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Updated: June 11, 2025
Their howls shrilled through the storm, "Huk! Huk! Huk!" he urged. Supporting Annadoah with one arm Ootah pushed forward after the moving team. He knew they were being carried steadily and slowly seaward, but he had hopes that the ice field would swerve landward toward the south where an armlike glacier jutted, elbow-fashion, into the sea and caught the current.
Annadoah crouched in frantic terror upon the ice. From the Greenland highlands a moaning echo answered the women. To Annadoah the hill spirits had joined in cursing her all nature seemed to upbraid her. Tremblingly, with a last lingering hope, she crept on her knees to the edge of the lane of lapping black water.
His heart beat quickly at what the frightened birds told him. Olafaksoah, they said, struck Annadoah. As she lay on the ground he kicked her. In the snow-driven wind Ootah heard the echo of her heart-broken weeping. He revoked the curses he had uttered; he cursed his own weakness whereby he had invoked harm to her. Then in the winds Ootah heard the beat of drums.
Ootah again mechanically shook his head. Amid all of those about him, he saw only the face of Annadoah, golden as sunlight and pink as the lichen blossoms of spring. Through her open ahttee, or fur garment, he saw her breasts as tender as those of eider-feathered birds. The sight of her melted his heart, the streams of spring were loosened within him.
O thou whom, when the great petrel raised a storm, wast cast into the depths by those thou didst love, thou whose heart achest for affection hear me, hear me, and Annadoah will surely come to thee very soon and comb thy hair in the depths of the cold, cold sea." Tears fell from her eyes.
Outside the silenced women detected the barking of dogs approaching the village from the distance. They heard the excited calls of tribesmen and the chatter of other women. One by one they crept from the igloo. A strange light in her eyes, Annadoah followed.
The sun, circling low about the horizon, shifted its rays, and within the nebulous cloud-masses in the valleys, fountains of prism light played. In this radiant phantasmagoria messages in turn came to Ootah. He saw the figuration of Annadoah's tent, and within, reclining upon her couch, the form of Annadoah. At the mirage picture of the beauteous and beloved maiden his heart throbbed violently.
As he launched his kayak, Ootah turned toward Annadoah. "Thou art the sun, Annadoah!" he called. "And thou the moon, Ootah," she replied. "I shall await thee, Ootah! Bring thou back fat and blubber, Ootah, to warm thy fires, Ootah." And she laughed gaily. Then she turned her back to Ootah, bent her head coyly and did not turn around again.
"And Annadoah will move to a new skin tent with Ootah!" he said, joyously, exultantly. "Ootah will bring food unto Annadoah and she will reward him with her love." "Foolish Ootah," moaned the wind, "love cannot be won with food, neither with ahmingmah meat nor walrus blubber." Ootah felt his heart sink; a vague and heavy misgiving filled him.
Ootah recognized "Olafaksoah" Olaf, the great white trader whom he had seen two seasons before at a southern village. He was noted for his brutality and hard bargaining. "What's all the noise about?" he growled. His voice was deep and gruff. Ootah staggered back. "Annadoah, Annadoah," he moaned softly, supporting himself on the upstander of his loaded sled.
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