twisting in torment. An epilepsy seemed to come upon him. A white froth
flecked his lips, and his body was convulsed with shiverings and
tremblings.
The women broke into a wailing chant, swaying backward and forward in
abandonment, while one by one the men succumbed to the excitement till
only Sime remained. He, perched upon his canoe, looked on in mockery;
yet the ancestors whose seed he bore pressed heavily upon him, and he
swore his strongest oaths that his courage might be cheered. Klok-No-Ton
was horrible to behold. He had cast off his blanket and torn his clothes
from him, so that he was quite naked, save for a girdle of eagle-claws
about his thighs. Shrieking and yelling, his long black hair flying like a
blot of night, he leaped frantically about the circle. A certain rude rhythm
characterized his frenzy, and when all were under its sway, swinging their
bodies in accord with his and venting their cries in unison, he sat bolt
upright, with arm outstretched and long, talon-like finger extended. A low
moaning, as of the dead, greeted this, and the people cowered with
shaking knees as the dread finger passed them slowly by. For death went
with it, and life remained with those who watched it go; and being
rejected, they watched with eager intentness.
Finally, with a tremendous cry, the fateful finger rested upon La- lah. He
shook like an aspen, seeing himself already dead, his household goods
divided, and his widow married to his brother. He strove to speak, to deny,
but his tongue clove to his mouth and his throat was sanded with an
intolerable thirst. Klok-No-Ton seemed to half swoon away, now that his
work was done; but he waited, with closed eyes, listening for the great
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blood-cry to go up—the great blood-cry, familiar to his ear from a
thousand conjurations, when the tribespeople flung themselves like wolves
upon the trembling victim. But only was there silence, then a low tittering,
from nowhere in particular, which spread and spread until a vast laughter
welled up to the sky.
"Wherefore?" he cried.
"Na! Na!" the people laughed. "Thy medicine be ill, O Klok-No- Ton!"
"It be known to all," La-lah stuttered. "For eight weary months have I been
gone afar with the Siwash sealers, and but this day am I come back to find
the blankets of Hooniah gone ere I came!"
"It be true!" they cried with one accord. "The blankets of Hooniah were
gone ere he came!"
"And thou shalt be paid nothing for thy medicine which is of no avail,"
announced Hooniah, on her feet once more and smarting from a sense of
ridiculousness.
But Klok-No-Ton saw only the face of Scundoo and its wan, gray smile,
heard only the faint far cricket's rasping. "I got it from the man La-lah, and
often have I thought," and, "It is a fair day and thy medicine be strong."
He brushed by Hooniah, and the circle instinctively gave way for him to
pass. Sime flung a jeer from the top of the canoe, the women snickered in
his face, cries of derision rose in his wake, but he took no notice, pressing
onward to the house of Scundoo. He hammered on the door, beat it with
his fists, and howled vile imprecations. Yet there was no response, save
that in the lulls Scundoo's voice rose eerily in incantation. Klok-No-Ton
raged about like a madman, but when he attempted to break in the door
with a huge stone, murmurs arose from the men and women. And he,
Klok-No-Ton, knew that he stood shorn of his strength and authority
before an alien people. He saw a man stoop for a stone, and a second, and
a bodily fear ran through him.
"Harm not Scundoo, who is a master!" a woman cried out.
"Better you return to your own village," a man advised menacingly.
Klok-No-Ton turned on his heel and went down among them to the beach,
a bitter rage at his heart, and in his head a just apprehension for his
defenceless back. But no stones were cast. The children swarmed
mockingly about his feet, and the air was wild with laughter and derision,
but that was all. Yet he did not breathe freely until the canoe was well out
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upon the water, when he rose up and laid a futile curse upon the village
and its people, not forgetting to particularly specify Scundoo who had
made a mock of him.
Ashore there was a clamor for Scundoo, and the whole population
crowded his door, entreating and imploring in confused babel till he came
forth and raised his hand.
"In that ye are my children I pardon freely," he said. "But never again. For
the last time thy foolishness goes unpunished. That which ye wish shall be
granted, and it be already known to me. This night, when the moon has
gone behind the world to look upon the mighty dead, let all the people
gather in the blackness before the house of Hooniah. Then shall the evildoer
stand forth and take his merited reward. I have spoken."
"It shall be death!" Bawn vociferated, "for that it hath brought worry upon
us, and shame."
"So be it," Scundoo replied, and shut his door.
"Now shall all be made clear and plain, and content rest upon us once
again," La-lah declaimed oracularly.
"Because of Scundoo, the little man," Sime sneered.
"Because of the medicine of Scundoo, the little man," La-lah corrected.
"Children of foolishness, these Thlinket people!" Sime smote his thigh a
resounding blow. "It passeth understanding that grown women and strong
men should get down in the dirt to dream-things and wonder tales."
