The Eternal Maiden | Page 4

flushed delicately with the soft pink of the lichen flowers that bloom in the rare days of early summer. Her eyes played with a light as elusive, as quick as the golden radiance on the seas. Her dark silken hair straggled luxuriantly from under the loose hood of immaculate white fox fur which had fallen back from her head. The soft skins of blue foxes and of young birds clothed her. From her sleeves her hands peeped; they were small, dainty, childlike. Almost childlike, too, was her face, so palely golden, so fresh, so lovely, so petite. There were mingled in her the coyness of a child and the irresistible coquetry of a woman.
She waved her hands joyously to the hunters leaving the shore. They called back to her. Some of the women frowned. One shook her fist at Annadoah.
Papik, lingering behind, approached Annadoah timidly.
"Thou art beautiful, Annadoah; thou canst sew with great skill. With the needles the white men brought thee, thou hast made garments such as no other maiden. Papik would wed thee, Annadoah."
"Thou art a good lad, Papik," Annadoah replied, laughing gaily. "But thy fingers are very long--and long, indeed, thy nose!"
Papik flushed, for to him this was a tragedy.
"But with my fingers I speed the arrow with skill," he replied.
"True, but the fate of him who shoots with a skill such as thine is unfortunate indeed; for soon the day will come when thou wilt not speed the arrow, when thy hands will be robbed of their cunning. When ookiah (winter) comes with his lashes of frost he will smite thy fingers--they will fall off. Then how wilt thou get food for thy wife? Ookiah will twist thy nose, and it will freeze. Poor Papik!"
Annadoah lay her hand gently on his arm, and a brief sorrow clouded her smiles.
Papik bowed his head. He understood the blight nature had set upon him and it made his heart cold. Truly his fingers were long and his nose was long--and either was a misfortune to a tribesman. He knew, as all the natives knew, that sooner or later during a long winter his fingers would inevitably freeze, then he would lose his skill with weapons; consequently he would not be able to provide for a wife. His nose, too, in all probability would freeze; then he would be disfigured and the trials of life would be more complicated.
From the inherited experience of ages the natives know that a hunter with short hands and feet is most likely to live long; a man's length of life can be pretty accurately gauged by the stubbiness of his nose. The degree of radiation of the human body is such that it can prevent freezing in this northern region only when the extremities are short; thus a man with long feet is almost for a certainty doomed to lose his toes, and the most fortunate is he whose feet and hands are short, whose nose is stubby and whose ears are small. The exigencies of life place an economic value on the structure of a hunter's body, and the little Eskimo women--endowed with a crude social conscience which demands that a father shall live and remain efficient so as to care for his own children--are loath to marry one afflicted as was Papik.
"But I care for thee, Annadoah," Papik protested.
"And well do I know thou art a brave lad, but seek thou another maiden; thou dost not touch my heart, Papik, and thy fingers are very, very long."
With native spontaneity, Papik laughed and turned shoreward. As he passed the assembled maidens he paused momentarily and greeted them. He made a brief proposal of marriage to Ahningnetty, a fat maiden, and was met with laughter.
"Go on, Long Fingers," one called. "How wilt thou strike the bear when thy fingers are gone? How wilt thou seek the musk ox when ookiah hath bitten off thy feet?"
The maiden who spoke was extremely thin.
"Ha, ha!" Papik returned. "How wilt thou warm thy husband when the winter comes? How wilt thou warm the little baby when thou art like the bear after a famished winter, thou maid of skin and bones!"
"Long-nose! Long-nose! may thy nose freeze!" she called.
The other maidens laughed and gibed at her. In anger she fled into her tupik, or tent. Being very thin she, too, like Papik, suffered from the bar sinister of nature. For, in selecting a wife, a native comes down to the practical consideration of choosing a maid who will likely grow fat, so that, during the long cold winters, her body will be a sort of human radiator to keep the husband and children warm. So love, you see, in this region, is largely influenced by an instinctive knowledge of natural economies.
As he launched his kayak, Ootah turned toward Annadoah.
"Thou