Alaska (10 page)

On a day he would never forget, Oogruk was taken to a sinister hut at the edge of the village and ceremoniously led inside one of the filthiest, most jumbled places he had ever seen. The skeleton of a man dangled from one mud wall, the skull of a seal from another. Dirty pouches sewn from sealskin lay about the floor beside a collection of stinking skins on which the occupant slept. He was the shaman of Pelek village, the holy man who uttered the prayers that controlled the oceans and conversed with the spirits who brought whales to the headland. When he loomed out of the shadows to confront Oogruk, he was formidable tall, gaunt, with sunken eyes and missing teeth, his hair extremely long and matted with a filth that had not been removed in a dozen years. Uttering incomprehensible sounds, he took the ivory disk, looked at its elegance with obvious astonishment that a man as poor as Oogruk's father should possess such a treasure, then pulled down the boy's lower lip and with befouled fingers pressed the disk into the hole. The hardened scar tissue adjusted painfully to pinch the disk firmly in the position it would occupy for as long as Oogruk lived.

The insertion had been painful; it had to be if the disk was to stay in place, but when the beautiful object was properly seated, all could see, and some with envy, that the cross-eyed boy Oogruk who had so little was henceforth going to possess one treasure: the finest labret on the eastern shore of Siberia.

Now, as he sped his kayak across the path of the oncoming whale, he sucked in his lower lip, taking courage from the reassuring presence of the magical labret. When his tongue felt the ivory, carved on both faces, he could trace the talismanic whale carved there, and he was convinced that its companionship would assure him good fortune, and he was right, for as he sped past, so close that the whale could have made one thrust of its gigantic tail and leaped ahead to crush both kayak and man, the lazy beast kept its head underwater, not deigning to bother with whatever small thing was moving through the seas so close to it.

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But when the kayak had safely passed, the whale lifted its huge head, spouted great volumes of water, and casually opened its mouth as if yawning, and Oogruk, looking back toward the sound of the spouting, saw how enormous the mouth was that he had escaped, and its size appalled him. As a young man he had through the years participated in the butchering of four whales, and two of them had been large, but none had a head or a mouth as big as this. For almost a minute the cavernous mouth remained open, a black cavelike recess that could have crushed an entire kayak, and then almost drowsily it closed, a desultory spout of water came forth, and the massive whale sank once more below the surface of the water, still headed toward where Oogruk suspected his companions in their umiak would be waiting. Clicking his lucky labret against his teeth, he hurried ahead.

He was now to the east of the whale, heading north, and he was so far at sea that the headlands of home were no longer visible, nor was the opposite shore. He was alone on the vast northern sea, with nothing to sustain him but his lucky labret and the possibility that he might help his people catch that trailing whale.

Since it was midsummer, he had no fear of a descending darkness in which the whale might be lost, for as he paddled he could from time to time see over his left shoulder the plodding creature, and in the silvery light of endless summer he remained reassured that the great beast was traveling north with him, but whenever he did see the whale, he saw again that monstrous mouth, that black cavern which bespoke the other world about which the shaman sometimes warned when he was in one of his trances. To travel north in the whispering grayness of an arctic midnight while a dark whale kept pace in the deep billows of the sea was an experience which tested the courage of a man, and Oogruk, even though he was determined to comport himself well, might have turned back had not the presence of his labret reassured him.

At dawn the whale was still heading north, and before the sun was much above the horizon where it had lingered through the night, Oogruk thought he saw off to the northeast something that could be an umiak, and he quit monitoring the whale and started paddling frantically toward the supposed boat. He was correct in his guess, for at one point both he and the umiak rode the crest of waves, enabling him to see the six men rowing and they to see him. Waving his paddle, he gave the sign which indicated that a whale had been sighted, and with pointing directions he indicated its course.

