is a devil, and they are flung out over the earth to toil and suffer and fight
without end. I know. I am Tyee.”
THE SICKNESS OF LONE CHIEF
(First published in Out West, Oct, 1902)
CHILDREN OF THE FROST
67
THIS is a tale that was told to me by two old men. We sat in the smoke of
a mosquito-smudge, in the cool of the day, which was midnight; and ever
and anon, throughout the telling, we smote lustily and with purpose at
such of the winged pests as braved the smoke for a snack at our hides. To
the right, beneath us, twenty feet down the crumbling bank, the Yukon
gurgled lazily. To the left, on the rose- leaf rim of the low-lying hills,
smouldered the sleepy sun, which saw no sleep that night nor was destined
to see sleep for many nights to come.
The old men who sat with me and valorously slew mosquitoes were Lone
Chief and Mutsak, erstwhile comrades in arms, and now withered
repositories of tradition and ancient happening. They were the last of their
generation and without honor among the younger set which had grown up
on the farthest fringe of a mining civilization. Who cared for tradition in
these days, when spirits could be evoked from black bottles, and black
bottles could be evoked from the complaisant white men for a few hours’
sweat or a mangy fur? Of what potency the fearful rites and masked
mysteries of shamanism, when daily that living wonder, the steamboat,
coughed and spluttered up and down the Yukon in defiance of all law, a
veritable fire- breathing monster? And of what value was hereditary
prestige, when he who now chopped the most wood, or best conned a
stern-wheeler through the island mazes, attained the chiefest consideration
of his fellows?
Of a truth, having lived too long, they had fallen on evil days, these two
old men, Lone Chief and Mutsak, and in the new order they were without
honor or place. So they waited drearily for death, and the while their
hearts warmed to the strange white man who shared with them the
torments of the mosquito-smudge and lent ready ear to their tales of old
time before the steamboat came.
“So a girl was chosen for me,” Lone Chief was saying. His voice, shrill
and piping, ever and again dropped plummet-like into a hoarse and rattling
bass, and, just as one became accustomed to it, soaring upward into the
thin treble—alternate cricket chirpings and bullfrog croakings, as it were.
“So a girl was chosen for me,” he was saying. “For my father, who was
Kask-ta-ka, the Otter, was angered because I looked not with a needful eye
upon women. He was an old man, and chief of his tribe. I was the last of
his sons to be alive, and through me, only, could he look to see his blood
go down among those to come after and as yet unborn. But know, O White
Man, that I was very sick; and when neither the hunting nor the fishing
CHILDREN OF THE FROST
68
delighted me, and by meat my belly was not made warm, how should I
look with favor upon women ? or prepare for the feast of marriage ? or
look forward to the prattle and troubles of little children ?”
“Ay,” Mutsak interrupted. “For had not Lone Chief fought in the arms of a
great bear till his head was cracked and blood ran from out his ears ?”
Lone Chief nodded vigorously. “Mutsak speaks true. In the time that
followed, my head was well, and it was not well. For though the flesh
healed and the sore went away, yet was I sick inside. When I walked, my
legs shook under me, and when I looked at the light, my eyes became
filled with tears. And when I opened my eyes, the world outside went
around and around, and when I closed my eyes, my head inside went
around and around, and all the things I had ever seen went around and
around inside my head. And above my eyes there was a great pain, as
though something heavy rested always upon me, or like a band that is
drawn tight and gives much hurt. And speech was slow to me, and I
waited long for each right word to come to my tongue. And when I waited
not long, all manner of words crowded in, and my tongue spoke
foolishness. I was very sick, and when my father, the Otter, brought the
girl Kasaan before me—”
“Who was a young girl, and strong, my sister’s child,” Mutsak broke in.
“Strong-tripped for children was Kasaan, and straight- legged and quick of
foot. She made better moccasins than any of all the young girls, and the
bark-rope she braided was the stoutest. And she had a smile in her eyes,
and a laugh on her lips; and her temper was not hasty, nor was she
unmindful that men give the law and women ever obey.”
“As I say, I was very sick,” Lone Chief went on. “And when my father, the
Otter, brought the girl Kasaan before me, I said rather should they make
me ready for burial than for marriage. Whereat the face of my father went
black with anger, and he said that I should be served according to my
wish, and that I who was yet alive should be made ready for death as one
already dead—”
“Which be not the way of our people, O White Man,” spoke up Mutsak.
“For know that these things that were done to Lone Chief it was our
custom to do only to dead men. But the Otter was very angry.”
“Ay,” said Lone Chief. “My father, the Otter, was a man short of speech
and swift of deed. And he commanded the people to gather before the
lodge wherein I lay. And when they were gathered, he commanded them
to mourn for his son who was dead—”
CHILDREN OF THE FROST
69
“And before the lodge they sang the death-song—O-o-o-o-o-o- ahaa-ha-aich-
klu-kuk-ich-klu-kuk,,, wailed Mutsak, in so excellent an imitation that
all the tendrils of my spine crawled and curved in sympathy.
“And inside the lodge,” continued Lone Chief, “my mother blackened her
face with soot, and flung ashes upon her head, and mourned for me as one
already dead; for so had my father commanded. So Okiakuta, my mother,
mourned with much noise, and beat her breasts and tore her hair; and
likewise Hooniak, my sister, and Seenatah, my mother’s sister; and the
noise they made caused a great ache in my head, and I felt that I would
surely and immediately die.
“And the elders of the Bribe gathered about me where I lay and discussed
the journey my soul must take. One spoke of the thick and endless forests
where lost souls wandered crying, and where I, too, might chance to
wander and never see the end. And another spoke of the big rivers, rapid
with bad water, where evil spirits shrieked and lifted up their formless
arms to drag one down by the hair. For these rivers, all said together, a
canoe must be provided me. And yet another spoke of the storms, such as
no live man ever saw, when the stars rained down out of the sky, and the
earth gaped wide in many cracks, and all the rivers in the heart of the earth
rushed out and in. Whereupon they that sat by me flung up their arms and
wailed loudly; and those outside heard, and wailed more loudly. And as to
them I was as dead, so was I to my own mind dead. I did not know when,
or how, yet did I know that I had surely died.
“And Okiakuta, my mother, laid beside me my squirrel-skin parka. Also
she laid beside me my parka of caribou hide, and my rain coat of seal gut,
and my wet-weather muclucs, that my soul should be warm and dry on its
long journey. Further, there was mention made of a steep hill, thick with
briers and devil’s-club, and she fetched heavy moccasins to make the way
easy for my feet.
“And when the elders spoke of the great beasts I should have to slay, the
young men laid beside me my strongest bow and straightest arrows, my
throwing-stick, my spear and knife. And when the elders spoke of the
darkness and silence of the great spaces my soul must wander through, my
mother wailed yet more loudly and flung yet more ashes upon her head.
“And the girl, Kasaan, crept in, very timid and quiet, and dropped a little
bag upon the things for my journey. And in the little bag, I knew, were the
flint and steel and the well-dried tinder for the fires my soul must build.
And the blankets were chosen which were to be wrapped around me. Also