The Beothuk Saga

by Bernard Assiniwi

  By morning he had reached a decision. He ate another portion of dried meat, then retrieved his tapatook from its hiding place, dragged it down to the shore, and paddled back to where he had spent one night with Woasut and another night by himself. He would repack his belongings and continue his journey around the land, as he had set out to do. Nothing would prevent him from fulfilling his promise. Not even a beautiful young woman, no, not all the beautiful young women in the world. He would stay out of other people’s affairs, never again would he interfere to save someone’s life, unless of course they were Addaboutik. The reason he had lost all this time was that he had failed to keep his word. He should have watched the scene at the bay without getting involved in it, and told the story later to his own people, without allowing it to detain him on his journey. He should not have tried to help, no matter how pleasant it had been to spend that one night with the young woman. He arrived at the place where his tapatook was hidden, put his belongings back into his pack, tied the pack inside the tapatook, and pulled the tapatook high up into the forest, ready to be taken out at first light the next morning. Then he climbed up to the cavern, made a small fire, ate his evening meal, and went to sleep.

  It was still dark when he opened his eyes: he felt uneasy, as though he could sense someone watching him. His eyes searched the cavern, but he could see nothing in the darkness. Quietly he raised himself to his feet and, without making a sound, took his knife out of its sheath. His eyes were becoming accustomed to the dark, and through the opening he could see a lightness where the sun was beginning to awaken. He left the cavern and returned to his tapatook. Suddenly he stopped. There on the beach before him was the dark shape of Woasut, lying curled up on the sand, shivering and crying silently. Anin felt no animosity towards her, despite the fact that she had taken his tapatook and the anxiety she had caused him the night before. He went up to her, bent down, and taking her by the shoulders, lifted her to her feet. He put his arms around her, placing her head on his shoulder, and held her close to his body. He felt the young Beothuk tremble against him like a small tree in the season of falling leaves shaken by a strong wind, and she began to cry aloud in great choking sobs.

  They stood together for a long time without speaking, she trembling like a small, frightened child and he attempting to comfort her with his tenderness and his unspoken offer of protection. Slowly her sobs subsided, and he gently lowered her to the sand, retrieved his tapatook, placed it in the water, and lifted Woasut into it. Together they travelled towards the cold, still without having exchanged a single word. And yet they had reached an understanding.

  6

  Gradually, woasut’s grief subsided. It wasn’t that she forgot what she had seen, but the pain of it lessened. She remembered her mother, her father, and all the young people of her village, not as she had last seen them, but as they had been when they were still alive. In this way the image of their death slowly faded. She still wept from time to time, when she recalled the sight of their bodies scattered about the village, all the people she had known and loved in her life, and realized with anguish that she would never see them again. And at times she was overcome by the thought that the same thing could happen to Anin. He too could die, killed by the bloodthirsty Ashwans, the people of the cold.

  When this thought troubled her she pushed it away from her, like a beast that could not and must not touch her. She kept herself busy. She made their warm clothing for the cold season. Every time they landed the tapatook she insisted on helping Anin with the work of making camp. He no longer had to make a fire; that was now her task. He did not have to skin the animals he killed; she did it. She gathered firewood and kept the fire going. In this way, Anin could paddle for longer periods, even though the days were slowly becoming shorter.

  One day, when Woasut and Anin were in the tapatook, she saw a long point of land stretching off into the distance in the direction of the cold. She explained to Anin that the point of land was not wide, that they could cross it on foot, and that this was less dangerous than paddling around it. To paddle around it would mean having to face the strong winds that blew up from his homeland. The sea on the other side of the point was always rough, and also it was from beyond the point that the Ashwans from the cold region came.

  She told him about the time she had travelled to the end of the land with her father, and they had seen a large party of Ashwans landing in a shallow bay. They had been catching anawasuts, the large, flat fish with brown-and-white markings. Crossing the point, carrying the tapatook and packs, would be a matter of three or four suns; it took at least that long to paddle around it, she added, and the danger was far greater.

