspire them had a decisive effect on the people. The correct pitch of voice and intonation, the confidently erect stature, the proper gesture, the blood red parka. It was all there, as Old Manatook spoke these words:
“I stretch forth my hand,
Through fear and woe
Through hope and sacrifice,
We seek the way — Guide us!
Those who lay beyond, guide us.
I put forth my foot,
To step across the divide!”
As Old Manatook stood before the people, one mukluk raised above the packed snow floor, his eyes seemed to lock gaze with all of them at once. He held that expectant pose, ready to take that fateful step on their behalf, as the heart of every person in the room skipped a beat. Then he launched into a complicated invocation, his head and arms swinging in wide circles almost too rapidly to see. Alaana tried to follow his meanings but couldn’t understand half of the words; she did not yet understand all of the secret language of the shamans.
She alone saw the change in Old Manatook’s aura. Like sunlight reflected off the snow, his soul had grown bright enough to burn the eye. The old shaman went wild, frothing at the lips, the violent jerking motions of his head sending spume flying across the karigi.
The people were roused to sympathy for poor Putuguk, suffering under the torments of the revengeful name-soul of Nalungiaq. They knew the sufferer was in good hands with Old Manatook. Alaana felt it too. With renewed gusto she led them in a reprise of the chant: “Halala, halalalee, halala, halaalalee!”
Kigiuna repeated the words of the chant, though they engendered little feeling within his own heart. He tightened the muscles of his face to mimic the enraptured expressions of those around him. He shook a balled fist in time with the rest of the crowd, so no one would realize he stood apart.
He wished for Putuguk’s recovery as much as any of the others, perhaps even more. After all, he was one of the few who supported the old man’s family with gifts of food and supplies. Yet on any ordinary day, many of the people in this tent spoke in low tones of Putuguk’s inability to provide for himself, his unsociable manner, his rough treatment of Tikiquatta. To Kigiuna, all of this, their earnest chanting and posturing, were gestures that rang somewhat false.
Kigiuna glanced at Alaana, who sat near the head of the platform. A seriousness of expression transformed his young daughter’s face, which was not what anyone would consider pretty in the first place, into a distorted gloomy mask. Prior to the death of her sister the girl had always been a sort of a carefree spirit, and it saddened Kigiuna to think that innocence had so quickly been stripped away. Alaana wore a ceremonial parka that was yellowed and ill-fitting and bunched awkwardly about her arms and shoulders. A faded curl of grey pelt lacing the neckline suggested the dress had formerly belonged to Wolf Head. To Kigiuna, his daughter’s distorted outline was symbolic of the misguided direction the lives of the Anatatook, and his family in particular, had taken under the stewardship of Old Manatook.
It was clear to him that Alaana felt much the same. Anyone could see that her new-found responsibility sat as awkwardly on the girl’s shoulders as her too-large outfit.
The voice of Amauraq, as she sang out beside him, was one of
the loudest in the tent. Kigiuna thought his wife listened too much to the whispering of the old women, who proclaimed spirits at every turn. But while her behavior and reputation were his responsibility, he had no desire to dictate her beliefs. Let her chant and sing, if that’s what she wanted.
Let them all chant and sing if it made them feel better.
And there was Old Manatook, leaping and cavorting around the platform. As he cried out to his guardian spirit Tornarssuk for inspiration, he lapsed into a fair imitation of a white bear. His growl was impressive, nearly indistinguishable from that of an enraged animal. The shaman’s face contorted terrifyingly, making his eye teeth seem to have grown longer.
And there was Alaana, at the head of the platform, driving the people on. Kigiuna had always presumed that Alaana shared his sense of skepticism toward the mysteries of the spirit world. His daughter had always pestered Civiliaq with questions on the matter, much to the cocky shaman’s unending irritation. She had even accused Civiliaq of a false healing right there at the sick bed of her sister Avalaaqiaq. And now, there was Alaana, drum in hand, leading the chant.
CHAPTER 13
A GILDED ARROW
Alaana led the chant to a fever pitch. The crowd became more and more desperate for the release that only a cure for Putuguk would allow. She felt the strength of the people flowing into Old Manatook. Their heartfelt cries spurred him on, whipping his mind into a frenzy, surging in a flood tide, carrying him into the trance state.
“Tornarssuk! Tornarssuk!” he cried.
He channeled their enthusiasm across the link so that it might strengthen Putuguk’s troubled soul. The time of liberation was at hand.
“Tornarssuk! Tornarssuk!” he cried, again and again. “My guardian spirit, the master of the polar bears, is never far from me. Acting through me, Tornarssuk will reach deep within Putuguk and rip out the offending spirit.”