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With surprising speed, the umiak cut westward, intending to intercept the leviathan and ignoring Oogruk completely, for it was the whale that was important, not the messenger. Oogruk understood, and with his own strokes he set his frail kayak on a course which would overtake the umiak just as it reached the whale, and now a three-part drama unfolded, with the men in the larger boat panting with excitement, the whale moving majestically ahead, oblivious of the danger about to assault it, and lone Oogruk paddling furiously, uncertain as to what his role in the forthcoming fray was going to be. And all about, in all directions, lay the gently heaving arctic sea, devoid of spring icebergs, devoid of birds, devoid of headlands and gulfs and bays. There in the vast loneliness of the north, these creatures of the north prepared for battle.

When the umiak first came in sight of the whale the men could not appreciate the size of this monster; they saw its head at times, its tail at other times, but they never saw the complete Length of the beast, so they were able to convince themselves that this was just one more ordinary whale. However, when they drew closer, the whale, still unaware of their presence, suddenly breached; that is, for reasons unknown it arched itself completely clear of the water, exposing its entire body. Then, exercising tremendous power, it turned on its side as if wishing to scratch its back, and thundered back into the sea with a gigantic splash. Now the six Eskimos realized they were facing a master whale that, if it could be taken, would feed their village for many months.

Oogruk's fatherin-law needed to give only a few orders. The inflated seal bladders, which would impede the whale's progress if they managed to harpoon it, were made ready. Each of the four rowers brought close to hand the spears they would use when they closed upon the whale, and in the prow of the umiak tall and handsome Shaktoolik stood erect, wedged his knees against the gunwales of the boat, his strong hands grasping the harpoon which he would thrust into the vitals of the whale. Far behind trailed Oogruk.

The harpoon which Shaktoolik tended so carefully was a powerful affair, its long shaft tipped with sharpened flint followed immediately by hooklike barbs carved from walrus ivory. But even this lethal weapon would prove ineffective if thrown, like a spear, with an overhand motion, for the force thus generated would be insufficient to penetrate the whale's thick, blubber-protected skin; the miracle of the Eskimo system was not the harpoon but the harpoon throwing-stick, which ingeniously imparted three or four times the penetrating power to the barbed shaft.

A throwing-stick was a carefully shaped, thin length of 65

wood about two and a half feet long, so devised as to increase considerably the length of a man's arm. The rear end, which contained a kind of slot in which the haft of the harpoon rested, snuggled in the crooked elbow of the thrower. The length of the stick ran along the man's arm, extending well beyond his fingertips, and it was against this wood that the harpoon rested. Toward the front end there was a finger rest enabling the man to retain control over both the harpoon and the stick, and close nearby a smoothed place at which the thumb could steady the long harpoon as the man prepared to throw. Steadying himself, the harpooner drew his right arm bearing the stick as far back as possible, checking to ensure that the butt end was secure in its slot.

Then, with a wide sweep of his right arm, parallel to the surface of the sea and not up and down as one might expect, he snapped his arm swiftly forward, released his hold on the nestled harpoon at the precise moment, and, thanks to the doubled length this gave his arm, released the flint-tipped harpoon at the whale with such force that it could drive through the thickest skin. In this intricate method the man slung the harpoon much as little David, twelve thousand years later, would sling his rock against big Goliath. It sometimes required years of practice before accuracy was obtained, but once the various tricks were synchronized, this slingshot harpoon became a deadly weapon.

It seems unbelievable that primitive man could have invented such a curious, complicated instrument, but hunters on various continents did: the atlatl it would be named after the example the Europeans encountered in Mexico, but all versions were similar. Somehow, men with no knowledge of engineering or dynamics deduced that their harpoons would be trebly effective if they were loaded into their atlatls and slung forward instead of being thrown. How awesome the intellectual force of this intricate discovery, but in assessing it, one must remember that for a hundred thousand years men spent most of their waking hours trying to kill animals for food; they had no occupation more important, so perhaps it is not remarkable that after twenty or thirty thousand years of experimentation they discovered that the best way to deliver a harpoon was with a sideways slingshot motion, almost like an awkward child throwing a ball.