"I am a travelled man," La-lah answered. "I have journeyed on the deep
seas and seen signs and wonders, and I know that these things be so. I am
La-lah—"
"The Cheater—"
"So called, but the Far-Journeyer right-named."
"I am not so great a traveller—" Sime began.
"Then hold thy tongue," Bawn cut in, and they separated in anger.
When the last silver moonlight had vanished beyond the world, Scundoo
came among the people huddled about the house of Hooniah. He walked
with a quick, alert step, and those who saw him in the light of Hooniah's
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slush-lamp noticed that he came empty- handed, without rattles, masks, or
shaman's paraphernalia, save for a great sleepy raven carried under one
arm.
"Is there wood gathered for a fire, so that all may see when the work be
done?" he demanded.
"Yea," Bawn answered. "There be wood in plenty."
"Then let all listen, for my words be few. With me have I brought Jelchs,
the Raven, diviner of mystery and seer of things. Him, in his blackness,
shall I place under the big black pot of Hooniah, in the blackest corner of
her house. The slush-lamp shall cease to burn, and all remain in outer
darkness. It is very simple. One by one shall ye go into the house, lay hand
upon the pot for the space of one long intake of the breath, and withdraw
again. Doubtless Jelchs will make outcry when the hand of the evil-doer is
nigh him. Or who knows but otherwise he may manifest his wisdom. Are
ye ready?"
"We be ready," came the multi-voiced response.
"Then will I call the name aloud, each in his turn and hers, till all are
called."
Thereat La-lah was first chosen, and he passed in at once. Every ear
strained, and through the silence they could hear his footsteps creaking
across the rickety floor. But that was all. Jelchs made no outcry, gave no
sign. Bawn was next chosen, for it well might be that a man should steal
his own blankets with intent to cast shame upon his neighbors. Hooniah
followed, and other women and children, but without result.
"Sime!" Scundoo called out.
"Sime!" he repeated.
But Sime did not stir.
"Art thou afraid of the dark?" La-lah, his own integrity being proved,
demanded fiercely.
Sime chuckled. "I laugh at it all, for it is a great foolishness. Yet will I go
in, not in belief in wonders, but in token that I am unafraid."
And he passed in boldly, and came out still mocking.
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"Some day shalt thou die with great suddenness," La-lah whispered,
righteously indignant.
"I doubt not," the scoffer answered airily. "Few men of us die in our beds,
what of the shamans and the deep sea."
When half the villagers had safely undergone the ordeal, the excitement,
because of its repression, was painfully intense. When two-thirds had gone
through, a young woman, close on her first child- bed, broke down and in
nervous shrieks and laughter gave form to her terror.
Finally the turn came for the last of all to go in, and nothing had happened.
And Di Ya was the last of all. It must surely be he. Hooniah let out a
lament to the stars, while the rest drew back from the luckless lad. He was
half-dead from fright, and his legs gave under him so that he staggered on
the threshold and nearly fell. Scundoo shoved him in- side and closed the
door. A long time went by, during which could be heard only the boy's
weeping. Then, very slowly, came the creak of his steps to the far corner, a
pause, and the creaking of his return. The door opened and he came forth.
Nothing had happened, and he was the last.
"Let the fire be lighted," Scundoo commanded.
The bright flames rushed upward, revealing faces yet marked with
vanishing fear, but also clouded with doubt.
"Surely the thing has failed," Hooniah whispered hoarsely.
"Yea," Bawn answered complacently. "Scundoo groweth old, and we
stand in need of a new shaman."
"Where now is the wisdom of Jelchs?" Sime snickered in La-lah's ear.
La-lah brushed his brow in a puzzled manner and said nothing.
Sime threw his chest out arrogantly and strutted up to the little shaman.
"Hoh! Hoh! As I said, nothing has come of it!"
"So it would seem, so it would seem," Scundoo answered meekly. "And it
would seem strange to those unskilled in the affairs of mystery."
"As thou?" Sime queried audaciously.
"Mayhap even as I." Scundoo spoke quite softly, his eyelids droop- ing,
slowly drooping, down, down, till his eyes were all but hidden. HSo I am
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minded of another test. Let every man, woman, and child, now and at
once, hold their hands well up above their heads!"
So unexpected was the order, and so imperatively was it given, that it was
obeyed without question. Every hand was in the air.
"Let each look on the other's hands, and let all look," Scundoo com-
manded, "so that—"
But a noise of laughter, which was more of wrath, drowned his voice. All
eyes had come to rest upon Sime. Every hand but his was black with soot,
and his was guiltless of the smirch of Hooniah's pot.
A stone hurtled through the air and struck him on the cheek.
