by Sue Harrison
She unrolled the garment and laid it across her lap. The back of the suk had been made with the darkest fur, and was banded at the bottom with a ruff of white cormorant rump feathers hung with shell beads. The sleeves were cuffed with tufts of brown eider feathers and on the outside of the collar rim Chagak had sewn a strip of pale ribbon-seal fur, trimmed into a pattern of ripples, a blessing asked from the sea.
Blue Shell’s daughter hugged the suk close to her, and she felt comfort in the cool softness of the fur. She slipped the old suk off over her head. Her mother had worn it a whole year before Gray Bird had allowed his daughter to have it, and so the cormorant skins were very frail. It seemed that she spent as much time repairing it as wearing it, and during the past winter it had not been warm enough, even with bundles of grass stuffed inside as a lining.
Blue Shell’s daughter moved to the center of her shelter where the middle pole lifted the roof high enough for her to stand. There she pulled on the new suk, feeling the softness of the inside skins against her breasts. It fitted her perfectly. The sleeves ended just above her fingertips and the bottom edge fell below her knees. She looked down at herself and wished that she dared run from her shelter to the edge of the stream to see her reflection in the water.
She crouched, drawing her knees up into the suk. It was long enough to touch the ground when she squatted and so would keep her bare feet warm.
It is true then, she thought. I am to be a wife to one of Chagak’s sons. Why else would she make me a suk? Amgigh did not want her; sometimes he even joined Qakan’s taunting. It would be Samiq. But then she pulled her thoughts from such a hope. Perhaps she would never be a wife. But for now, for the rest of this day, she had this beautiful suk. She would not allow herself to think beyond that.
SIX
BY THE TIME THE SUN WAS SINKING FOR THE night, Blue Shell’s daughter had finished the tooth. She had carved carefully, scraping and cutting until the surface of the tooth was whorled like a whelk shell. She held the tooth near her oil lamp and looked at it with critical eyes. It was not perfect—a hard ridge of ivory, something her knife could not shape, ran the length of one side, and there was a chip on one edge—but it looked like a shell.
Besides, she reminded herself, she would be careful to conceal the tooth under the edge of her apron. And perhaps the tooth carried its own power to deceive, to fool her father’s eye and protect itself from his knife.
She raised her suk and tied the tooth to the belt of her apron. She was smoothing her hands over the fur of the suk when her mother came to the shelter.
“You must come out,” she called, and the girl saw the surprise in her mother’s face when she stepped outside wearing her new suk.
“It is from Cha-Cha-Chagak,” Blue Shell’s daughter said.
Her mother made an uncertain smile and nodded.
The tightness that had seemed to bind Blue Shell’s daughter during her time in the tiny shelter suddenly left, and she spread her arms out, catching the wind with her fingertips. She began to laugh, and she turned so she could see Tugix, the great mountain that guarded their village.
“Be still,” her mother said. “You are a woman now, not a child.”
And the daughter answered, “I have n-n-never been a ch-ch-child.”
Her mother looked away and the girl closed her eyes, for a moment regretting the words. But then anger pushed up from the hollow in her chest, pushed up and brought with it the remembrance of the many times she had been beaten, times when her mother had been silent or had left the ulaq.
Blue Shell pulled at strands of hair the wind had whipped into her eyes and said, “I have something for you.”
She led the way to a knoll nearer the beach and squatted down out of the wind. She reached into her suk and pulled out a packet wrapped in sealskin and tied with strips of hide.
“This is for you,” she said untying the bindings. She unfolded the sealskin and the girl saw that the packet contained a small basket. It was woven from the ryegrass that grew near their beach, and the fitted lid was linked to the basket with a plait of sinew.
She lifted the lid. Inside were a sealskin thimble, birdbone needles and an ivory awl.
“You will need these,” her mother said.
“Yes.”
“It is not as great a gift as Chagak gave you,” Blue Shell said. She looked out over the beach, away from her daughter’s eyes.
“Y-y-you m-m-made the … b-b-basket,” her daughter said, the words coming slowly.
