by Sue Harrison
Many Whales lay still and Fat Wife leaned over him. She licked her fingers then held them over his mouth; she pressed her head to his chest.
She sat up and straightened the robes that lay over him. “He is dead,” she said softly.
A misty rain surrounded them as they stood beside the mound of rocks that was Many Whales’ grave. When they covered Many Whales’ body with rocks, Samiq was uneasy. He thought of the discomfort that the old man’s spirit must feel, the weight of rocks against it, but no one made an objection and so Samiq did not speak. He remembered from his mother’s stories that different people cared for their dead in different ways.
The women ended their mourning cries, and Hard Rock, his whale spear in one hand, spoke to Many Whales’ spirit, to the spirits that always gather near the dead, then he used the spear to pierce the bottom of Many Whale’s ikyak, and the boat was laid over the pile of rocks. Hard Rock began a death chant, but over the sound of the chant, Samiq heard the calls of geese on the beach. And Samiq wished he could be one of those geese, white and silver-gray, spreading wings in the wind, away from this burial, away from sorrow, from mourning.
There was a strange emptiness in Many Whales’ death—a loneliness—and Samiq realized that Many Whales had been the cord that bound him to the Whale Hunters.
Now why should I stay? Samiq wondered. What keeps me here? If I did not have a wife, I would leave, he thought, and was suddenly, foolishly angry at Many Whales for dying.
But then, as though Many Whales spoke to him, Samiq thought, What good would it do to go back now, knowing only in part? I need to stay so I can teach my people.
Someday, Three Fish would give him a son. He had lost Many Whales’ power, but with a son, there would be something gained. Perhaps enough to learn the secrets.
During the forty days after Many Whales’ death, that time of mourning, Samiq avoided his wife, taking care not to look at her, not to be alone with her. Of what use was she? In mourning, a woman could not share her husband’s sleeping place. What man wanted a son conceived in mourning, a daughter that reminded him of death?
Samiq spent much time away from the ulaq, fishing with the old men, digging clams with the children. But as the mourning time passed, Samiq noticed that Three Fish had grown thin, her face pale, her laughter hollow.
It is not her fault that she is my wife, Samiq finally told himself. It was chosen for her as it was for me. Besides, it was as Fat Wife had said: in the darkness all women were the same. Sometimes Three Fish was Speckled Basket, sometimes Small Flower, always Kiin.
That night, as they sat in the dimly lit ulaq, Samiq found he could not work on his weapons as he usually did. He wanted to walk, to be away from the Whale Hunter people. In his restlessness, he raised his eyes to study the women who sat sewing close to the oil lamps. They were quiet, Fat Wife’s face gray and drawn, Three Fish looking smaller, less formidable.
Samiq stared at Three Fish. Did she know that yesterday was the last day of mourning? Did she count the days with marks on the ulaq floor like Fat Wife? Did she watch the moon as he did? Three Fish looked at him, but glanced down quickly when Samiq met her eyes. There was a sadness in her look, a hurting that Samiq had thought Three Fish was too insensitive to feel.
“Wife,” he said softly, and she looked up at him, and when he stood she stood also, and even Fat Wife looked up and smiled. But Samiq did not care. Let her think what she wants, he thought. Perhaps it will ease her sorrow.
In the darkness of his sleeping place, Samiq waited for Three Fish to lie down, but she remained beside him until he gently pushed her toward the sleeping mats. Three Fish’s hand closed around his wrist and she leaned close to his ear, then whispered, “You are of the Seal Hunters and I know your spirit is with them.”
Samiq was surprised at her words, but before he could answer, she said, “In my heart, I call you Samiq.”
He could not see her, but he reached in the darkness to touch her face. I am to her as Kiin is to me, Samiq thought. And a sudden aching came to his chest, an understanding.
“Before you return to your people,” she said. “Give me a son.”
A sudden lightness filled Samiq’s chest. She had given him his release, asking no more from him than what he wanted to give. And as he laid her back on the sleeping robes, in the darkness, Three Fish was Three Fish.
LATE WINTER, 7038 B.C.
