Read Online People of the Deer by Farley Mowat - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Farley Mowat
Tags: SOC021000
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bringing with him two ptarmigan, and these winter-starved birds were to be all the food that five people and three dogs would have till the time came when many of them would have no further need of food.
For a month before that final hunt of Angleyalakâs there had been no more than a mouthful of food for each person on each day, and this hunt had been a last desperate effort to halt the slow attrition of the gut. The hunt had failed, as it was bound to fail, and now the course of things followed an inevitable pattern which the hunter could no longer break, no matter how he tried. Death was upon the camp and all that the people there could do was to channel the approach of death so that the least important of the living might go first.
There was no open mention of the problem, for none was needed. While Angleyalak still lived there was still hope. But should he, the hunter, die, then the family must perish even though the deer returned in numbers to the Little Hills.
Next to him stood the children, Kunee, Pama and Anoteelik, who were the visible expression of the Ihalmiutâs waning will to live. Behind the children was Iktuk, wife, mother and source of new lifeâyet her work was nearly done, for the children were old enough to live without her aid.
Then came the dogs, the precious dogs, the three survivors of a once good team. These three scrawny things were treasures and irreplaceable. Mobility was their potential in the family, and without their power to move across the frozen land, not even a great hunter could survive for long.
That was the family thenâexcept for the old woman, Epeetna. What was her place? Nothing more secure than the niche that love and filial affection could ensure for her, and these emotions die readily enough when hunger closes its inexorable jaws.
On the night after Angleyalakâs return with the two birds, the old woman did not sleep. It was her time, and she had waited for it through too many starving years. She had looked forward with a hard relief to death and this night her seeking ended in a wall of snow. Yet now that it was time, fear rose within herâthe fear that is so strong in the old, and which makes the terror of young men in danger look pallid and a sham.
It was not long before the members of her family took refuge from their belliesâ agony in sleep. But the old woman sat on and stared unseeingly over their quiet forms. She heard the whimpers of little Kunee and the uneasy mutters of the man, her son. But most clearly did she hear the whisper of the sand-like snow as the never-ending winds drove it along the polished curve of the iglooâs dome. The harsh rustle filled her hearing until she was no longer conscious of the little human sounds. The snow noise rose in gradual ascension and, as it grew, so grew her fear of death.
The long night was nearly over when the skeletal guardians of the passageway, the dogs, lifted gaunt heads and cowered against the snow blocks to leave the passage free for her. And the old woman passed out of the igloo into the darkness. The ground drift of driving snow enveloped her and the darkness grew about her. She stood naked but for her fur trousers, and now she loosened these and they slipped soundlessly into the drifts. The wind whined like a beast in pain, and the darkness drew about her frail and tortured form.
When morning came, no one in the family spoke of her. Not even the child Kunee made reference to the missing face. But later, when the brief half-light of day was upon them, Angleyalak went out alone into the snow, and he stood facing the wind with his amulet belt wound tightly about his waist. And then he spoke the words that he had learned as a child in the great and populous camps of the People, he spoke the phrases that he had been taught to say over the newly dead.
That was in mid-March. It was the time when the days grow slightly longer and when the eternal winter winds usually drop and die away for
For a month before that final hunt of Angleyalakâs there had been no more than a mouthful of food for each person on each day, and this hunt had been a last desperate effort to halt the slow attrition of the gut. The hunt had failed, as it was bound to fail, and now the course of things followed an inevitable pattern which the hunter could no longer break, no matter how he tried. Death was upon the camp and all that the people there could do was to channel the approach of death so that the least important of the living might go first.
There was no open mention of the problem, for none was needed. While Angleyalak still lived there was still hope. But should he, the hunter, die, then the family must perish even though the deer returned in numbers to the Little Hills.
Next to him stood the children, Kunee, Pama and Anoteelik, who were the visible expression of the Ihalmiutâs waning will to live. Behind the children was Iktuk, wife, mother and source of new lifeâyet her work was nearly done, for the children were old enough to live without her aid.
Then came the dogs, the precious dogs, the three survivors of a once good team. These three scrawny things were treasures and irreplaceable. Mobility was their potential in the family, and without their power to move across the frozen land, not even a great hunter could survive for long.
That was the family thenâexcept for the old woman, Epeetna. What was her place? Nothing more secure than the niche that love and filial affection could ensure for her, and these emotions die readily enough when hunger closes its inexorable jaws.
On the night after Angleyalakâs return with the two birds, the old woman did not sleep. It was her time, and she had waited for it through too many starving years. She had looked forward with a hard relief to death and this night her seeking ended in a wall of snow. Yet now that it was time, fear rose within herâthe fear that is so strong in the old, and which makes the terror of young men in danger look pallid and a sham.
It was not long before the members of her family took refuge from their belliesâ agony in sleep. But the old woman sat on and stared unseeingly over their quiet forms. She heard the whimpers of little Kunee and the uneasy mutters of the man, her son. But most clearly did she hear the whisper of the sand-like snow as the never-ending winds drove it along the polished curve of the iglooâs dome. The harsh rustle filled her hearing until she was no longer conscious of the little human sounds. The snow noise rose in gradual ascension and, as it grew, so grew her fear of death.
The long night was nearly over when the skeletal guardians of the passageway, the dogs, lifted gaunt heads and cowered against the snow blocks to leave the passage free for her. And the old woman passed out of the igloo into the darkness. The ground drift of driving snow enveloped her and the darkness grew about her. She stood naked but for her fur trousers, and now she loosened these and they slipped soundlessly into the drifts. The wind whined like a beast in pain, and the darkness drew about her frail and tortured form.
When morning came, no one in the family spoke of her. Not even the child Kunee made reference to the missing face. But later, when the brief half-light of day was upon them, Angleyalak went out alone into the snow, and he stood facing the wind with his amulet belt wound tightly about his waist. And then he spoke the words that he had learned as a child in the great and populous camps of the People, he spoke the phrases that he had been taught to say over the newly dead.
That was in mid-March. It was the time when the days grow slightly longer and when the eternal winter winds usually drop and die away for