The Beothuk Saga

by Bernard Assiniwi

Anin did not say another word, but went outside to rub the snowsled with seal fat. The first thing next morning, after placing some provisions in a sack, the Addaboutik left. He carried his snowshoes over his shoulder in case more snow should fall, and his bow and quiver across his chest. With his hunting spear in his hand, he set off along the path that headed into the wind and towards the cold. When the sun was at its highest above the horizon, Anin found himself in a place where the trees had become much smaller and seemed to bend down to let the wind blow over them. There was less soil, and the ptarmigan flocked together more. He saw fewer tracks of fur-bearing animals, such as the marten, and by the end of that sun they had stopped altogether. From these signs Anin concluded that there was no forest at the end of the point of land. He had truly entered the land of cold and snow, where the wind was master of everything when it chose to blow.

  That night the young initiate built a temporary shelter using snow and the few evergreen branches he could find. Even though he had kept his fire-making sticks well wrapped and dry, he had difficulty starting a fire. He ate a small portion of dried meat and then rolled himself up in his caribou blanket. He told himself that it was fortunate he had killed the caribou as soon as they had arrived at the wind-storm coast, also called by his people the sun-rising coast. And then he slept.

  He rose with the sun, ate some smoked fish and began walking towards the sun-setting coast. More snow began to fall, slowly but heavily, in large, wet flakes, and it stayed with him throughout the entire sun. He passed only a few clumps of stunted trees and an occasional tamarack, which stood straight up as though defying the wind to knock it down. Then he saw something move in the distance, a black mass that was drifting slowly down from the direction of the cold. He lay down flat on the ground and watched. It was a herd of caribou. The animals would stop often, scrape the snow from the soil with their hooves, and eat the moss beneath it; then they would continue their migration towards the sun-setting coast. “They are heading for the high mountains where there is better forest cover,” thought Anin. “They are late leaving. This heavy snowfall must have told them it was time, since it will make the snow too deep for them to survive down here. If I remain where I am, out of sight, they will pass close by me, and I may be able to take one or two of them.”

  He waited a long time. The snow had buried him so completely that he was part of the white landscape by the time the caribou drifted within range of his arrows. He was well prepared for them, and chose one of the first animals at the head of the herd, a large male whose antlers had already dropped. Although he was numbed by the long wait, Anin’s arrow went straight to the animal’s heart. The caribou staggered on for several more paces, then crashed to the snow-covered ground. Anin leapt to his feet and sent a second and then a third arrow at a female that still carried her antlers, and she too fell heavily to the ground, struck in the shoulder and in the heart. At the sight of him, the rest of the animals turned and fled, and his hunting was over. The herd veered off in the direction of the cold.

  Anin spent the rest of that sun gutting the two animals, skinning them, and rolling up the hides before they could freeze. He stored their hearts, livers, kidneys, and tongues in his food bag. Then he cut up the carcasses so that they would take up as little space as possible on his snowsled. The lower legs and feet he discarded, but he kept the hooves for making knife blades and skin scrapers. He also kept the female’s antlers for harpoon tips and arrowheads. He squeezed out the contents of the intestines and rolled up the casings, which would be used to make thread for sewing garments. Splitting open the skulls, he removed the brains and placed them, too, in his food bag. Then he arranged all the meat on the sled, securing it with strips cut from the ends of the rolled hides.

  When he was satisfied that everything was well packed and ready for the long haul back to the mamateek, he lit a fire and cooked a piece of caribou liver that he had already begun to chew while it was still warm and raw from the animal. Then, scooping a sheltered hollow in the snow, he rolled himself in his hide blanket and fell asleep almost immediately.

  The snow continued to fall throughout the night, and in the morning when he awoke it was up to his knees. He had to walk with snowshoes for the first time that season. He knew that the real cold had not yet arrived, because the snow he had heaped up the night before with his snowshoes had been enough to keep him warm while he slept. The sled was heavy with fresh meat and it would take him longer to return than it had to come. It had taken him two suns to get to this place; it took him four to get back.

