Short Sketches from Oldest America Part 2

At one time while visiting further North, he and a number of men ventured on thin ice; the ice broke and all were precipitated into the water. "Kownalia," stepping on the backs of the struggling men, walked to the sh.o.r.e uninjured, while all the others perished.

The claims for "Ungmana," another "Ongootkoot" of the first grade, were that he could lay his abdomen open, then, placing fuel inside, set the ma.s.s on fire, the people being allowed to witness the blaze and smoke.

He would then remove the charred ma.s.s, and on closing the wound there would be no sign left of an injury having been inflicted.

These "Ongootkoots" have undoubtedly rendered a service to their people in the past by acting as their historians in preserving their traditions; they have also done good in the cla.s.s of cases where nothing more than a faith cure is needed for the sick. Concerning the latter, the Polarites are not to be too much condemned when we consider the large amount of superst.i.tion exhibited by some of the more civilized inhabitants of the States, who have unbounded confidence in their "Faith Healers." The marvelous claims that are made for these "Ongootkoots" are undoubtedly due to the zeal of their descendants, who are naturally anxious to place their ancestors in as favorable a light as possible, especially if they themselves aspire to become "Ongootkoots" by inheritance. It is also doubtful if the marvelous deeds were ever known until the man had been dead fifty years or more.

The "Ongootkoot," however, has had his day and is now on the decline.

One often hears the older people say, as they shake their heads, that he is not the wonderful man he was in the days of old. The young people, through their growing enlightenment, are also losing confidence in the man and his claims. Of those who were confirmed by the Bishop of Alaska at Point Hope in the summer of 1903, four were directly descended from spirits entering the world as human beings; but they discarded their supposed birthrights and have become zealous church workers. Others have been baptized and married to their wives, and are making good citizens as well as earnest Christian workers.

Should one take a trip through the Arctic portion of Inupash land, it is doubtful if he would meet with very many really non-Christians, for the people are now accepting the Nazarene as their great good spirit.

The workers in the field truly taking an interest in the people and trying to benefit their condition have been few, but the people themselves have spread the teachings they have received, and the seed has fallen on fertile ground. It is true there is yet much of the old superst.i.tion of the past, but it has had its day and is gradually lessening its hold on the people.

VIII

WEBUKSIDE

There is a firm belief among the Polarites that a time is to arrive when the world will come to an end, it being known as "Webukside" or the Judgment Day. "Tooloogigra," the great and good spirit who was once on earth as a mortal, will be present to judge the quick and the dead.

All are to be examined. The wicked, who through the sinful lives they led while on earth have not merited eternal happiness, are to be rejected and consumed in the great fire which will finally destroy the world. Those whose good lives have earned for them eternal joy are to be saved; they are to pa.s.s with "Tooloogigra" into their future home, where they will live forever, free from all cares, or sorrows, or suffering of any kind.

When a man dies, it is believed that after the third night some member of the tribe, who has made the journey before, visits the grave to conduct the new one to his home where he is to remain while awaiting the coming of "Webukside." On the fourth day after a death, some member of the family strikes four blows with a hammer, at the recent home of the deceased, which is a sign of farewell and means that the spirit is not to return to that iglo again. With a woman, it takes one day longer to pa.s.s to the place of waiting, so not until after the fourth night are the knocks made. The dead have deer-skin masks over their faces and their hands are encased in mittens.

Like the Jews who have so long been awaiting the coming of their Messiah, so the Inupash have been waiting and looking for the return of "Tooloogigra" for ages past. Besides liberating day and night from their confinement (during his childhood), "Tooloogigra" has been credited with one miracle. When grown to manhood, he was once making a long ocean voyage with some companions in their kyaks, and being thirsty, he longed to reach some land where fresh water could be procured. His thirst becoming urgent, he cast his spear, and the western portion of the land now known as Point Hope arose from the water. The village of Tigara is at the extremity of the storm swept point, which used to extend westward much further.

When "Tooloogigra" had fulfilled his time on earth, he did not die as an ordinary mortal, but ascended into the sky, the people standing below, watching him until he had faded from sight in the distance.