  Anin thought about the promise he had made to travel around the world. Could he say that he had fulfilled the obligation of his initiation if he walked part of the way? It was already the falling-leaf season, and strong, cold winds were making the tapatook less responsive to the paddle. And having a second person and her belongings on board added greatly to its weight.

  They found shelter that night in a small creek bed with a good supply of fresh water and well out of the wind. He told Woasut that they would stay there for several days while they considered their next move. They must have a complete understanding of their situation. The forest here was thinner, there was not much game and the trees were smaller. There was so little bark that they could not finish making their shelter the first night, and had to sleep under a cloudless sky filled with stars. It was the beginning of the cold season. In the morning, as soon as the sun rose, Anin left to investigate the area and to find more birchbark. The sun was high in the sky by the time he returned, carrying a large bundle of the rolled boyish, easily enough to finish the mamateek. While Woasut worked on the mamateek, Anin went out again, this time to a marsh where he had seen a number of mamchets, who built dams to create enough water for their houses. He had told Woasut that he would bring her the meat of this animal, and skins for making snowshoes. When he returned to the mamateek he had one beaver and two odusweets, rabbits with huge hind feet like snowshoes. Woasut had already finished the mamateek, pushing the strips of bark into place on the framework of dead branches, and had started a fire inside, with enough firewood to last several days. She was smiling, and when Anin handed her the animals she began to skin them, quietly singing a song she had learned during her childhood.

  It was the first time Anin had heard her singing. She had a sweet, calming voice. He was happy to see her coming back to life: it made him feel useful. To be needed by someone else gave his own life a new dimension. He was a helper. The thought of perpetuating himself through others, in children perhaps, seemed to grow out of this new feeling. That night, Woasut and Anin both smiled in their sleep. They had tasted the sweetness of being two in a world that seemed to them filled with misery and suffering, in which every stranger seemed hostile and evil.

  Anin awoke at daybreak. Woasut was already outside, reviving the previous night’s fire. Suddenly she cried out:

  “Anin! Come quickly! A vessel out at sea!”

  Anin joined her and saw one of the strangers’ boats passing some distance offshore. He put out the fire so it would not attract the attention of these warlike men with hair the colour of dried grass.

  “Fortunately our tapatook is well hidden in the trees,” he said.

  They waited until the strange craft passed completely out of sight, towards the cold end of the land, before relighting the fire.

  “You were right to advise me to cross the land here rather than paddle around the point,” he said to Woasut. “We would surely have been attacked by those murderers with their cutting sticks. It was they who wounded me before I met you.”

  Anin had not mentioned his encounter with the Bouguishamesh before, and so he told her the story of his brief battle with the infuriated giant.

  “I have never seen such a large tapatook,” Woasut said when he had finished.

  “It takes them wherever they want to go,” said Anin. “They use the
wind to make it go, and only need to paddle when there is no wind. I have seen one at close hand – there were more people on it than I have fingers. And they were bigger than the Addaboutik, at least the one who tried to kill me was. I am hungry, Woasut.”

  “I have gathered sea cucumbers. Would Anin like some, if I cooked them on a stone in the middle of the fire?”

  “Hmmm … yes.”

  The young Beothuk spread the sea cucumbers on the fire-stone, sprinkled them with saltwater and some berries that were in season. While they ate, Woasut showed Anin the two pairs of leggings she had made, which they would wear when the weather turned colder. She had made them from the skin of the legs of a caribou Anin had killed ten suns before. She had turned the skins inside out, carefully scraped them, and then softened the leather by pounding it on a birch log from which she had first removed the bark. With the caribou hair turned in, the leggings would hold in the body’s own heat. Anin told Woasut he was pleased by her handiwork. After the meal, he said, he would go back into the woods to hunt Mamchet the Beaver, so that she would have fur to make shirts. The fur of the beaver was softer than that of Appawet the Seal, but it was also heavier and lasted longer. To make two shirts she would need at least twenty furs. Higher up, there was a marshy creek that fed the brook where they had built their mamateek, and he had counted more than a dozen beaver there, including adults and a litter of young that had been born that spring. In one or two suns he would easily have enough furs for their needs.