  When he arrived within sight of the mamateek, he called to Woasut, who came running out of the dwelling, crying with happiness at the return of her man. She had been very afraid for him, she said, and for herself as well. She had imagined terrible things happening to him in the six suns he had been away. She herself had been frightened by Gashu-Uwith, whom she had heard prowling near the mamateek at night, and whose tracks she had seen in the snow in the mornings. For two nights, she had also heard wolves howling nearby, and had slept with her hunting spear close by her side. She had convinced herself that she would be alone forever.

  Anin tried not to let her see how her complaints disturbed him. He believed that such dark thoughts were preludes to defeat, and he had been taught to turn them away before they could lodge in his mind and weaken him. But his face betrayed his true feelings: his jaw muscles tightened, and he knit his eyebrows. Woasut realized that she must not express her fears to the only human she could count on to protect her from them. Instead, she helped him cut up the frozen caribou meat and hang it in skin bags from trees nearest the mamateek, high enough to be out of the reach of predators, especially Gashu-Uwith, whom she feared most of all. But Anin decided to leave a large piece of meat on the path, just where it entered their clearing, as a gift for the animal he thought of as his spirit protector. If Gashu-Uwith had once been an Addaboutik like him, Anin was obliged to share the spoils of his hunt with his kin. Woasut disagreed with him – she was afraid that if they fed the bear, it would stay with them for the entire cold season – but she dared not breathe a word for fear of angering her man again.

  When the work was finished, Anin took the cooked liver from his food bag and handed it to Woasut, as his gift to her. They ate together and talked about what had happened during his absence. The young woman told him that she had taken only three trout from the hole in the ice. Anin replied that, from the place where he had killed the caribou, he had seen a large bay cut into the windward side of the point of land. He also described the country, with its flat, treeless plateaux and no animals except caribou. That night, the two young lovers repeated their ritual of affection for one another many times before falling asleep in each other’s arms.

  10

  The season of cold and snow was showing signs of weakening. The snow retreated a bit more with each sun, and longer sunlight allowed Anin and Woasut to do more work outside the mamateek. Provisions were getting low; very little of the caribou meat was left. They ate more fish than red meat. The young woman avoided eating rabbit because she did not want to empty herself too often and risk losing the baby that was growing within her. Her belly had become steadily rounder during the past two moons, and she was starting to find certain movements difficult. Walking in deep, soft snow caused pain in her thighs, and she felt a sharp pain whenever her harness cut into her waist, as it did when she went out to gather firewood.

  Her fear of the bear, however, seemed to have been without cause. The animal had indeed taken the meat Anin left for it at the head of the path, but it had carried it off deep into the woods and had not returned for more. Anin explained to her that fear was called Geswat, and that Geswat was born of not knowing what will happen. “When you do not know what an animal is going to do in certain circumstances,” he said, “you fear that animal. But if you allow Geswat to control you, to determine your daily actions necessary for survival, she will slowly rob you of your reason. And when there is no more reason in your head, y
our life is at risk every second: you do thoughtless things, you act foolishly, you lose control of your mind, and you also put others in danger. That is why we must teach our children to know all the beings that live around us, to observe their habits and know how they behave. And if you ever feel Geswat getting hold of you, Woasut, you must fight her off immediately by remembering all the things you know about whatever it is that is causing that fear. For example, if you fear Kobshuneesamut the Creator, the All Powerful, that is not good: it means you do not trust him. If you are afraid of him, it must be because you have committed a reprehensible act. You have behaved badly. You must therefore go back and undo that act. Kobshuneesamut wants nothing from us but that we act correctly. If we do, then there is no need for fear. Fear will not exist. If the child you are carrying is a male child, then he must not even be allowed to speak of such a thing as fear. He must not breathe a word about it. Geswat exists only in females, who are the cause of her spreading, because females speak of their weakness born of ignorance of the things that surround them. That is why Anin was angry when Woasut said she felt fear. Anin must be strong and invincible when he faces life. He must always force himself to make the right movement, through his knowledge of the world around him. In fact, he must undergo the initiation exactly for that reason: so that he will learn all about the world and therefore never experience fear. Anin can be cautious of the world, he can be careful not to make a false step, but he cannot be afraid of it if he learns from his experiences.”