Chagvan Bay, Alaska
and
Yunaska Inland, The Aleutian Chain
43
KIIN AWOKE IN PAIN. The muscles of her abdomen pulled until the pressure that had begun in her back encircled her hips and ground into her bones. She turned to her side and took several deep breaths. The pain stopped and she relaxed.
She wished she could stay on the sleeping platform, but as second wife, it was her morning duty to light the lamp and lay out food.
She pushed herself to her hands and knees, her belly hanging nearly to the sleeping mats. The pains had begun four, five days before, and were infrequent, but they made it difficult for Kiin to sleep nights or to finish her work during the day.
She crawled out into the ulaq, added oil to the lamp and blew gently on the smoldering wick until it caught again and burned brightly. But the effort brought another pain, this one more intense than the pain that had awakened her.
It had been more than eight moons since Qakan had taken her. For much of that time, she had lived as second wife to the Raven, though not truly wife. Since she was pregnant, he had not taken her to his bed, but she knew once the babies were born, he would expect her to be wife in all ways.
Kiin went to the food cache and pulled out several storage containers made of stiff dried walrus hide. One contained smoked halibut, the other roots. The Raven ate much halibut, and he also liked the tiny bulb roots that the women dug from mouse caches in the sod.
Kiin scooped out a bowlful of the bulbs and began to peel off the outer coating. They were so tiny that Kiin used her fingernails to skin them. Now in the spring, after storage through the winter, the roots were beginning to soften, but the Raven still liked to eat them raw.
Kiin tried to be a good wife to the Raven. She had learned what foods he liked most and how to prepare them, how to make the long furred leggings both men and women wore and, most important, to speak the language, though her frequent mistakes still brought muffled laughter from the women, smiles from the men.
Kiin heard Lemming Tail groan. Some mornings the Raven was awake before Lemming Tail, and then he would nod to Kiin and eat in silence, but if Lemming Tail woke first, she would order Kiin to bring something from outside, even when the snow was deep and the winds strong.
Lemming Tail crawled from her sleeping place, combing her fingers through her thick black hair. Each day, she oiled her hair and brushed it with a bundle of reed stalks, and Kiin also had gathered reed stalks and begun brushing her hair, hoping to make it shine as Lemming Tail’s did.
Lemming Tail, in the custom of the Walrus People women, wore only her short aprons front and back. She stood beside Kiin, watching as Kiin peeled the last of the bulb roots then said, “There is nothing fresh here. My husband is tired of dried winter food. Go to the beach and find sea urchins.”
Kiin laid aside the bulbs and rose without looking at the woman. There was no choice. Lemming Tail was first wife and so must be obeyed. She knew as well as Kiin did that there would be no sea urchins. Kiin pulled on her suk and leggings and the long thick fur boots that Woman of the Sky had made for her. The boots were soled in ridged walrus hide to make walking on the beach easier.
When she left the ulaq, the sun was still only a hint of brightness in the southeast, and once Kiin was away from the protection of the village, the wind hit her strong and cold, bringing on another pain. She bent forward to relieve the pressure in her back and protect her face from the wind, but continued to take small, slow steps until she reached the beach.
The pain ended, but when she straightened, she saw that someone w
as there before her—a man. She began to back slowly toward the village, afraid that he was someone from another tribe, someone who could not be trusted.
A gust of wind swirled up from the frozen bay. The man raised his hands over his face, turning slightly toward her, and Kiin realized it was Qakan.
Another argument with Yellow-hair, Kiin thought, for the two fought often, and Qakan, always the loser, was sent out to walk the beach or find warmth in another ulaq.
Qakan had stayed the winter in the Walrus People’s village, and though he often said he would leave in spring, he had made no preparations to do so.
Usually, if Qakan saw Kiin, he would not acknowledge her, but this time, he grinned and ran over the icy beach to meet her.
“You are awake early,” he said, speaking in the language of the First Men.
“N-no, I usually r-r-rise before my husband to prepare food,” Kiin said, and she spoke in the Walrus tongue.
As soon as she said the words, Qakan’s smile faded, and he curled his lips. “You think your husband will honor you because you have learned his language so quickly?” he asked.