Blue Shell nodded.
“It is … it is …” Blue Shell’s daughter wanted to say beautiful, wanted to thank her mother, but the words caught and stopped, and there was nothing more she could say. She waited, hoping her mother would see the gratitude in her eyes, but her mother did not look at her, and Blue Shell’s daughter tried to remember if her mother ever looked at her, ever allowed the meeting of eyes. No, no, but perhaps that was so she did not have to see the emptiness in her daughter’s heart, so she was not reminded that her daughter had no soul.
For a time Blue Shell said nothing, but then she stood, her back to the sea, and the wind parted her hair in a pale line down the back of her head. “You will be given two ceremonies this night,” she said. “The ceremony of becoming a woman and the ceremony of naming. Your father has chosen a name for you.”
The daughter heard the words, made a small choking sound, a laugh with tears caught in it. A name. A name! This time she sought her mother’s eyes boldly, waited, unblinking until her mother looked at her.
“I am glad you have become a woman,” her mother said. The words were quiet, almost lost in the cries of guillemot and gull.
The wind suddenly swirled down around them and spun their hair into tangled black clouds around their heads. They both reached up to brush the strands from their faces, and for a moment their hands, in reaching, touched, then quickly pulled away to smooth hair back into place.
The girl stood beside her father’s ulaq. She could see the beach. Someone had made a heather and seal bone fire, and the wind carried the smell of burning seal fat and crowberry heather. All the people of her village were gathered there: her father, shortest of the men; her mother, tiny and, according to Crooked Nose, once beautiful; her brother, Qakan, taller now than their father; Big Teeth and his two wives, Crooked Nose and Little Duck and Little Duck’s son. How many summers did the boy have, seven, eight? And of course, Kayugh, a hunter whose family was never hungry. Chagak, holding their daughter Wren, stood beside him; their oldest daughter, Red Berry, and Red Berry’s husband, First Snow, were next in the circle, then Samiq and Amgigh.
How Blue Shell’s daughter had hated that beach. The flat expanse of dark gray shale and gravel with only a few standing boulders gave no place to hide from her father or Qakan.
But tonight, it was a place of joy.
Her mother had told her to watch for Kayugh’s signal— his hand lifted, pointing to the path of the sun. She waited anxiously. Her nervousness, once only a knot in her belly, now spread to numb her fingertips and toes.
She ran her hand back through her hair. She had combed it with a notched stick and rubbed seal oil into the length of it. It fell, long and smooth, to her waist.
“You are beautiful,” her mother had whispered to her. The words had surprised Blue Shell’s daughter so much that she had not answered her mother, only watched as Blue Shell joined the others on the beach. And she wondered if the others, too, would see the difference in her, if they would see that she had changed from an ugly girl into a beautiful woman.
Kay ugh raised his arm and Blue Shell’s daughter lifted her head. She walked slowly to the beach. As she neared the circle of people, she saw there was a space for her between her father and Kayugh.
She felt the muscles of her shoulders tense as they always did when she was close to her father. But then it was as if someone spoke to her, as if someone said, “You are a woman,” and in that moment she looked up to see Samiq watching her.
He was not as tall as his father, but his shoulders were wide and strong. His cheekbones were high, his eyes as dark as cormorant feathers. He smiled and Blue Shell’s daughter’s eyes widened. The ceremony was a solemn thing. No one, her mother had told her, was supposed to smile, but the girl’s happiness began to flow up from her chest and she had to look away to keep from smiling back.
“You have gifts?” she heard Kayugh ask, and she realized that the ceremony had begun.
Blue Shell came forward and laid the belts that her daughter had made on the sand in the center of the circle.
As her mother laid each belt out full length, the women made small sounds of appreciation. It was probably something the women did at every new woman ceremony, Blue Shell’s daughter reminded herself, but their admiration for her work still gave her joy.
Her mother stepped back into her place in the circle and Kayugh spoke again.
“We have come to make the woman’s ceremony,” he said, “but your father has also asked that you be given a naming ceremony.”