IX

BIRTH OF TOOLOOGIGRA

At the remote time of the earth's history when these northern regions were clothed in a verdure of ferns and trees, nature presenting a far different appearance than at present, men had begun to multiply on the face of the earth and were living in a state of pristine contentment.

The necessity for building homes to shelter the people had not yet arrived; the trials and perplexities of the busy world were unknown, and the ambition for riches had not become the absorbing problem of the day. Day and night, according to tradition, had not been liberated from their confinement to bestow their many benefits on the human race, neither had that heedless youth been born who introduced old age with its undesirable sequelae into the world.

At this time there lived a man who was looked upon as a powerful chieftain. His home was a simple shelter, furnished in the rude fas.h.i.+on of those days, but what seemed to place him above his fellow men and stamped him as being no ordinary mortal were two b.a.l.l.s hanging up in his home, which he guarded zealously; one was bright and beautiful, the other dark. Living with the chieftain were his wife and daughter, the latter just budding into womanhood. She was noted for her many virtues, while her laughing, merry disposition rendered her a favorite among the people, and her society was much sought.

Wandering through s.p.a.ce just then was a spirit grown tired of the aimless life it was leading. It longed to enter the world, to become a mortal like the merry, happy people whom it daily saw. There was but one way in which the spirit could gain its desire; that was to be born into the world. On looking around in its wanderings, it fell in love with the great virtue and beauty of the chieftain's daughter and decided she should be its medium for entering the world, and therefore hovered around awaiting its opportunity.

One day the young woman's mother requested her to visit the spring as she wished some fresh, cool water. The girl, like a dutiful daughter, skipped off merrily to fulfil her mother's command.

The spirit having heard the mother's request, hastened forward and entered the spring. The day was warm, the water looked inviting, and the young princess, being thirsty, first dipped up for herself some of the clear sparkling water, and with it dipped up the spirit. Taking a long drink, which seemed particularly refres.h.i.+ng, she swallowed the spirit, and returning to her mother, not dreaming of what had occurred, she was soon at play with her companions. As time went by the spirit grew and the princess became the mother of a son. She named him "Tooloogigra," and the oldest Americans of the Arctic have ever since looked upon him as their great spirit.

X

DAY AND NIGHT

Young "Tooloogigra," inheriting his mother's happy disposition, was soon the pet of his grandparents. As he began to run around, he became infatuated with the bright ball that he saw hanging in his home, but his grandfather would let him have only the dark one to play with. He rolled it around in his childish play, yet it did not meet with his fancy. He often cried and teased grandpa for the other one. The old chieftain, although very affectionate and indulgent in every other respect, refused to let his young grandson have the bright ball that he had been guarding so faithfully for so many years.

At last an opportunity arrived for the boy to gain his desire. The chieftain was absent from home and some people venturing into the place were amazed at the great beauty of the b.a.l.l.s. Curiosity has always been a strong element in the human character, and as the people of that day were no exception to the rule, they soon experienced a desire to examine those b.a.l.l.s. Unfastening the bright one from its place of confinement, they carried it outside to admire, when little "Tooloogigra," gaining possession, broke the ball with his hands. Instantly a bright light, which had been kept in confinement, escaped, flooding the world with daylight for the first time. The people in their amazement threw up their hands and cried "couru," which has ever since remained the name for daylight.

Not satisfied with their experience and the changed condition of things, they soon had the second ball unfastened and in their hands, when little "Tooloogigra," gaining possession of this also, broke it as he had the first. A dark vapor was liberated, which, spreading over the earth, extinguished the bright light. The people then cried "oongnoo,"

from which has been derived "oongnoorpuk"--night.

Ever since that time, many a polar mother has interested her children by telling them how young "Tooloogigra" liberated day and night from their confinement.

XI

MAN'S FIRST CONSTRUCTED HOME

North America, having gradually emerged from the water, had come into existence. To the east of Alaska, the warm Atlantic currents had become restricted by the rising land and did not flow so freely as formerly.

To the south, the Seward Peninsula was forming, first appearing as a string of islands with shoals, then gradually rising more and more, until it restricted the ocean currents from the Pacific. The Arctic regions, being deprived of their warming influences, were beginning to feel the cold of winter.