  Woasut spent the rest of the cold season repeating Anin’s words over and over, so that she could raise her child according to his beliefs. She also promised herself that if she had a daughter, she would teach her not to express the fear she herself had felt so often since her own childhood. The panic she had felt in the presence of the Ashwans, when the warriors from the cold came down and killed her people, betrayed the Beothuk’s ignorance of who the Ashwans were. Since they had been surprised by the warriors, they must have been unaware that they could be attacked by them. Since they had been unarmed when the attack occurred, it followed that they had been negligent, had failed to take proper care of their children who were gathering clams. Therefore, it was the Beothuk’s own fault that they had been killed. Such a horror need not be visited upon the children she would bring into the world in her lifetime. All she had to do was teach them to be always alert, prepared for the worst, ever conscious of their surroundings. She would never need to be afraid for them … never.

  Anin watched the melting snow and felt a strong desire to take the path to Baétha, his people’s village, but they would have to wait where they were until Woasut’s child was born. Woasut could not undertake a long portage, with their heavy provisions and the tapatook, so close to her time. He must fortify himself with patience and await the birth.

  Meanwhile, as the weather became milder, he could explore the area surrounding their clearing more thoroughly. In fact it had been a relatively mild winter; very little snow had fallen since the sun when Anin had killed the two caribou, two suns’ walk in the direction of the cold. They had had only two snowfalls, and not heavy ones, and the cold periods had never settled in for very long.

  One morning as he was leaving on one of these explorations, he told Woasut not to worry if he did not return that evening. He wanted to go as far as the bay he had seen across the snowfields when he had killed the caribou. He left without taking the sled, walking on snowshoes and carrying his hunting weapons and his fishing spear. After one sun he found that the snow was nearly all melted, and he took off his snowshoes and slung them across his back. His moosins were well enough rubbed with caribou oil and insulated with moss to protect his feet from the wet ground.

  In the distance he could already see the temporary shelter he had made for himself on the first night of his hunting trip. Now there was so little snow that he had to cut boughs to make it habitable for the night. When he was sitting comfortably by his fire, he thought about all that had befallen him since he had set out on his voyage of initiation, and he realized how lucky he had been to meet Woasut. She had brought a new level of meaning to his life. He no longer thought only of himself, of his own difficulties and happiness. He now took into consideration the difficulties and happiness of Woasut and her child. “Her child, my child,” he thought, then: “No, our child.” He smiled. The words made him feel happy.

  Suddenly he heard voices, the sound of people shouting. Quickly putting out his fire, he strained his ears to listen. They were men’s voices, and they were arguing. He remained perfectly still in the darkness, then after a short time decided to hide behind a nearby rock that was a hundred paces from his shelter. He stayed there for a good part of the night, but heard nothing more. Returning to his shelter, he relit the fire, then lay down on the ground and slept, his hand gripping the shaft of his fishing spear. He slept lightly, waking several times during the night. Each time he listened until he was certain nothing was happening before going back to sleep.

