The Chukchi Bible (20 page)

At first the trading was tumultuous and disorganized. The buyers and sellers – and every man on deck was simultaneously both – dashed about, grabbed items and then dropped them back on deck, chattering at one another loudly and brusquely, as though each understood the other perfectly.
A crowd of Tangitans bunched around Kalyantagrau's bone carvings, which he had laid out upon some dark nerpa hides. Snatching at the figurines, they would offer items in trade, everything from bottles of the evil, joy-making water to the hollow beveled needles that were so useful in sewing together tough hides. The shaman stood firm, never accepting the initial offer. All the other goods had a precise, if unwritten, value, but no one could know the true value of the painted walrus tusks.

For a lonely while Mletkin stood beside his bearskins, which were half draped over the side of the boat. Passing sailors glanced enviously at the hides, clacking their tongues appreciatively, as they hurried to the other end of the ship.

Finally, a man fully answering to the description of a hairmouth walked up. His face was covered by a black beard, though it had been shaved in parts. He held a curved pipe between his teeth. The man pinched the hides, weighed each in his hands, ran his hands over the fur and raised an inquisitive glance toward the seller. Mletkin had realized that this was a genuine, serious buyer who, furthermore, knew the goods very well. As to their quality, Mletkin had no fear – they were excellent hides, skinned from mature, full-grown bears, and each a good size.

At last the hairmouth asked the seller to name his price. He said this in his own language, but Mletkin understood him right away. Back home, in preparation for trade, he had drawn a Winchester on a piece of bleached nerpa skin.

The hairmouth glanced at the drawing and burst into a loud peal of laughter, his entire demeanor making it clear that he considered the Luoravetlan's pretensions ridiculous. Amazingly, Mletkin heard the loud stream of words and clucks with almost perfect comprehension. The Tangitan was
saying roughly this: “Are you out of your mind? Who's ever seen a savage, who can't manage any weapon but his own bow and arrows and spear, get his hands on a proper firearm? Here, take what you like – tea, sugar, three sacks of flour, five tobacco packets . . . but a Winchester, you've got to be joking!”

Mletkin put an indifferent, stony look on his face; he even turned his head back to the sea. After the Tangitan had shouted his fill, the young man lifted one of the bearskins slightly to reveal two tightly lashed bundles of extra-long baleen plates propped up against the side of the boat. The Tangitan fell silent and looked back over his shoulder. The rest of the traders stopped their business to observe him and Mletkin. With a final energetic exclamation the Tangitan departed, but soon returned with a small-bore Winchester rifle. Naturally Mletkin would have preferred a different caliber, but this was fine too, good for hunting nerpa and lakhtak in the meltwaters. A set of firing cartridges ought to have come with the gun: Mletkin knew that without ammunition the Tangitan weapon was just a useless metal stick. He explained this through gestures, the Tangitan cursed once more but went to get the cartridges. They fit into the palm of one hand, though the man's palm was largish, the size of a small shovel. Mletkin accepted these but handed over the bearskins only, indicating that the whalebone was staying with him. At the end of a lengthy period of wrangling, Mletkin ended up with a metal box full of cartridges. So as not to turn his luck he retreated back to his boat and stayed there until the end of the day, ignoring the Tangitans' insistent and inviting gestures to return.

By the end of the trading day many of his tribesmen had had a good deal of the evil, joy-making water and fell into their boats like sacks of flour. Both of Mletkin's grandfathers, Tynemlen and Kalyantagrau, were among the
well and truly inebriated. Everyone talked loudly, laughing and shouting out Tangitan phrases memorized during the hours on board: Okay! Good! Fak u! Goddam! Hau mach! Wot is cost! Tee! Shuga!

The gaiety continued on shore, as many of the men had purchased glass bottles of the drink, and Gemal'kot even bought a cask of it.

As he watched his cheery kinsmen Mletkin grew anxious: the people he knew were transformed before his eyes. They were losing their habitual calm and self-restraint. Many of the men turned into braggarts, while the women became grief-stricken, burst into tears, and, strangely, would talk nostalgically of the dead, and mourn afresh for those who had been properly mourned long before. Mletkin had sampled the evil joy-making drink himself and even felt a kind of rising spirits at first, but this soon passed, and he found he could not take another mouthful of the drink, it filled him with such revulsion.

