Illatsiak - 67 - Qallunaq Come from the East

The remainder of the journey to Qayaq’s people on the Fish River had gone quickly, almost as if David’s actions burying the past had also cleared up their traveling problems as well. On their arrival, it was decided to hold a party to celebrate Qayaq’s new baby and also the successful fishing season.
The children began falling asleep from exhaustion around the walls of the tent, but for the adults, the dancing and stories continued into the night. An old man’s much younger wife began to speak. She began by lamenting the loss of the shiny spoons she had been given one day about a year or so ago. She had had to give them, she said, to another strange white man who had come to Pelly Bay from even farther to the east that spring. It had seemed like a good trade at first, but, now it was the shiny spoons she remembered and she wished she still had them. They were so pretty and had interesting markings carved into them which she liked to think had magical powers. Then she began to tell a story of meeting the whiteman from Repulse Bay.
It was at a time when she and her husband had been living with the Netsilingmiut near Pelly Bay. It was late during the winter when her son had been born. Two men, one of whom could speak their language had walked into their camp and asked them to come and visit them. At first they didn’t want to go, but several of the Netsilingmiut knew people from Repulse Bay and decided to go and see if they had come. In the end everyone, all 17 or so went to see the people from Repulse Bay and the whitemen they had brought with them. The white man was dressed just like them in caribou skins, not in strange clothes like the ship men who have died several year previously in their area. This whiteman was very tall, she remembered, and had lots of whiskers, but not too much hair on top of his head. He didn’t speak their language. He wanted to know all about their land, how the sea coast went, where the rivers were and things like that. He knew about Ross’s ships. He wanted someone to stay with him and show him our land, especially here around Boothia, but no one wanted to go. The people were suspicious and afraid. She said people were afraid this stranger was going to punish them for not helping save the sailors. We were hunting seals then, she said. It wasn’t a good time to be traveling.
At that point, another man broke in and told how he had heard about this whiteman too. He began a similar story which told how this man had managed to travel into the Boothia and how he had asked many questions about the two ships where the men had died. He told of how several stories had been given to the Repulse Bay man about the ship men and some of the places where they had died. Finally he told how many things taken from the ships had been given to him. The man was very happy to collect these things and asked many times to be given more. In the end he had to return to Repulse Bay, but after that more spoons and forks and other things were taken there to be traded. Some things were lost because the man left Repulse Bay on a little boat and never returned for the things brought there for him. The man ended his story by saying this whiteman had become very upset when he was told about how the ship men had begun to eat each other. It was after hearing these things that he had left and not come back. It was never nice to think about, but sometimes people had to eat their dead in order to survive themselves.
David listened to these stories, but now more than ever before, they seemed un-real somehow. He no longer felt they were part of them. It was so hard to actually see them as being real or meaningful in any way. They were no longer stories about real people like them. It was odd to be wondering about men who had died so long ago, or had been in the area so long ago. At least, David wondered why would white people be interested now after all these years? Many of the people who had seen them were old now if not already dead themselves. Why had the whitemen not come when the ship men were still alive? Maybe they would not have died had white people come back for them earlier. Maybe they would have all died anyway. It was too big a puzzle for him to wonder about.
Finally, he got up, pulled his boots on and slipped his outer parka over his head and went outside. The wind was calming and he could see the night sky again above full of stars, the homes of all the ones who had died and left this world. Inside the snowhouse several people thought about the stories they had just heard. Inside they wanted to say something, but it wasn’t polite to openly criticize. Instead, they said nothing. One man began singing an old song “Ai, ai, ya....ya, ee, yaa, ya...” The mood changed and suddenly people smiled again and found they still had the strength to dance again. Another man passed the skin drum to the singer who immediately began beating it along the rim with the padded baton, twisting and turning as he sang.