Ilatsiak - 57 - Stranger Still

The spring seal camp David came across as he headed back to King William Island was situated on the east shore of Ross Strait. The early open water had attracted an unusually large number of people including several well known shamen and David was accepted at the camp where several people had heard of him although his latest troubles were unknown. It was both a time to celebrate the good hunting as well as a time to entertain each other. In the evenings, the shamen in the camp began holding competitions to perform the most miraculous feats for the people assembled. David had had little experience with these shamen, but his recent experience with the little spirit-creature he’d seen made him curious to watch what they did. While his experience had seemed very real at the time, he’d come to the point where he believed what he had seen was only a part of the illness he seemed to be going through.
He watched carefully as one old woman named Paanaktuq took off a mitten and laid it on the floor, all the while saying she had no real powers. However, before long the mitten suddenly came alive and stood up. As it did, it turned into a tiny man, even smaller the the one David had seen. The little man spun around and gazed at the audience. Pannaktuq reached down and picked the little fellow up, but when she did, the man returned to being a mitten. She put both her mittens on and lifted them up for everyone to see. Then magically, everyone was astounded to watch them both turn into bear’s claws. Then she shook them off and dropped them between her legs and they began to scratch the floor all by themselves. Bending over, she picked them up and, as before, they changed back into ordinary mittens. The crowd roared with approval at the magic sight, begging her to do more tricks, but Paanaktuq was a sly old thing and with a twinkle in her eye she refused, claiming that her spirit helpers would not be happy if she made them work too hard.
The gathering then turned to other people known to have powers to entertain and amuse people. Some called to one shaman who was known to terrify people with his tricks, but when they did, it was apparent to many people, especially some of the younger men, that things were getting out of hand and were going too far. However, once excited, especially after feasting on seal after the bleak and hungry winter just passed, enough people were anxious to celebrate no matter what. The shaman watch a few people leave, but then told one of the last men about to leave to stand upright against the wall of the dance-house they’d built for the feasting time. The shaman then picked up a spear and drove it right through the poor man’s chest, out his back and then threw it to the rear of the house. Several other men in the house at the time had to grab the poor fellow to avoid his falling down. The whole place was in shock and began screaming. There was now a rush to the passageway leading outside. Immediately the crush of fur covered bodies created a pile-up preventing anyone from leaving except those at the very front. While the screaming and carrying on was continuing, the shaman calmly picked up the spear and forced it back through the chest wound and out the front of the man’s fur parka. When it had passed right through and out again, the man appeared totally unharmed and was able to carry on as if nothing had happened.
The people still inside who had watched this last event was astounded and horrified. Several of the children ran screaming and had begun trying to break through the icy walls of the, house while most of their parents were too stunned by what had occurred to run after them or stop them. David too was unable to move, but a feeling as though something had snapped inside him seemed to grab him. He began to wail in a loud voice and fell to his knees. From there he crawled around the house, barking at the icy walls now and then, while people tried to get out of his way. As he made his way around, those who witnessed it told stories later claiming that they saw him as he began to grow smaller and smaller and then sink slowly into the snow covered floor. Within minutes he had vanished down through the ice, sinking out of sight completely, the ice closing in behind him as he sank. He seemed to disappear for several minutes, when shouts could be heard coming from some men who were sleeping in another snow hut nearby. David had come up through a newly made hole in their house floor, dripping wet and icy. They screamed as they watched this ‘thing’ in their midst. It had a long seal skin rope in his hand which it began tugging on as though a large seal was attached to the end. It then began yelling at the hole in the ice in a strange language which no one could understand. Finally, with much noise and splashing, it pulled three white men out of the watery hole! They were gaunt and blackened, but otherwise alive and shivering. They all moved towards David with saws and began to cut him to pieces, throwing his arms and legs around the snowhouse to the horror of the men watching from the snow bench. When they had done this, the strange men all turned and staggered out of the house through the usual entranceway.
In shock at what they had seen, the men on the bench pounded a hole through the wall at the back of the house and escaped outside. Surrounding the house were many of the people who had just watched David disappear minutes before from the adjoining house. They retreated in a hurry when they saw the men break through the back of the snow hut screaming that a man from the sea had just been killed by three white men. Those outside were baffled when told that the killers had just crawled out the entrance to the snow house. They’d seen no one leave. Finally someone brave enough volunteered to look into the house to see what was left. There was no trace of either the white men nor the hole through which they had come up out of the water. Instead, they found David asleep on the snow bench. He was perfectly dry and unharmed.