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Updated: June 7, 2025
Opee-Kwan demanded, half of himself and half of his tribespeople. "We are, and in a breath we are not. If the man may become shadow, may not the shadow become man? Nam-Bok was, but is not. This we know, but we do not know if this be Nam-Bok or the shadow of Nam-Bok." Nam-Bok cleared his throat and made answer.
Koogah, the Bone-Scratcher, retreated backward in sudden haste, tripping over his staff and falling to the ground. "Nam-Bok!" he cried, as he scrambled wildly for footing. "Nam-Bok, who was blown off to sea, come back!" The men and women shrank away, and the children scuttled off between their legs. Only Opee-Kwan was brave, as befitted the head man of the village.
"There cannot be so many people in all the world," Opee-Kwan objected, for he was stunned and his mind could not grasp such magnitude of numbers. "What dost thou know of all the world and how large it is?" Nam-Bok demanded. "But there cannot be so many people in one place." "Who art thou to say what can be and what cannot be?" "It stands to reason there cannot be so many people in one place.
Therein flutter the souls of the dead; for the dead be many and the living few. The dead do not come back. Never have the dead come back save thou with thy wonder-tales. It is not meet that the dead come back, and should we permit it, great trouble may be our portion." Nam-Bok knew his people well and was aware that the voice of the council was supreme.
She debated a moment, while the bidarka drifted swiftly from her, then raised her voice to a quavering treble. "I am old, Nam-Bok, and soon I shall pass down among the shadows. But I have no wish to go before my time. I am old, Nam-Bok, and I am afraid." A shaft of light shot across the dim-lit sea and wrapped boat and man in a splendor of red and gold.
It would have made many knives." "Nay, it was not mine." "It was a find, and a find be lawful." "Not so; the white men had placed it there And further, these bars were so long that no man could carry them away so long that as far as I could see there was no end to them." "Nam-Bok, that is very much iron," Opee-Kwan cautioned.
"It is so," Opee-Kwan supplemented gravely. "With the wind the going is easy, but against the wind a man striveth hard; and for that they had no paddles these men on the big canoe did not strive at all." "Small need to strive," Nam-Bok cried angrily. "The schooner went likewise against the wind." "And what said you made the sch sch schooner go?"
Nam-Bok was perplexed, but hearkened to the voice of the head man. "If thou art Nam-Bok," Opee-Kwan was saying, "thou art a fearful and most wonderful liar; if thou art the shadow of Nam-Bok, then thou speakest of shadows, concerning which it is not good that living men have knowledge. This great village thou hast spoken of we deem the village of shadows.
"Ever when the ice passed out of the sea hast thou sat and watched through the long day, saying at each chance canoe, 'This is Nam-Bok. Nam-Bok is dead, O Bask-Wah-Wan, and the dead do not come back. It cannot be that the dead come back." "Nam-Bok!" the old woman cried, so loud and clear that the whole village was startled and looked at her. She struggled to her feet and tottered down the sand.
"It is doubtless the man from the next village," he said finally, "come to consult with me about the marking of things on bone. And the man is a clumsy man. He will never know how." "It is Nam-Bok," old Bask-Wah-Wan repeated. "Should I not know my son!" she demanded shrilly. "I say, and I say again, it is Nam-Bok." "And so thou hast said these many summers," one of the women chided softly.
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