"It is a lie!" he yelled. "A lie! I know naught of Hooniah's blankets !"
A second stone gashed his brow, a third whistled past his head, the great
blood-cry went up, and everywhere were people groping on the ground for
missiles. He staggered and half sank down.
"It was a joke! Only a joke!" he shrieked. "I but took them for a joke!"
"Where hast thou hidden them?" Scundoo's shrill, sharp voice cut through
the tumult like a knife. "In the large skin-bale in my house, the one slung
by the ridge-pole,'' came the answer. "But it was a joke, I say, only—"
Scundoo nodded his head, and the air went thick with flying stones. Sime's
wife was crying silently, her head upon her knees; but his little boy, with
shrieks and laughter, was flinging stones with the rest.
Hooniah came waddling back with the precious blankets. Scundoo stopped
her.
"We be poor people and have little," she whimpered. "So be not hard upon
us, O Scundoo."
The people ceased from the quivering stone-pile they had builded, and
looked on.
"Nay, it was never my way, good Hooniah," Scundoo made answer,
reaching for the blankets. "In token that I am not hard, these only shall I
take."
"Am I not wise, my children?" he demanded.
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"Thou art indeed wise, O Scundoo!" they cried in one voice.
And he went away into the darkness, the blankets around him, and Jelchs
nodding sleepily under his arm.
THE SUNLANDERS
(First published in Children of the Frost, Sept, 1902)
MANDELL is an obscure village on the rim of the polar sea. It is not
large, and the people are peaceable, more peaceable even than those of the
adjacent tribes. There are few men in Mandell, and many women;
wherefore a wholesome and necessary polygamy is in practice; the women
bear children with ardor, and the birth of a man- child is hailed with
acclamation. Then there is Aab-Waak, whose head rests always on one
shoulder, as though at some time the neck had become very tired and
refused forevermore its wonted duty.
The cause of all these things,—the peaceableness, and the polygamy, and
the tired neck of Aab-Waak,—goes back among the years to the time
when the schooner Search dropped anchor in Mandell Bay, and when
Tyee, chief man of the tribe, conceived a scheme of sudden wealth. To this
day the story of things that happened is remembered and spoken of with
bated breath by the people of Mandell, who are cousins to the Hungry
Folk who live in the west. Children draw closer when the tale is told, and
marvel sagely to themselves at the madness of those who might have been
their forebears had they not provoked the Sunlanders and come to bitter
ends.
It began to happen when six men came ashore from the Search, with heavy
outfits, as though they had come to stay, and quartered themselves in
Neegah's igloo. Not but that they paid well in flour and sugar for the
lodging, but Neegah was aggrieved because Mesahchie, his daughter,
/>
elected to cast her fortunes and seek food and blanket with Bill-Man, who
was leader of the party of white men.
"She is worth a price," Neegah complained to the gathering by the
councfl-fire, when the six white men were asleep. "She is worth a price,
for we have more men than women, and the men be bidding high. The
hunter Ounenk offered me a kayak, new-made, and a gun which he got in
trade from the Hungry Folk. This was I offered, and behold, now she is
gone and I have nothing! "
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"I, too, did bid for Mesahchie," grumbled a voice, in tones not altogether
joyless, and Peelo shoved his broad-checked, jovial face for a moment into
the light.
"Thou, too," Neegah affirmed. "And there were others. Why is there such
a restlessness upon the Sunlanders?" he demanded petulantly. "Why do
they not stay at home? The Snow People do not wander to the lands of the
Sunlanders."
"Better were it to ask why they come," cried a voice from the darkness,
and Aab-Waak pushed his way to the front.
"Ay! Why they come !" clamored many voices, and Aab-Waak waved his
hand for silence.
"Men do not dig in the ground for nothing," he began. "And I have it in
mind of the Whale People, who are likewise Sunlanders, and who lost
their ship in the ice. You all remember the Whale People, who came to us
in their broken boats, and who went away into the south with dogs and
sleds when the frost arrived and snow covered the land. And you
remember, while they waited for the frost, that one man of them dug in the
ground, and then two men and three, and then all men of them, with great
excitement and much disturbance. What they dug out of the ground we do
not know, for they drove us away so we could not see. But afterward,
when they were gone, we looked and found nothing. Yet there be much
ground and they did not dig it all."
"Ay, Aab-Waak! Ay! " cried the people in admiration.
"Wherefore I have it in mind," he concluded, "that one Sunlander tells
another, and that these Sunlanders have been so told and are come to dig
in the ground."
"But how can it be that Bill-Man speaks our tongue?" demanded a little
wizened old hunter,—"Bill-Man, upon whom never before our eyes have
rested?"
"Bill-Man has been other times in the Snow Lands," Aab-Waak answered,
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