On the following morning the Tangitans landed on shore. Laden with their goods and bottles, they made the rounds of the yarangas. At first they would treat the inhabitants with drink for free but as soon as they glimpsed some item in the gloom of the chottagin they would point to it. They took ancient bows and arrows and quivers, warriors' armor – walrus-tusk plates affixed to nerpa skin or tanned deer hides – spears, and even snowshoes.

Then the yarangas rang with the news that the Tangitans took great pleasure in befriending the village women, and that they would pay for this: one man's wife received a generous set of beveled needles, while her husband was rewarded with a bottle . . .

The Luoravetlan were not without a sense of jealousy, but the Tangitan was considered a creature so far removed from a native Arctic dweller that lying with them did not really amount to marital infidelity.

And it seemed that such “friendships” were not at all unpleasant for Uelen's women; Mletkin suddenly perceived that they were combing their hair, dressing up in special-occasion clothes and ornaments, and washing their faces with urine, which was considered the best cosmetic for toned, smooth skin. Hair sparkled with plaited-through colored spangles, necks were hung with necklaces of glass beads and antique silver Russian coins.

This topsy-turvy life continued for three full days.

Then, one fine morning, the waters off Uelen's shore were empty: the ship had gone. The dogs raised up a loud, ominous howling. All this time they had gone forgotten and unfed, and the hungry dogs had gnawed up several skin boats foolishly left unguarded on the shingled beach. People were beginning to come back to their senses, discovering strange, mysterious objects among the useful and needful items that they had purchased. A gramophone had appeared inside Gemal'kot's yaranga. Old Mirgyn walked about the village in a wide cowboy hat while his wife played with a colored parasol, opening and snapping it shut, frightening the children and dogs.

It had been an amazing adventure, which had interrupted the monotonous way of life in Uelen, a way of life that had remained unchanged for centuries. People smiled ruefully, remembering their exploits under the influence of the evil, joy-making water. And they teased old Lonlyh, who had several times rowed his little boat and his old half-blind wife out to the big ship in the hopes of tempting some unfussy Tangitan.

 

Before the great yearly walrus hunt at the Inchoun breeding ground, Kalyantagrau delegated the sacrifices and prayers for a good hunt to Mletkin.

The young man already knew whom to address and where to throw the
sacrificial offerings. But Kalyantagrau had not told him what words to say; he had only hinted vaguely that if inspiration came from above, so would the right words.

The first light snow of the season was falling, tiny snowflakes that melted as soon as they touched the ground, darkening the shingle and the wet earth, which was scattered with yellowing clumps of grass, to black.

A slow, tenuous dawn was breaking. First, a crimson ribbon pierced through between the waterline and the low dark thunderclouds to the east. The sun was rising unseen, swathed in thick clouds.

Mletkin walked along the shore, reaching down for handfuls of stringy seaweed and popping the soft, wet clumps into his mouth. Finding a piece of tree trunk washed up on shore, he dragged it farther inland and placed a small stone atop it to signify that the item had found an owner.

As he listened closely to the murmuring crash of the tide, Mletkin was attuning himself to that feeling which Kalyantagrau had called inspiration from above. For the moment, though, his heart remained calm and still, and beyond the sea's familiar murmur he could hear nothing. Then a creeping worry came: what would happen if he couldn't speak with the Outer Forces?

Uelen was strung out upon a shingled spit that came to an end with a narrow strait which separated the lagoon from the open sea. Although the stretch of water was hardly twenty footsteps long and less than half that across, the strait was a formidable obstacle. Too deep to walk across, it could not be swum across either: like all his tribesmen, Mletkin couldn't swim. So there was a one-seat hide canoe tethered to a pair of whale jaws at the end of the beach.

When he had stepped up onto the opposite shore Mletkin began to ascend the gradual slope and, by the time he had reached the top of the crags overhanging the walrus breeding ground, dawn had finally fully broken.