  In the morning his body ached everywhere. He ate only a few mouthfuls of food and then hastily broke camp. This time he could see the large bay long before he arrived at the spot where he had killed the two caribou. He also saw green grass covering the land as it spread out before him, which surprised him, as did the stands of trees on the edge of the bay. Not big trees, but trees just the same. The snow must have been gone from the area for at least one moon, since the grass had had time to turn green and wave in the wind. Or perhaps the grass had never dried out in these parts? Had it been an exceptionally cold season here, too, with little snow and only short periods of intense cold? Was it perhaps always this warm? He decided he would walk as far as the bay, but because of the voices he had heard during the night he moved with increased caution, looking about him in all directions and constantly checking the horizon. He did not want to be taken by surprise by the Bouguishamesh, as he had been in the evergreen forest on the rising-sun coast behind him. Now he could see the bay quite clearly, and one of the large Bouguishamesh tapatooks pulled high up on the sand. “Better not get too close,” he thought; “these belligerent strangers do not like company.”

  This is where the shouting he had heard must have come from, carried all the way to his ears by the wind that blew from the setting sun. He angled to his right and walked directly towards the cold. By the end of that sun he had seen two more boats and a kind of mamateek covered with clumps of earth, surrounded by a fence made from woven sticks. Within the compound were a number of strange beasts that he had never seen before. Three were horned, and others had long, thick hair cascading down the backs of their necks and covering their entire bodies. “Beasts from another world,” Anin said to himself. The three horned animals were huge, much bigger than caribou, but the others were smaller. Like bears, he thought, only lighter in colour. Except for one, which was all black.

  “It is very good that we did not paddle around the point of land,” he thought, not neglecting to thank Woasut for influencing his decision. “We would surely have encountered these strangers, and who knows what would have happened.” He sensed that it was not good for him to remain long in one place, and, moving quickly, he returned to his shelter. He travelled much of the way in the dark, and had some trouble finding the spot. When he finally found it he was exhausted, and immediately stretched out on his hide blanket without even bothering to light a fire. Now that he knew there were Bouguishamesh nearby, he did not want to attract their attention. He slept.

  He rose with the sun and began his trek back to the mamateek and Woasut. As he passed a clump of stunted evergreens, he saw the shadow beneath them move. He stopped and held his breath. His spear was in his throwing hand, ready to be launched at the first hint of danger. He crept forward, slowly closing in on the shadow. He sensed a presence behind the trees, and in two quick leaps he was there: it was a woman. Her hair was the colour of dried grass. A Bouguishamesh woman, her eyes opened wide in terror, awaiting death. Anin looked quickly about and saw that sh
e was alone. He squatted on his haunches and she recoiled further under the tree; Anin held out his hand and smiled to reassure her.

  “I am Anin, the Addaboutik from Baétha. I will not harm you.”

  She did not seem to understand. He repeated his words, keeping his hand out and still smiling. The woman stood: she was pregnant, like Woasut, and very near her time. At the nape of her neck was a large gash, the blood in it beginning to thicken. It looked to Anin very like the gash he had received from the Bouguishamesh’s cutting stick. He pointed to the wound and told the woman through gestures that it needed to be seen to. She nodded but did not move. He held out his hand again, inviting her to follow him, gesturing that he would take her to his mamateek. The woman held back for a moment, then followed him from a distance.

  Just as the sun reached its highest point in the sky, Anin and the woman emerged from the forest into the mamateek clearing. Woasut was very surprised to see the strange woman with hair the colour of dried grass. At first she was angry, but when Anin explained what had happened she agreed to care for the woman’s neck wound. She took dried herbs from her medicine pouch, melted some snow, and mixed a paste in a wooden bowl. This she applied to the woman’s wound. The woman’s belly was almost completely exposed, and Woasut could see that her skin was extremely pale compared to her own. Her nipples were pink, not brown, and the aureole around each one was paler yet. Woasut opened her own clothing and compared the colour of her breasts to those of this pale woman. She was astonished at the difference. She turned to Anin.

  “Are you sure she’s not sick as well as wounded?” she asked. “I’ve never seen anyone as light-skinned as this one.”

  Anin smiled.

  “I have seen many Bouguishamesh,” he said, “and they are all like this woman. She is going to have her baby very soon, too. If we don’t send her back to her own people, she could travel with us. She could help you work.”