He lowered his face to Kiin’s and stared at her, but Kiin felt no power in his eyes, and she said to him, “What m-m-my husband d-does is not your concern. He has made you a rich man. That sh-should be enough.” Then she turned her back and walked away. It was good to speak to him without fear that her angry words would bring retaliation. What man would dare hit the Raven’s wife?
But then Qakan called to her, the high whine of his voice bringing back memories of their earliest years together. She turned and waited for him, saying nothing as he began his complaints about Yellow-hair and Ice Hunter’s ulaq where Qakan and Yellow-hair lived.
Finally Kiin interrupted him. “Will you r-r-return to our…people this summer?”
“Perhaps,” he answered, “but Yellow-hair wants to stay here.”
“The wife d-does n-not rule the husband,” Kiin said.
Qakan snapped, “She does not rule me.”
“Then g-go. But r-r-remember people from our village gave you things to trade for them. Make g-g-good trades.”
“I cannot trade at this village,” Qakan said. “They know what Raven paid for you. They will expect high trade prices from me. All I will be able to get is lemming meat.”
For once Qakan spoke without whining, as a man stating a fact, and Kiin realized that he was right. And with the realization came the emptiness of knowing that she would have no chance to influence her brother’s trades. Any trades would be made in villages many days’ journey from the Walrus People’s camp.
She turned away, but then felt the strength of her spirit, of the babies she carried. She took a long breath and looking back over her shoulder said loudly and without stammering, “After you trade, come back to this village. That way I will know whether you have traded well.”
Qakan began to laugh. “Why should I?”
“If you trade well,” Kiin said, “I will ask the Raven to give you an amulet of power.”
Qakan shrugged and walked away, but Kiin had seen the interest in his eyes. Perhaps it would be enough to make him choose wisely.
Kiin turned to look out at the cove, and another pain twisted out from Kiin’s spine. She squatted on her heels. After the pain peaked, Kiin’s spirit whispered, “You are stronger than the pain.”
Kiin stood slowly. She was alone on the beach. Qakan’s tracks made a trail back to the village. Then remembering why she had come, Kiin grimaced at the thick rim of ice that had built up on the shore. How could Lemming Tail expect her to bring sea urchins?
“Do not worry about Lemming Tail,” Kiin’s spirit said. “Today you will give your husband something greater than fresh food.”
Kiin started to walk the long curve of the beach, stopping only when a pain came. Woman of the Sun had told her to stay outside as long as possible once her labor began, to walk and speak to her sons, to tell them of all things created.
So Kiin walked, but for a time her thoughts went to Samiq. Perhaps even now, he had forgotten her. Perhaps he had a beautiful wife, one of the Whale Hunter women.
“Yes,” Kiin said. “And when he returns to our people, they will tell him I am dead. And that is best. He is not strong enough to stand against my curse, or even against the Raven.”
But Kiin’s feet seemed to walk to the rhythm of Samiq’s name, and the image of his face was so bright in her mind, he might have been beside her.
Then a pain pressed in on Kiin, pulling her into a tunnel of darkness, a place without thought or remembrance. And when the hurting ended, Samiq’s face was gone, but in her mind she saw the faces of two infants, one asleep, one crying. She could not say who they looked like, Amgigh, Samiq or Qakan, but already she had made her choice, already she had decided. Of the two, if one looked like Qakan, he would be the cursed one, the one given to the wind spirits. And so she prayed that one would look like Samiq or Amgigh so her choice would be clear, then she stood and began to walk again, singing to her babies of the sun and the stars, the earth and the sea, of rivers and mountains, all things created, all things sacred to men.
44
WOMAN OF THE SKY found her on the beach. Kiin was crouched down, clasping her knees, grinding her teeth against the pain.
“Tugidaq?” Woman of the Sky said, and Kiin felt the woman’s hand on her head. “How long have you had the pain?”
Kiin could not answer, could barely understand Woman of the Sky’s words, but then the pain passed and Kiin looked up. “Several days. Hard since this morning.”
