Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk - Sanaaq - An Inuit Novel

“ Iirq! Autualu! Aatataa! I’ve hurt my tailbone… How am I going to make this strap longer?”

“Make a knot, after loosening it a little here!”

Once he had knotted it together, they continued to tie down the load. Qalingu unfastened the tuglines from the sled. The dogs had been running back and forth while the bear was being skinned and had made a complete mess of their tuglines. He untangled the lines while talking to the dogs.

“Au! Stop moving around! I can’t unravel your lines because you’ve tangled them all together!”

Jiimialuk came to help. The dogs were keen to get going and, once untangled, raced off. Jiimialuk ran after them, shouting “ Hau! Hau! ” but in his haste fell head over heels into a patch of marshy ground.

“Iikikii! I tripped and fell… My knees are soaking wet! Iikikii! ”

He stood up and began to run again. “ Hau! hau! ” He caught up to the dogs, pulled them back by their tuglines, and slid the loops of the lines onto the nuvviti. Then the two of them got the dog team moving. The load was heavy, forcing them to push the sled on both sides, for the snow had melted away in many places.

They were almost home when Qumaq came running out to them. She caught her feet in the tuglines, however, and was dragged along the ground by the dogs. Jiimialuk used his feet to brake the sled with all his strength.

Now Qalingu came running out. He was shouting. “ Hau! They’re going way too fast!”

Qumaq was crying. No wonder, she had scraped her cheeks while being dragged on the ground.

“Aatataa! Aatataa! ” She was crying in Qalingu’s arms. “ Aappuu! ” And screaming too. “ Aatataa! Aappuu! ” She wanted to be made aappuu. She wished to be consoled as one would console a child. They finally arrived home.

“Who hurt my daughter?” shouted Sanaaq.

“She got caught in the tuglines,” answered Qalingu. “She was dragged on the ground when those dirty dogs picked up speed!”

“But why hasn’t anyone taken care of her?”

The sea had not completely frozen over yet. This provided Arnatuinnaq with a chance to hunt gulls on the water with an ii. She recited the following charm: “My ii, my ii, swallow it, make a mouthful of it, stuff your beak with it, even if you have begun to spit it out! Stick into the inside of its throat, stick into it!”

This is what the Inuit recite when they hunt gulls with an ii. They say they want to make it swallow the ii.

“I got a big gull to swallow the ii! ” said Arnatuinnaq to herself. “Several times it tried to fly away, but it was firmly hooked to my ii! ”

Here is how an ii is used. It is set down on the foreshore and attached to a long line anchored by a stone. A little piece of wood will keep it afloat and the hook is a metal nail smeared with blubber.

Arnatuinnaq headed to the big gull and took it back to shore. When she came home, Sanaaq said to her, “Arnatuinnaq! Is it really the first gull you’ve caught?”

“Yes! It’s the first gull I’ve caught!”

Sanaaq exclaimed, “We’ll quarter it! Let’s go!”

Qalingu went outside holding the gull in his hand and shouting to his camp mates, “Come and quarter!”

“Yes, we’re coming right away!” replied Aqiarulaaq.

And she added, speaking to her old man, “He’s asking that we come and quarter!”

“Yes, with great pleasure!” answered Taqriasuk

All the people were outside and they began to quarter the bird: Taqriasuk and Jiimialuk each held down one of its feet, Aqiarulaaq grabbed a wing and Sanaaq the other wing, Qalingu held its tail, and Arnatuinnaq its head. Arnatuinnaq shouted, “Let’s go! Everyone pull on our side! This is really fun! i i i i i! But I haven’t got anything! It’s a really tough one to quarter, i i i! ”

All the participants laughed heartily. Taqriasuk, the oldest of the group, got a foot and started to eat it raw while boasting, “I’m eating raw foot… uumm! Is it ever good!”

But no sooner had he eaten some of it than he felt sickened by the gull’s taste and began to throw up uncontrollably.

“ Ua! ua! Ua! ua! Water! I really feel sick to my stomach… I threw up something that’s got an awful gull taste… It’s really not meant to be eaten raw!”

Once they were done, the participants went home and undressed for bed.

At that moment Ningiukuluk’s family arrived within view of the camp, having been overtaken by nightfall during their move to the campsite.

In her tent, Aqiarulaaq was scolding her adopted child, Aanikallak, who, though already a big girl, frequently wet her bed and still had fleas. “Aanikallak! Undress for bed and, since you often wet your bed, take this dog skin to put under yourself!”

They all undressed for bed. As they were falling asleep, their dogs began to howl in the black night, “ Muu, muu, miuu, miuu! ”… disturbed as they were by the arrival of strangers. Ningiukuluk’s family was approaching. Qalingu heard something and said, “Listen! There are dogs barking loudly. Sounds like harnessed dogs pulling on their lines!”

The members of Ningiukuluk’s family were pitching camp in the dead of night. They were erecting their tent, for the snow had melted in spots following a rise in temperature. Ningiukuluk said, “The moon is bright! Let’s put the tent up quickly. We’ll get our things in order tomorrow at daylight!”

Akutsiak and her younger sister were shivering with cold, having travelled at night. After raising the tent, they took their things in. Irsutualuk, their old man, was there too. They unharnessed their dogs, settled in, and undressed for bed, but not before having the tea they had made over a small fireplace for want of a camp stove.

At daylight, they were visited by Aqiarulaaq, who exclaimed, “Why did you do that? Why didn’t you come and have an arrival meal? You arrived without my even noticing!”

“We refrained from having one so as not to wake you up!” answered Ningiukuluk.

Meanwhile, everyone having left Aqiarulaaq’s tent, it was now being invaded by the dogs.

“Listen!” said Aqiarulaaq. “Sounds like the dogs have gone into someone’s tent… Yes! It’s mine they’ve gone into! Our home is full of dogs!” She chased the plunderers away. “ Uuit! Pack of no-good mutts!”

She hit the dogs with a stick, seriously hurting one of them in the spine, one of Irsutualuk’s dogs. She was very embarrassed about the injury and did not dare talk about it. Irsutualuk went to Aqiarulaaq’s place in a fit of anger.

“Who hurt our dog? Our only good dog… Someone had better get me another one! Were you the one who hurt it?”

“I hurt it, but not on purpose, when I was chasing away the dogs that had invaded my home!”

Qalingu, Taqriasuk, and Irsutualuk were going to move from a tent to an igloo. It was very cold and they were going to look for good snow, near the foot of the hill. They each had their snow knife. Qalingu said, “The foot of the hill, up there, often has lots of snow!”

“Yes,” replied Taqriasuk, “but I’ll probably have trouble building an igloo because of my advanced age, and because Jiimialuk, my son, hurt himself while fetching some bear meat… He got thrown onto a big stone, his behind is all swollen!”

The snow was indeed very good and they began to cut a large number of snow blocks to build their igloos. Qalingu did not feel cold at all while cutting the blocks out. Once enough had been cut, he laid the first circle of blocks for the base. He plugged the outside cracks and packed snow around the base to keep the blocks from sliding or turning. Once the base was done, he cut new blocks out and laid the spiral of the snow dome. He then took a break from work to have some tea at home. To get out of the igloo under construction, he made an opening in the wall and emerged covered with snow. He told his companions, “I’m taking off for a short while to have some tea and to get a box that I’ll use as a stepladder. I can no longer reach the top of my igloo.”