  Taking his bow and several arrows, he set off in the direction of the marsh. Before he had taken a hundred steps, however, he found himself face to face with Gashu-Uwith the Bear. He had run into him often during his two season-cycles. Now he stood motionless so as not to alarm the beast, who was grunting and stretching himself. Eventually, Gashu-Uwith took a path that led to the top of the tongue of land that separated Anin and Woasut from the windy sea, and which they would soon have to cross if they were to reach Baétha, the village of the Addaboutik. Once again, thought Anin, the bear was showing him the way. Without the bear’s guidance, Anin would have had to spend several suns finding a path wide enough to allow them to carry the tapatook and their heavy packs to a more sheltered place, where they could safely spend the cold season. The path followed by Gashu-Uwith even went close to the marsh where Anin had seen the beaver family. Anin decided to explore no further; he would take these beaver pelts and then continue his voyage by crossing the land. He waited patiently beside the marsh, and before long had killed four young mamchets with his arrows. To catch the rest, he made several balance-traps, using large logs weighted with heavy rocks and baited with sweet, young birch branches. He would return the next day to check his traps, and to find another family of mamchets in another marsh or in the deeper water before a dam.

  Back at the mamateek, he told Woasut about his encounter with Gashu-Uwith, and explained to her that he now knew that the bear was his spirit protector. Woasut did not laugh at his belief; her own people believed in such things, she started to tell him, and then stopped. At the mention of her people, her face contorted and tears formed in her eyes. She could not forget. It seemed to her impossible that she ever would, and she cried for a short time. Anin allowed her to cry. Our memories are our own, he thought, and no one has the right to even ask us about them. If we choose to talk about them, then others will understand what we are feeling. But if not, that is our own business, and others must learn to respect that decision. If we do not want to hear lies, then we must not ask questions.

  The next morning, while Woasut worked on the skins, Anin returned to the forest for more mamchets. At the marsh, he found three of his traps had fallen but only two mamchets had been caught. The third had apparently managed to work itself free and escape. He hung the two on a spruce tree and then decided to explore farther into the bush along the path shown to him by the bear. When the sun was at its highest, he found himself at the junction of three different paths. He thought the one heading into the wind would be the right one to take across the tongue of land, but just as he was about to set off on it he heard Gashu-Uwith growling on the path that led into the cold, towards the end of the point of land. He decided to follow that path, despite the fear that the bear’s presence stirred within him.

  “If she was going to eat me,” he reasoned, “she would have done so long before now. Still, I can never be entirely certain of her intentions.”

  He slowed his pace so as not to come upon Gashu-Uwith unexpectedly. As the sun was beginning to set, he suddenly entered a magnificent clearing, a sunny meadow nestled at the edge of a small lake fed by a sparkling stream. The lake’s outlet was the same creek that he had been following the day before, when hunting for mamchets.

  “This is a good place to spend the cold season,” he thought. He climbed a ridge, and from its top he could see three coastlines in the distance: one towards the cold, another towards the wind, and a third towards the setting sun. All three were less than a day’s portage from the clearing. Woasut would be happy to spend the cold season in such a sheltered place, protected from the wind and with a good lookout for enemies. That alone made it worth while bringing her here for her opinion.

  He hurried back to the mamateek, almost running down the path. If he had not hung the beavers close to the path, he might easily have forgotten them in his haste to reach Woasut and tell her about the discovery Gashu-Uwith had shown him.