His heart was heavy with worry. The thought that he was not fit to be a shaman grew all-pervasive; he briskly dropped the sacrificial foods – this time lumps of sugar, tobacco crumbs, and bits of hardtack – down to the ground, which rang with the noisy incoming tide and the loud grunting and wheezing of hundreds of walrus.

Mletkin repeated the last phrase several times but nothing else occurred to him. He spent the entire day waiting for inspiration, above the walrus breeding ground, then returned home moping at twilight.

On the appointed day, the hunters – armed with sharp spears – clambered to the top of the crag, from where they would noiselessly descend and sneak up on the breeding ground.

Mletkin peered down at the shingled beach and reared back in shock and dismay. He almost thought it was a different place, but no, it was just the same beach which every autumn saw walrus herds slide up from the water. But now, aside from a few trampled youngsters, the beach was empty. The walrus had gone.

When they were certain that the herds had left the shingled beach, the
grim-eyed hunters made their way back to Uelen. This was a rare occurrence, one that only happened if someone had frightened off the animals: in recent times this would have been the ships full of curious Tangitans.

Mletkin could not look the men full in the face; he pulled his head tightly into his shoulders and walked at a distance from the others.

He entered Kalyantagrau's yaranga and stood in its center, in the circle of light that fell from the smokehole onto the earthen floor. The shaman was sitting on a whale vertebra. He greeted his grandson with a stone face.

“I tried,” Mletkin hurried to explain. “I said the necessary words and I threw the offering to the East, West, and North, every direction from which animals come to our shores, where the invisible Spirits live . . .”

“Was there an answer to your incantations?” Kalyantagrau was grave.

“There was no answer,” Mletkin answered dejectedly. “I waited, I spoke . . . but in vain. There was no answer.”

“No answer, because you spoke only with your mouth, not with your heart and soul. Because your thoughts were roaming far from this shore, where our livelihood, our good fortune rests . . . You could not lift your soul sufficiently to speak with the Outer Powers!”

“No,” Mletkin confessed. “I couldn't.”

“You haven't just shamed yourself, you've brought shame on me as well! Every death from hunger, every child who dies this cold winter will be on your conscience.”

“What am I to do then? What am I to do?”

Tears were welling up in his throat. If he were to burst out crying it would complete his disgrace.

“I'll do anything to atone. I'm ready to give my life . . .”

He had remembered the ancient tale of his ancestor Mlakoran, who had sacrificed his own life and was stabbed to death by his young daughter in order to placate the rekken, the evil spirits that brought disease.

“You must leave!” Kalyantagrau's reply was strident and unequivocal. “Go into the tundra, into the mountains, until your soul is cleansed, until you feel yourself changed. And if that does not come to pass, you must leave life itself!”

“What, now?” Mletkin reeled, horror-struck.

“Now!” thundered Kalyantagrau. “Go now!”

In the impenetrable darkness Mletkin trudged slowly along the lagoon, heading toward the mouth of the stream, which in the autumn season of heavy rains swelled and flooded down into the lagoon in full flow. Barely noticing the water, Mletkin crossed the stream and walked upon the boggy tundra floor that slurped and sucked underfoot, up the slope of Linlinney – the Hill of Hearts' Peace.

Something suddenly glimmered up ahead, like a winking flame at the door of a yaranga, lit to guide a late-returning hunter home. His heart skipped a beat and a wave of icy horror washed over him. Mletkin halted: was it possible he'd lost his way, and his feet had brought him back to the village? Another step and the possibility vanished as he almost tripped on a human skull, which glowed palely against the dark earth. Mletkin imagined that the glow came from within the bony sphere that once held a living person's brain. Whose skull was this? A burial place was normally marked with a ring of small stones, none bigger than a nerpa's head, but the tundra birds and animals were quick to raid the grave site, mingling the skulls and bones they dug up with those of the long-departed. No one visited Uelen's burial site without a reason. Only in his earliest childhood, walking alongside
his grandmother to the berry bushes in the tundra, had Mletkin had to quicken his step and avert his eyes from the blanched skulls, broken sleds, spears, bows, arrows, and the shards of household vessels that accompanied those who had gone beyond the clouds, as they passed along the side of the village graveyard.