The Walrus Hunters | Page 6

At the very time that
Cheenbuk and the Indian were expressing their detestation of war,
elsewhere a young Eskimo was doing his best to bring about that
unhappy and ruinous condition of things.
He was an unusually strong young Arctic swashbuckler, with
considerably more muscle than brains, a restless spirit, and what may
be styled a homicidal tendency. He was also tyrannical, like many men
of that stamp, and belonged to the same tribe as Cheenbuk.
Walrus Creek was the summer residence of the tribe of Eskimos to
which Cheenbuk belonged. It was a narrow inlet which ran up into a
small island lying some distance off the northern shores of America, to
discover and coast along which has been for so many years the aim and
ambition of Arctic explorers. How it came by its name is not difficult to
guess. Probably in ages past some adventurous voyagers, whose names

and deeds have not been recorded in history, observing the numbers of
walruses which scrambled out of the sea to sun themselves on the cliffs
of the said creek, had named it after that animal, and the natives had
adopted the name. Like other aborigines they had garbled it, however,
and handed it down to posterity as Waruskeek, while the walruses,
perhaps in order to justify the name, had kept up the custom of their
forefathers, and continued to sun themselves there as in days of yore.
Seals also abounded in the inlet, and multitudes of aquatic birds
swarmed around its cliffs.
The Eskimo village which had been built there, unlike the snow-hut
villages of winter, was composed chiefly of huts made of slabs of stone,
intermingled with moss and clay. It was exceeding dirty, owing to
remnants of blubber, shreds of skins, and bones innumerable, which
were left lying about. There might have been about forty of these huts,
at the doors of which--or the openings which served for doors--only
women and children were congregated at the time we introduce them to
the reader. All the men, with the exception of a few ancients, were
away hunting.
In the centre of the village there stood a hut which was larger and a
little cleaner than the others around it. An oldish man with a grey beard
was seated on a stone bench beside the door. If tobacco had been
known to the tribe, he would probably have been smoking. In default of
that he was thrown back upon meditation. Apparently his meditations
were not satisfactory, for he frowned portentously once or twice, and
shook his head.
"You are not pleased to-day, Mangivik," said a middle-aged woman
who issued from the hut at the moment and sat down beside the man.
"No, woman, I am not," he answered shortly.
Mangivik meant no disrespect by addressing his wife thus. "Woman"
was the endearing term used by him on all occasions when in
communication with her.
"What troubles you? Are you hungry?"

"No. I have just picked a walrus rib clean. It is not that."
He pointed, as he spoke, to a huge bone of the animal referred to.
"No, it is not that," he repeated.
"What then? Is it something you may not tell me?" asked the woman in
a wheedling tone, as she crossed her legs and toyed with the flap of her
tail.
Lest the civilised reader should be puzzled, we may here remark that
the costume of the husband and wife whom we have introduced--as,
indeed, of most if not all Eskimo men and women--is very similar in
detail as well as material. Mangivik wore a coat or shirt of seal-skin
with a hood to it, and his legs were encased in boots of the same
material, which were long enough to cover nearly the whole of each leg
and meet the skirt of the coat. The feet of the boots were of tough
walrus-hide, and there was a short peak to the coat behind. The only
difference in the costume of the woman was that the hood of her coat
was larger, to admit of infants and other things being carried in it, and
the peak behind was prolonged into a tail with a broad flap at the end.
This tail varied a little in length according to the taste of the
wearer--like our ladies' skirts; but in all cases it was long enough to
trail on the ground-- perhaps we should say the ice--and, from the
varied manner in which different individuals caused it to sweep behind
them, it was evident that the tail, not less than the civilised skirt, served
the purpose of enabling the wearers to display more or less of graceful
motion.
"There is nothing that I have to hide from my woman," said the amiable
Eskimo, in reply to her question. "Only I