Blue Shell’s daughter looked at her father. He stood facing straight ahead, as if she were not at his side.
Kayugh turned toward her and placed his hands on her head. “Your father says …” he began, then stopped, cleared his throat. Kayugh closed his eyes, and for a moment Blue Shell’s daughter thought she saw him clench his teeth, but then he looked up at the sky and said, “Your father says that your name is Kiin.”
Blue Shell’s daughter felt the heat of sudden embarrassment push up into her face. Her father had chosen to name her Kiin. Kiin, a name that was a question—Who? So she was still to be someone unrecognized, a daughter, a woman, but a stranger.
There was the dampness of another hand on her head, her father’s hand.
“You are Kiin,” Kayugh said, bending to whisper the name in her ear. And hearing the name again, Blue Shell’s daughter was suddenly angry, and wished that somehow her father was as much a man as Kayugh, that he had been able, in spite of his hatred for her, to choose a name that was a true name.
But then the joy of the moment came to her. She was soon to take her place as a woman of the First Men, and more importantly, she had been given a name. No matter what that name was, no matter how insulting, it allowed her to claim a soul.
They had no shaman in their village, so Kayugh as chief hunter made the ceremonies, and now he began a chant, something said in words she did not understand. She stood with her head bowed under the weight of the two men’s hands.
Then she felt Kayugh slip something over her head, and looking down, she saw a sealskin pouch hanging from a thong. It was an amulet. She knew it would contain the First Men’s sacred stone, obsidian.
Again the thought came, I have a spirit now. I have a soul. She felt something moving within her chest, a fluttering like the wind. It pressed out to fill her, pushed against her fingers and her toes. Kayugh ended his chant and Gray Bird lifted his hand from her head.
Kiin raised her eyes to the people in the circle and saw herself as one of them. Joy seemed to lift her from the ground, and when her mother stepped forward to the center of the circle, Kiin nearly forgot to join her.
Kayugh lightly touched her arm and Kiin suddenly remembered her place in the ceremony. She walked to her mother’s side, waited as her mother picked up one of the belts. It was for Kayugh. Kiin took it to him, laid it over his outstretched arms, and she, in turn, took the gift he offered her, two sealskins.
The next belt was for Big Teeth, a man of jokes and laughter. On his belt, Kiin had made pictures in the sealskin, men in iky an hunting seals. Kiin knew the pictures would give him extra power in his hunting, and she saw a flash of gladness in his eyes when he took the belt from her and gave her a harbor seal skin.
Her father was next. He took his belt and gave her two stone lamps in return. First Snow gave firestones and a seal belly of oil. Then it was Samiq’s turn. Would he see that of all the belts, his was the most beautiful?
As Kiin laid the belt over Samiq’s outstretched arms, she looked up at him, dared to meet his eyes.
“It is beautiful, Kiin,” Samiq said, and his voice seemed to make her name beautiful. Then from beneath his parka, he pulled a long strand of shell beads. He reached forward and slipped it over Kiin’s head. The necklace hung against her suk, white and shining even in the dim firelight, and she looked down at it in wonder.
Perhaps she could dare to hope, could begin to see Samiq as one who would be husband. But then he said, “This I give as a gift from me and from my brother Amgigh.”
And in surprise she looked at Amgigh who stood with a smile crooked on his face, but his eyes hard. Kiin gave him his belt and waited to see if he would speak to her, but he said nothing.
The last belt went to Qakan. It had few decorations but was intricately woven, the strips of sealskin moving in and out like sea waves. She had cut seal shapes out of a darker piece of hide and sewn them into the woven waves. Her brother snorted when she gave him the belt, and she looked at him in surprise. It was not as bright and flashing as the older men’s belts, but it was beautiful and should give him great power over seals. He handed her his gift, two woven grass berry bags, bags Kiin herself had made, and Kiin was suddenly angry. What right did Qakan have to despise her gift when his was so poor?
