Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 10, 2025
The dogs crouched low on the ground, howling dismally. During the first days of the long night the natives held a series of dog fights inside the snow and stone houses. Ordinarily Ootah would have attended these, for a dog fight is of keenest interest to a tribesman, and the Eskimos' most exciting form of sport.
A great quantity was cast to the ravenous dogs. Two more walrus were lumberingly drawn to the ice; the first sledge load and two hunters started shoreward; soon the second sledge was loaded. Ootah and Maisanguaq remained to dress the third beast. Like scorpions in the hands of the mighty tornarssuit the wind now steadily beat upon the ice. The two men were almost lifted from their feet.
His bulky body reeled unsteadily. "Come on up bring 'er in hurry up! Gawd, but you'r' blazin' slow!" Ootah and his companions landed. Tugging at the leather lines they drew the walrus one by one from the water to the ice. In these monstrous palpitating black bodies were tons of food and fuel. Without wasting time, they fell to their task and dressed the animals.
Maisanguaq saw Ootah struggle to release himself; then he saw the kayak tilt as the hunter was drawn, by the mighty impetus of the plunging sea-horse, into the water. He heard Ootah's cry saw the blood red waters seethe as they closed over him. In a brief interval the kayak righted itself it was empty. A murmur of dismay rose from the others. "The tupilak! the tupilak!"
A far-away look came into her eyes, and Ootah felt an infinite ache at his heart. "I am afraid, Ootah," she said presently, in a trembling voice . . . "Afraid . . . my head burns the igloo is black . . . Dost thou remember what the women told their dead? . . . They invoked the dead to curse me . . . as I stood by the open sea . . . when the moon rose . . . Ootah! Ootah!
"Annadoah must be thine or mine; dead, she cannot choose thee, and with thee dead, my strength shall cow her. As men did of old I shall carry her away by force. She shall be mine." "Annadoah hath already chosen her heart is in the south," Ootah replied, sadly. "Fool!" the other man shrieked.
Thus, Ootah would be helpless the rest of his days and as he died all the dreadful horrors of the curses would come upon him. Thus would Maisanguaq be revenged. As the midnight sun dipped below the horizon, the sea became more deeply golden. To the women watching along the shore, the multitude of kayaks became mere black specks.
There were a half dozen mother walrus with half-grown young about them. Now and then they sleepily opened their eyes and made low maternal noises. Before the others realized what had happened, Ootah sprang toward a bull and delivered his harpoon. It rose in the air and roared deafeningly. Ootah struck a second time.
"May Ootah die slowly; may his legs die, may his hands die yea, may the spirits of his body be severed from one another as ice fields in the breaking; may the spirit of his hands, the spirit of his feet, the spirit of his lungs, the spirit of his head, the spirit of his heart wander apart may they be torn asunder as the clouds in a storm!
Already the sky above the sea was bright as a frosted globe of glass, and pearly fingers of light were stealing upward over the interior mountains. "She is hungry," Ootah repeated over and over again. "And the tribe starves . . . and there may be ahmingmah in the mountains." Behind him they loomed, gigantic and precipitous.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking