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Updated: June 13, 2025
He looked back as he reached the icy shore. Annadoah stood at the door of her tent. Her parting laughter rang after him with the sweetness of buntings singing in spring. Ootah's heart leaped within him. Annadoah possessed a beauty rare among her people.
As if to strike, it slowly lifted the likeness of a gigantic arm shrouded with tattered clouds . . . The baleful shade shut off the sunlight from the earth . . . Ootah's heart quailed . . . Terror gripped him . . . For he saw what few men had ever beheld the shadow of Perdlugssuaq, the Great Evil. Finally he found voice. Smite me!"
Ootah sang for joy. Again he had achieved distinction on the hunt, and so, with all the better chances of success, he believed he might pursue his suit for the hand of Annadoah. With powerful, steady strokes of their paddles the hunters, in their processions of kayaks, towed the walrus through the sea shoreward. They joined unrestrainedly in Ootah's hunting chant. Only Maisanguaq was silent.
He rose slowly and crept through the underground tunnel leading from the igloo. The others followed. Without, most of the tribe were waiting. At Ootah's command the men unlashed the sledge-load of meat, and the division began. To Annadoah Ootah gave one-eighth of the load, enough to last by frugal use for more than two moons, or months.
Ootah began work on an igloo for Annadoah. None of the tribesmen had offered to do this for her, and, as only the men develop the architectural skill required to construct a snow shelter, Annadoah, until Ootah's return, was forced to continue to live in her seal-skin tent, where she suffered bitterly from the cold.
Now and then, unable to restrain his exuberant joy, Ootah sang his love to the clouds, the waves, the winds. "O winds, O happy winds, speed my message to Annadoah!" he called. "Tell her that I return with the food of the sea! O spirits of the air, breathe to her that Ootah's heart hungers for her as starving ahmingmah desire green grass in winter time.
Then the flap of the tent parted and Annadoah stepped forth, her head tossed haughtily, her beautiful eyes flashing. "Get hence," she said. "Thou art a boy, thy tongue is that of a boy. Thou art soft thou hast the heart of a woman." "Annadoah . . ." Ootah's voice wailed. The stretch of shore seemed to heave and writhe. He put out his hands as if to ward off a blow.
She heard Ootah's reply. "He hath gone the long journey of the dead." Annadoah breathed a sigh of relief and again floated into the coma of fever and exhaustion. The journey before Ootah was desperately difficult in the storm and darkness. In his way of reckoning he knew they had floated about two miles south of the village. The return lay along the sea and over crushed, blocked ice.
Her exquisite voice rose to a splendid crescendo as she described that valorous adventure, and in the chant ran the motifs of the hill spirit's anger, the brave leaping steps of Ootah, the tremor of the mountains as they were struck, and the deep tenderness of Ootah's love.
Ootah paddled his kayak to the side of his companion's and, leaning forward, with a quick movement, threw a lasso over the animal's nose and under one tusk. With a terrific jerk of the body, he gave a backward pull the walrus rose on the water, the kayak was freed of the tusk and slipped away. With a roar the animal sank into the sea. A number now rose angrily about Ootah's kayak.
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