The birds had taken the warning and were commencing to form their migratory habits by flying south to escape the cold and to find regions where their food supply was more abundant, returning north each summer to their earlier homes for the nesting season. The mammoth had also apparently tried to make its escape, but had perished in large numbers in the region of Escholtz Bay, at a section often called the Mammoth Graveyard. The birds and ducks seemed to be trying to overtake the retreating sun as it worked its way southward, the G.o.dwit continuing its flight as far as New Zealand, where it yet continues to spend the winter months.

Many of the inhabitants of Alaska, in trying to make their escape from the cold, apparently preferred to follow the sun in its western course.

These people had progressed far enough to know the art of canoe building. The remains of three of their canoes are to be seen to-day on mountains inland, where they have been well preserved by the ice and snow, remaining as silent witnesses of an early day and showing where the ocean used to be in the remote past. Also on higher ground inland can be seen the skeleton of a whale; while on the Seward Peninsula, on land between four and five hundred feet higher than the ocean, an acquaintance found a driftwood log in a fair state of preservation. The people, following the chain of islands which separate Behring Sea from the Pacific Ocean, reached Siberia, which they probably crossed. We read that there lived in Europe at a very early date, a rude race of hunters and fishers, closely allied to the Eskimos, who were apparently driven there from the east by the increasing cold. They seem to have made an impression on the older languages of Europe in the line of their words and grammar, and it is also probable that their tradition of the earliest state of man may have led to the fable of the sea nymph.

The Seward Peninsula continued rising until at last it entirely emerged above the water, disclosing those wonderful deposits of gold that of late years have made Nome famous throughout the world. The rising land formed a barrier against the warming influence of the j.a.pan current.

Then the Arctic winters set in with their utmost severity, continuing until at last Nature came to the relief of this ice-bound region. A portion of the land nearest Asia sank, forming what is now known as the Behring Straits, again admitting the j.a.pan current to exert its ameliorating influence on the Arctic sections. Our seasons then a.s.sumed pretty much the same conditions they have now. Tradition states that in the past there have been severe earthquakes in this section and it may be due to such a cause that the land subsided.

As the seasons grew more and more severe, Nature, according to tradition, took care of the seal and the wolf, by changing the fat of the former to the blubber of to-day, and by causing the thin, short hair of the latter to grow into the thick, warm fur of the present.

Man, with his superior intellect, was left to solve his own problem.

Those people who had remained behind soon found that their cave-dwellings were not a sufficient protection against the cold, which was recurring with greater severity each succeeding winter, and undoubtedly many perished. The polar bear had solved the problem of sheltering herself by building a home, according to circ.u.mstances, either on the land, or on the ocean ice, and it was the latter that suggested to man how to construct his first mound house, called iglo.

The female bear, in making the winter home in which her cub is born, selects a site where the ocean ice extends up against a cliff, and where the snow has drifted the deepest; with her ma.s.sive paws she digs into the drift, throwing the snow behind her. The entrance becomes filled, while the drifting snow soon obliterates any external sign of her presence. A good-sized room is formed and a small hole in the roof, made by the warmth inside, acts as a ventilator. The escaping steam is the sign which shows the hunter where a bear is to be procured. She makes a hole in the ice, at one end of the room, through which she can dive to procure a seal when hungry. Here she has a warm, comfortable home for herself and cub, where they remain until the warmer weather of spring reminds the family that it is time to begin their travels with the ice pack.

Man imitated the bear in constructing his iglo. First excavating the ground for a short distance, he erected over it a frame of driftwood and whale jaws. At one end of the room the excavation was made somewhat deeper, a hole large enough to admit a man being left in the floor over the excavation to serve as an entrance, and a driftwood pa.s.sageway ending at a mound left open at the top, whose elevation prevented the snow drifting in, made an exit to the outer world. A small hole in the roof of the one room acted as a ventilator and a larger one covered with the dried intestines of a seal served as a window. All was then covered over with sods and earth, making a home constructed on the same principle as that of the bear; one that resisted the cold and could be easily warmed by the seal-oil lamp. The same principle is still adhered to in constructing the modern iglo, though a small room has been added at the entrance to serve as a cooking room, while for the hole in the floor for an entrance a small door has been subst.i.tuted.

XII

THE MAMMOTH