Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk - Sanaaq - An Inuit Novel

Ningiukuluk left with Sanaaq. She took hold of the aqiggiq and began calling. “ Ilakka! come right now for an aliktuuti! ”

“Listen! We’re going to have a quartering!” said her camp mates as they went outside.

Irsutualuk, Arnatuinnaq, and Qalingu all came. Ningiukuluk took hold of the head, Sanaaq a foot, Qalingu a wing, Irsutualuk the other wing, and Arnatuinnaq the other foot.

“What fun this is!” said Ningiukuluk.

“Let’s go! Pull! This is so much fun,” said Irsutualuk.

“I hope nobody will snatch the part I’m holding onto!” joked Ningiukuluk.

The boy who had killed his first aqiggiq began laughing heartily. The two playmates, Qumaq and Akutsiaq, both watching closely, also burst into laughter.

“Look, Qumaq, someone’s snatched what my mother was holding onto,” said Akutsiaq.

“ Ii, look at her! She’s laughing anyway!”

The quarterers stopped their work. Ningiukuluk began eating her share of the aqiggiq. Qalingu ended up with part of the breast, Irsutualuk with a piece of flesh, and Arnatuinnaq with a foot… Everyone was dunking their pieces in seal oil. All the eating had dirtied their hands, which they rinsed with wet snow. After cleaning themselves, they wiped their mouths. Ningiukuluk was offered a pair of scissors as a qillaquti gift. She was also given chewing tobacco and a bar of soap that Sanaaq brought to her home.

“Thank you!” said Ningiukuluk. “All the gifts I have here are for tying umbilical cords… This soap will be only for me… Akutsiaq, my daughter, will never use it, not even for doing the laundry… As for the scissors, I’ll take great care of them… They’ll never be used for metal cutting!”

Taqriasuk came back to the camp, after a long time keeping a lookout on the hilltop. He thought, “What have they been up to here? I can see a lot of footprints in the snow! All day long I’ve been keeping a lookout. I’m hungry and I’m going home. The whole day I haven’t seen the smallest game animal… Yet I looked in all directions through my telescope!”

“ Ii, ” said Ningiukuluk. “Here comes our old man! And we didn’t wait for him before quartering. We were in too much of a hurry!…I put something aside for you to eat, have some! It’s thanks to my angusiaq that we’ve got food to eat.”

Taqriasuk began eating some of the aqiggiq.

“I’m really happy to be eating!” he said.

Aqiarulaaq had been gone the whole day to gather fuel for the fire and was not back yet. Meanwhile, Aanikallak had stayed home. She was old enough to make herself useful. Once Taqriasuk had finished eating, he went home.

“Hasn’t my old woman come back yet?” he asked.

“No!” said Aanikallak.

Qalingu went to visit Taqriasuk. When he entered, he said, “ Ai! ”

“Qalingu, ai! Today, I searched high and low on all sides with my telescope, but I saw absolutely nothing, not even a seal on the ice. I’m really happy that your son killed his first aqiggiq today.”

“When I bought him his rifle, he couldn’t hit a target… He managed to catch an aqiggiq today by breaking its wing. I’m not surprised he didn’t kill it with a single shot.”

Taqriasuk was tired because he was very old. He went to bed. His old woman, Aqiarulaaq, came just then. She brought the fuel she had gone to gather: kuutsiit, sigalat, mamaittuqutit, issutiit, and paurngaqutit. The fuel would be used for cooking outside at a place where the snow had melted. She went to bed, because it was evening, after having a bit of tea. They were still living in an igloo, although the dome was threatening to cave in on them.

Morning arrived and Qalingu awoke. The weather was very bad and it was snowing heavily. They had hardly any food left, however, so he decided to go hunting with Maatiusi, despite the weather… As they travelled by sled, the weather improved and it stopped snowing.

Qalingu spotted an uuttuq and decided to go after it while his companion kept an eye on the sled and dog team. He slipped a white hareskin cap over his head, took a few cartridges and, circling around the seal to the north, crawled towards his prey. He killed it. It was a female with its baby. The seal he had just killed was lying on the bed of its snow shelter. The baby seal did not even dive into the water when its mother died. It simply stayed by her. When Qalingu reached his prey, he also shot the baby seal. His hunting companion caught up to him at that moment. Now that they had a seal, they decided to go home, where they had run out of seal oil and were reduced to cooking outside with fuel gathered from the tundra.

Aqiarulaaq went out and spotted the approaching sled with its travellers. She called out to Sanaaq, “ Qatannguuk! A dog team is coming. Why’s it acting that way? Let’s go, the two of us. Look cousin, they’re loaded. Seems like they’ve killed a seal. Let’s go and meet them!”

To cheer on the arriving dog team, Aqiarulaaq shouted, “ Aa, aa! ” and Sanaaq began pulling on the sled’s main tugline. The travellers were happy.

The same day, in late afternoon, a plane appeared.

“Listen to that drone. Sounds like a plane!” said Qalingu. “Over there! It’s arriving… There are two men aboard!”

It was a single-engine airplane. The Inuit were very nervous and the children were crying. Everyone went to greet them. When the door to the airplane opened, little Qalliutuq was very afraid.

The two Qallunaak spoke the Inuit language. Their chief asked Qalingu, “Who are you?”

“I’m Qalingu!”

“Do you want to come and work among the Qallunaat? ”

“No! I’ve never been away from here. I don’t know the language of the Qallunaat. ”

“If you accept, you’ll be treated very well. You’ll start off receiving two hundred dollars a month and your family will get a house. The plane will be back in a week.”

“OK,” said Qalingu, who decided to help his family. “I’d like to give it a try.” Speaking to Sanaaq, he added, “I’ll be away working for two months. You’ll be given assistance.”

She agreed.

Qalingu made his preparations. He was afraid he would not be allowed to come back. Airplane travel scared him, this being his first time… and the plane was very fast. His family — Qumaq, Sanaaq, and Qalliutuq — broke into tears at the thought that he might never come back… When the airplane disappeared in the clouds, they went home very sad because Qalingu was gone.

While the family looked after the home, the iksigarjuaq would drop by with food — all kinds of things in tin cans. Sanaaq was invited to his place and she went with a bag. She found the tins to be quite nice-looking.

“Look, Arnatuinnaq!” she said, coming back. “Look at the presents we’ve been given: canned food!”

“I’d like to see if it’s any good. May I have a taste? It’s pretty good, the stuff in this can. And these usuujait, what are they? They’re too salty, throw them away. Yes, they’ve got a very bad taste!”

They were not accustomed to Qallunaat food, so they did not like it. But they did appreciate the oranges. Just then, Qalliutuq began to vomit.

“The boy’s throwing up!” said Sanaaq. “Hand me the pot! Toss those cans out! We can’t keep the bad ones.”

The next day, at dawn, the airplane came back. The weather was very nice and everybody went out to the plane, even old Taqriasuk. The Qallunaaq was an Inuit agent. He said hello, shook hands, and smiled. But no one understood a word of what he said. The airplane stayed for the night. Taqriasuk carried the visitors’ baggage into the Catholic missionary’s house and Maatiusi too carried some in. When they were done, they were offered a dollar. Thinking it was something important, they showed it to the missionary.