  But Woasut was not pleased by the prospect of spending the cold season so close to the sea. She was afraid of the Bouguishamesh. The strangers they had seen had greatly unsettled her, and she wanted to cross the point of land and return to Anin’s village before the coming cold season. Only then would she feel safe, she told him. Anin reminded her that, even if the village was as close as she said it was, they would have to cache most of their provisions, including their warm clothing, and live on short rations if they were to get there in time. Even at that, they would need to begin paddling before the sun rose and continue long after it had set. They would exhaust themselves, and very likely arrive at the village in bad health, just before the onset of the cold season. She knew how important it was to build up their strength and their provisions during the warm season if they were to survive the cold until thawing time. Woasut asked for more time to think before making a decision. Anin replied that the last time he had taken too long to think he had almost lost her. But he gave her until the next sun to tell him what she wanted to do.

  “But if I decide to spend the winter here, what other choice will you have?”

  They thought about it for a long time, lying on their comfortable sleeping couch in the mamateek. When morning came they were sound asleep, and the sun was high in the sky before the two young lovers emerged from their caribou blankets, still quiet and thoughtful.

  “I will make the portage up to your clearing,” Woasut said, “with our provisions. I will decide when I see it whether or not I will stay there for the cold season. If I decide to continue, my own belongings will be there and I will not have to return to the sea except to gather more clams.”

  Anin smiled and told her that he would help her with the portage, even though it meant losing several days of preparation for the cold season.

  7

  Woasut was strong and did not seem to tire. She carried the mamchets killed by Anin the previous suns, as well as the two pairs of leggings and the mitts she had made for herself and Anin, in preparation for the season of cold and snow. All this she loaded on her back and carried to the clearing discovered by her man, without once stopping or resting along the way. Anin carried the store of clams Woasut had gathered from the beach, the hides from the other animals he had killed, his hunting weapons – spear, bow, and arrows – his paddle and the tapatook, which he lifted over his head. He wanted to see if there were fish in this lake. The two were young and in good health and would survive the cold season as long as they had enough provisions. Anin smiled as he walked. He was thinking that once Woasut saw the cle
aring, she would also see the wisdom of his arguments for remaining there through the cold season. Deep down, he knew he would not change his decision to stay, and he also knew that Woasut would bend to his will. On the other hand, she had been right to counsel him to cross the point of land rather than risk the strong winds by trying to paddle around it during the leaf-falling season. By stopping to consider their plans, they had avoided being captured by the Bouguishamesh in the large tapatook that was moved by the wind.

  When they arrived at the small clearing, Woasut could not contain her delight. How beautiful was the little valley, and how magnificent the view! Anin took her to the top of the ridge and showed her how far they could see.

  “You knew I would like this place, did you not?” she said to him. “Does my response please you?”

  Anin smiled. Yes, he had known that she would like this place. Not only because it was beautiful, but also because it was well hidden and far from the places frequented by the Bouguishamesh and the Ashwans. Everything they needed for the cold season was close at hand: they were surrounded by evergreens and birch, there was the lake, the little brook that fed into it, and there was easily enough game to feed them. There might even be fish in the lake. Anin put his tapatook in the water, and, taking out his fishing net, tied a small piece of beaver meat to it and paddled out, keeping close to the shore. He had not gone far before he felt something tugging at the bait. It was Dattomesh the Trout. After the melting season the fish must have swum up the stream from the sea to spawn, only to be trapped in the lake when the water went down. This was good; it meant they would be able to vary their diet from time to time. As soon as he caught a second dattomesh he returned to shore and handed them to Woasut, who had already started a fire. She stuck two green birch wands in the ground so that their tips were above the flames, and on these she laid the fish. Soon the flesh was cooked and they ate. When they finished their meal, they stretched out on the soft ground. Woasut took off her dingiam so that Anin could see her sex, and Anin felt his male strength surge through him. He was like a thirsty animal scenting water, and he rolled onto Woasut, who remained lying on her back. Anin was surprised that she did not turn and raise herself on her knees.