She lifted her head and looked into Qakan’s face. “I-I-I w-w-wish you power in your.. . hunting,” she said, something that was true, for each man’s hunting helped the entire village. Then her anger rose, flooded her throat. It brought, as anger almost always did, flowing words, nearly smooth, and Kiin added, “I-I thank you for the berry bags. It must have taken you many hours to weave them.” Her words were quiet. She knew no one but Qakan could hear her, but she also knew any accusation of woman’s work would humiliate him.
Qakan’s face darkened and Kiin fought the impulse to look away. I have a soul, she told herself. He cannot hurt me. But then she felt a voice within, the moving of her spirit, and in her mind, her spirit said, “His ignorance does not excuse yours.” Kiin blushed and stepped back to the center of the circle.
As she knelt to place the berry bags with her other gifts, she looked up at the faces of the people around her. They can see the value of Qakan’s gift, she thought. Let them make the judgment.
Quietly then, Kiin stood. Her mother had returned to her place beside Crooked Nose, and Kiin was alone. The people were silent, and Kiin felt the weight of their stares. She lifted her head and waited for the words that would come next.
Finally Kayugh spoke. “You are a woman,” he said. “You are a woman,” said Big Teeth. “You are a woman,” her father repeated. First Snow, Samiq, Amgigh, and finally Qakan each said the words.
“You are a woman,” Kiin’s spirit said.
SEVEN
“YOU HAVE MANY BEAUTIFUL GIFTS,” RED BERRY said to Kiin, and Kiin, afraid the words would stick in her throat, made no reply but merely smiled and nodded.
Red Berry, Samiq’s sister, was the youngest of the wives. She carried a baby son in a sling under her suk, and as Red Berry bent to help Kiin gather her gifts, the baby began to whimper.
Kiin laughed. “G-g-go. F-f-feed him.”
Red Berry glanced down the beach. “Samiq is coming. He will help you. This little one needs his bed.”
She hurried away and Kiin looked up. The men were squatting around the fire, eating food their wives brought them. Samiq was striding toward her, holding a dark piece of dried seal meat.
“Are you hungry?” he asked. He tore the meat in two and gave a piece to Kiin. Then before Kiin could thank him, he added, “You have a new suk.”
“Y-your m-m-mother,” Kiin said.
She lifted the string of shell beads that lay against her breast. They glittered in bands of soft colors. She wanted to thank him for the necklace, but though she tried, the words were gone, pulled from her throat as though some spirit had stolen them.
Samiq leaned close to her and slipped his hand under th
e necklace. “These three,” he said and his fingers stroked three of the beads, “are from shells I found during our long hunt when my father killed the walrus.” He moved his hand to the next bead. “This one is from a necklace that once belonged to a grandmother, someone who died before I was born. This bead is from a bone of my first seal. Most of the beads are cut from shells I found on our beach or places nearby. I have been making this necklace for you for many years.”
“Th-thank you,” Kiin said.
Samiq smiled. “It is better than berry bags,” he said.
Kiin laughed.
Samiq’s eyes darkened and he studied her face. “At least these last few days you have been safe,” he finally said. “Away from your father and brother.”
“It w-w-was 1-lonely,” Kiin said. She saw the surprise in Samiq’s eyes. “I m-m-missed my mother,” Kiin explained, then said softly, the words for once coming easily. “I missed you.” But then she blushed and she wished she had not spoken. A woman did not say such things to anyone except husband or children.
Samiq looked away, toward the sea, and for a long time did not speak. When he finally turned toward her, he said, “Soon you will belong to a husband and your father will leave you alone.” He spoke softly so the sound of his words washed in and out with the rush of the waves. Then he turned and walked away from Kiin.
Kiin watched him, watched the sway of his straight shoulders as he walked, the gleam of his black hair as the wind swept it back from his face, and she remembered his fingers pressed lightly at her throat, the shell beads white and pink against the brown of his skin. ^
Samiq went back to the fire, squatted beside Big Teeth. Kiin smiled. Of all the older men in the village, Big Teeth was her favorite. When he was on the beach working over ikyak or weapons, Kiin had seen him throw back his head and laugh, as if he told jokes to himself. But why not? Other men made songs as they worked. Why not make jokes?