Ilatsiak - 56 - Strange Experience

David wandered from camp to camp around the Boothia Peninsula all that spring, but never found Agayuq or his camp. Many people knew him, of course, the number of people in the whole area was small and most people were known to each other at least to some extent. Still, Agayuq’s whereabouts were a mystery.
During David’s wanderings, he continued to have bouts of doubt about himself and strange dreams and fits.
When the rivers began to melt and flow freely again, he went fishing alone on one of the small streams which flowed towards the sea. David had always been intrigued with the way fish could be caught using a kugivuq, the two-pronged harpoon which held the fish on two sides while the center barb impailed it. Made of springy caribou antler material carefully carved to shape and laced onto a shaft, it was a very clever and effective fish catching tool, but it required a certain amount of skill, something he didn’t have at that time.
David lay on the ice ledge beside a small rushing stream, intently watching the fish in a quiet side pool swim up to the stones under the ice below him where they could be speared. As he was peering intently at them, he slowly realised that he in turn was being watched. Assumming it was one of the local people come to watch his ineptitude, he paid no attention and continued to practice his fish spearing skills. But when he heard a noise he didn’t recognize he turned and saw what seemed to be a small child-like creature appeared to be standing looking at him. It was not a child, but a tiny adult person about two feet tall. Taken by surprise as he was, David let out a yell and turned to run, nearly falling on the slippery ice along the edge of the stream. As he regained his balance he stopped, then nearly fell a second time. The spirit creature seemed to be accompanied by other spirits but David could not clearly see these others. They seemed faint and nearly transparent. He was very much afraid of them, and when they approached he tried to back away, asking the closest one if he was going to die or was he already dead. The spirit, if that’s what it was, who seemed to be a youngish man about his own age, said no. He went on to tell him that he would live to be an old man, in fact, saying he would live to be one of the oldest.
The spirit then took the kugivuq from David, made a quick jab into the water, and caught a tom-cod for him. This he swung right up to David’s mouth, spear and all and told him eat it, fresh and cold, still dripping with the water it had come from. The young spirit person then told him that by eating this fish he had by the act gained special magical powers which only shamen possessed. He was told that these powers would gradually become apparent to him over time as he learned more.
The spirit then told David to walk back to his camp, which he did. All the while the little person kept talking to him, explaining that he had been sent to work together with David for the benefit of the Inuit. He was also warned by the spirit never to eat the intestines of any animal, only meat and fat. When they arrived closer to his camp, the spirit seemed to go faint, slowly disappearing. David sat down beside his tent, stunned by his strange experience. What was going on in his life, he wondered. Was he going mad? Perhaps it was time to cross over to King William Island, find Qayaq and see if he could return to a more normal life. Surely her calm, caring touch would heal him and stop these crazy experiences and dreams.