On this day the Eskimo leader had calculated perfectly his approach to the target, and from a position a little to the right and close behind the lumbering beast, he planned to flash ahead on an angle which would enable Shaktoolik to strike at a vital spot just behind the right ear and thus provide the two paddlers on the left-hand side an opportunity to unleash

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their spears also, with the headman remaining available in the stern to plunge his spear somewhat behind the others. Using this maneuver, the four Eskimos on the left-hand side of the umiak would have a chance to wound this enormous creature, perhaps not mortally but certainly deeply enough to render it vulnerable to their subsequent attacks and ultimate victory. A battle of profound strategy was under way.

But as the umiak bore down, the whale became aware of its danger, and with an automatic response which astounded the men, wheeled on its midsection and swung its huge tail viciously. The leader, anticipating the destruction of his umiak if the tail struck, heeled his craft over, but this left the man in front, Shaktoolik with his harpoon, exposed, and as the tail swept past, one fluke struck Shaktoolik in the head and shoulders, sweeping him into the sea. Then, in what could only have been an accidental blow, the mighty tail smashed down, crushing the harpooner, driving him unconscious deep below the surface of the sea, where he perished. The whale had won the first encounter.

As soon as the headman grasped the altered situation, he acted instinctively. Drawing away from the whale, he looked about the sea for Oogruk, and when he saw the kayak just where it should have been, he moved the umiak in that direction and cried: 'Aboard!'

Oogruk was eager to join the fight, but he also knew that the craft in which he rode was the property of his fatherin-law: 'The kayak?'

'Leave it,' the headman said without hesitation. Any boat was valuable, and this one was his, but the capture of the whale was of paramount importance, so the kayak was turned adrift as Oogruk climbed into the umiak.

It had long been understood in this crew that if either Shaktoolik or the headman was killed or lost, the principal rower, the one fore and left, would assume that vacant role, and this he did, leaving his own post empty. At first Oogruk assumed that he would move into that seat, but his fatherin-law, knowing his limited skill, quickly reshuffled the men, leaving vacant the left rear seat, where Oogruk would sit under his direct supervision. There he could do the least harm, and in this new configuration, with almost no thought to the dead Shaktoolik, the Eskimos resumed their chase of the whale.

The leviathan, now aware that it was under attack, adopted various stratagems to protect itself, but since it was an air-breathing animal and not a fish, it had to surface from time to time, and when it did, these pestiferous little creatures in their boat tormented it. And they kept doing so, regardless 67

of the fact that they were having no success, because they knew that if they could keep the whale reacting to their intrusions, they could in time wear it down and develop that critical moment when, tired from fleeing and exhausted by this constant sounding and spouting, it would leave itself vulnerable.

All that first day the uneven fight was waged, with the men fully aware that one sweep of that stupendous tail, one crushing of those vast jaws, would doom them.

But they had no alternative; Eskimos captured their food from the ocean or they starved, and abandoning the fight never occurred to them. So when the sun moved toward the northern horizon, indicating that night, such as it was, had come, the men in the umiak continued their pursuit, and all through the silvery dusk which persisted in majestic beauty until it turned into a silvery dawn, the six little Eskimos chased the one great whale.

Toward noon of the second day the headman judged that the whale was tiring and that the time had come to attempt a master thrust, so once more he brought his umiak to a position slightly behind the whale, and again moved forcefully ahead so that his new harpooner would have a clear shot, as would he and the two left-hand rowers.

As the run started, he kicked Oogruk in the back, growling 'Have your lance ready,'

showing his contempt as his inept son-in-law fumbled around to find the unfamiliar weapon.

By the time the attack was launched, Oogruk had still not located his lance, and for the very good reason that the former occupant of the left rear seat had taken his with him when he moved forward and had not replaced it. Nevertheless, when the attack was made and the great whale slid past the right side of the umiak, the man ahead of Oogruk and his fatherin-law behind stabbed skillfully, doing real damage, but Oogruk did not, and the headman, seeing this dereliction, began to berate him as the whale moved on, bleeding from its right side.