Woman of the Sky glanced at the haze of light that showed the sun’s place in the clouds. “Do you feel the need to push?”
“No,” Kiin said. “Only the pain.”
Another pain came. It drew Kiin back into the darkness at the center of her mind. Then her spirit said, “Samiq.” And the name was like an amulet, something to hang on to, something to hold Kiin above the pain.
“The birthing shelter is ready?” Woman of the Sky asked.
And when the pain had ended, Kiin said, “Yes.” She had spent the last few days building the framework, layering mats over the poles that the Raven had cut from a stand of willow, taller than a man, that grew in a sheltered place in the valley tundra between mountains. He had brought her five willows, dragged them out, three on his right shoulder, two on his left, and Kiin had set them back beyond the village, away from the wind, out of the path of smoke that rose from the roof holes of the ulas.
She bound the willows at the top as she had seen her mother bind the driftwood poles of the bleeding shelter, then Kiin layered mats over the poles and sewed grass over the mats in an overlapping thatch that would keep out rain or snow.
Inside, she put the things a mother would need: sealskins, softly napped, to wrap the babies; old mats to soak up the blood of the birth; full water skins; and a seal stomach of dried fish—the humpback fish that Kiin had not tasted until she had come to the Walrus People—a summer fish so that Kiin would not curse hunting by eating flesh of fish or animal that was caught during the time of the birth.
She had a woman’s knife to cut the babies’ birth cords and sinew thread to bind the cords so they would not bleed. Woman of the Sun had given her a basket full of soft moss, good to pad a baby’s carrying strap and absorb a child’s wastes. She had oil to clean and soften the babies’ skin, and dried nettle leaves to steep for tea, the leaves something the Raven had bought from traders, the leaves more difficult to get than even nettle twine and good to help the afterpains of childbirth.
Woman of the Sky pulled Kiin to her feet, held her up during the walk to the birthing shelter, and when Kiin was inside, Woman of the Sky went to get Woman of the Sun.
When the two sisters returned, Kiin had her eyes squeezed shut against a pain. The pain ended, and Kiin saw that the sisters were tying the ends of a thick braided cord of sealskin strips to the shelter’s willow poles. Woman of the Sun pulled the cord over to Kiin. “Hold
on to it,” she said, wrapping Kiin’s fingers around the braid. “When a pain comes, pull. Your shelter is strong enough to stand, even against all your strength, and your pulling will help push the babies into the world.”
The pains came again, harder, faster, until Kiin was so tired that it all seemed as though she were living in a world of half-sleep. Dimly she heard Woman of the Sky’s chant: pull, breathe, pull, breathe, breathe, breathe, pull. And through the words, through the pain, Samiq’s face, Samiq’s name, Samiq’s voice. In the pain Kiin forgot all else—forgot that she was Amgigh’s wife, forgot the Raven, forgot Lemming Tail, forgot Qakan, forgot the Walrus People—remembered only Samiq, Samiq, Samiq.
The babies came in the night, under the rise of the full moon. Kiin felt the pressure of the first head in her birth canal; then a different kind of pain, this time worse, the tearing of skin, the wideness of the baby as it passed from her body. Then quiet, no pain, the murmurings of the old women.
At the baby’s sudden cry, Kiin called out, “No!” For her first thought was that Woman of the Sun or Woman of the Sky had used their knives against her son. Then Woman of the Sun held the child up, and Kiin saw that the boy was whole and strong.
“Remember, Tugidaq,” said Woman of the Sky, “one is cursed.”
“Listen to the spirits. They will tell you which one,” Woman of the Sun said as the baby wailed.
But Kiin saw no curse, only her son, only the long fingers and toes, the fine straight hair, the short wide nose of the baby’s father: Amgigh. “No curse,” she said. “No curse.”
Then again the pain, this time so sudden that Kiin could not keep from crying out, and so her second son was delivered to his mother’s screams, and when Woman of the Sky held the child for Kiin to see, she closed her eyes in sudden joy at the wide shoulders, the thick black hair, the slant of the gull-wing brows. Samiq’s son. Samiq’s son. No curse. No curse.
