Ice Whale (3 page)
Authors: Jean Craighead George
Enemy!
A pod of orca whales came charging toward themâ eager to kill and eat a sweet baby whale.
had to learn to recognize the enemies. They had black-and-white bodies and ice-white teeth. Like himâ the orcas surfaced to breathe. Like himâ they were whalesâ but these were whales with teethâ not baleenâ those filters that strained tiny food from the seawater. These whales grabbed and tore their prey. Even in whale languageâ they were called “killer whales.”
As the orcas drew nearer's whale auntâ who had traveled nearby her pregnant and nursing sister to give her aid if she needed itâ swam up to. She sheltered him while his mother drove off the orcas with powerful slaps from her immense flukesâblows that could kill even an orca.
After a long while his mother came back to her sister and son. She nuzzled close to her baby.
Y
ears passed and the boy Toozak grew to be a
man
of twenty. He belonged to the Yup'ik peopleâ a skilled and ancient group of natives who lived on the islandsâ riversâ and coastal areas of the east coast of Siberia and the west coast of what would one day be called Alaska. Over the years young Toozak had killed many walrusâ sealsâ and evenâ when he was sixteenâ a polar bear on the Saint Lawrence Islandâ his home. He was not just a good hunterâ but a superior one. Hunters were essential to life.
For the last ten summersâ Toozak had seen over one hundred Yankee whaling ships flying the redâ whiteâ and blue flag sail by his village. He saw them kill many whales that his father called “noble spirits.” Other ships were foreign traders of ironwareâ beadsâ tobaccoâ alcoholâ and woven goods. They traded these items for the Eskimos' magnificent furs and the ivory tusks of walrus. The traders rarely killed a whaleâ though.
One day during the Moon of the Flowering Time of Plantsâ around midsummerâ Toozak was in his kayak off the shores of his village when he spotted a Yankee whaling ship on the ocean. Not only were its sails down despite the windâ but it was idle. That seemed unusual. He watched it.
A small white-and-blue whaleboat was lowered over its side onto the water. It rowed toward him and pulled up alongside his kayak. A Yankee leaned over the side of the boat and dangled a string of handsome blue beads before Toozak. Toozak had never been so close to a paleface seaman before.
“These are for youâ” a translator said in Yup'ik. “The Yankee wants you to have them.”
“Aahzahâ”
Toozak exclaimedâ he hesitated. They were very nice beads and very valuable. Toozak could trade them for anything from cooking pots to knivesâeven guns. He took them.
The interpreter looked at Toozak with distaste. “You are only a seal hunterâ” he said.
“I am a good hunterâ” proclaimed Toozak. “I bring food to my village”
“Then you have no whales to hunt? They do not think you are worthy?” The interpreter mocked their ancient customs.
“We hunt whalesâ” Toozak boastedâ taking the bait. “We have many whales in the sound!” He gestured unconsciously with his armâ indicating a beautiful cove to the east. “But we only take what we need.” He glared at the man.
The interpreter noddedâ then tossed him a bag of tobacco. The Yankee whalers rowed back toward their ship.
Pleased with the beads and tobaccoâ Toozak paddled back toward his village. After beaching his kayakâ he skinned and cut up the seal he had caughtâ and looked back at the ship. The white-and-blue whaleboat had not gone back to its mother ship but was rowing toward the whales in the sound.
And suddenly he knew what he had done.
“The whales!” he cried aloud. “What have I done?”
Toozak watched the whaleboat disappear around a point. A muffled explosion followedâ then another and another. He trembled. Toozak had committed the worst of all crimes . . . he had led foreign men to the Eskimos' beloved whalesâ where they would kill them for money. He hung his head in shame.
He turned his kayak and headed toward home to ask his father what he should do. When he reached the beach hours laterâ he met Shaman Kumaginyaâ the village spirit man. He would certainly know.
“Shamanâ” he criedâ “I have done a terrible thing. I told the Yankees where whales are. I am certain they have killed them.”
The shaman frowned.
“The Whale Spirits will bring bad fortune to youâ” he said. “You have upset them.”
Toozak bit his lip.
“I saw a whale being born when I was a boyâ” he said. “That puts me in high standing with the spiritsâ doesn't it?”
“It helpsâ” Shaman Kumaginya saidâ eyeing Toozak's beautiful seal. “But perhaps it made you too proud. You were foolish.
“Come home with me and I will make a song to the spirits. They will help us know what you should do.”
Toozak was very grateful. Shaman Kumaginya relieved him of his seal at his door and placed it on his meat rack away from the dogs. Toozak wanted to say that his father was waiting for Toozak to bring it to himâ but he was afraid to speak. He entered the summer house. When his eyes adjusted to the low lightâ he saw that the walls were walrus skins. Black-and-white weasel tails decorated them. Overhead was a dome of sealskinsâ held up like an umbrella by willow limbs. A soot-rimmed smoke hole was in the center of the dome.
Toozak felt spirits everywhere. Shaman Kumaginya lit the stone seal-oil lamp on a sculpted plate from China. He set it on a tripod that stood under the smoke hole. On the stone he placed tinder moss and lit it. He chanted eerily and went into a deep trance.
Toozak trembledâ for he knew the spirits were coming into this abode and that they could be vengeful. He had done a great wrong. If the spirits had sent a polar bear to maul his uncle for a very small misdemeanorâ what would they do to him?
“The spirits are angryâ” the shaman finally said when he opened his eyes. “The spirits are very angry.” Fear filled the room. The shaman's face was stern.
“They say you are cursedâ” the shaman said in an eerie voice.
“But I saw a whale being bornâ” Toozak rasped in fear. “That makes me special.”
Shaman Kumaginya threw reindeer moss on the fire and silvery oxytropeâ a flower that grows only where there were no ice sheets during the Ice Age. It was magic. It could survive glaciers.
The burning mosses glowed and smoke filled the room. Thenâ lifting his arms to the ceilingâ the shaman closed his eyes for many minutes. This gave Toozak time to look nervously for an escape from a situation that now seemed dangerous. The shaman had set several stone dishes on the floor with moss wicks burning in seal oil. He could knock them over and escape when the shaman righted them. But they might start a fire. He thought better of that idea. Some skins had been stacked at the foot of the wallsâseats for guests and ghosts. They blocked his escape route under the taut walrus-skin walls. A pile of white polar-bear skins on the left of the doorway was the shaman's bed. He couldn't get out that way. There were no openings to slide through anywhere. Toozak felt the spirits inhabiting every wall and emanating from every fur.
He looked back at Shaman Kumaginya. He was still chanting with his eyes closed. His long hair fell down to his caribou calf shirt of gleaming skin. Beads and polar-bear claws hung around his neck. His faceâ marked with purple tattoosâ seemed possessed by spirits. Toozak grew more afraid.
“To witness the birth of a whaleâ” the shaman finally chantedâ “brings the Good Spirits to you. But that is not good enough to overcome the evil of delivering the whales to the Yankees.
“You will be cursedâ but because you saw a whale bornâ you will be spared a bit. The curse is that you must protect that whale whose birth you witnessed as long as he lives.”
“How long does a whale live?” Toozak asked in a low voice.
“As long as the moon.”
Toozak thought about that.
“How do I protect a whaleâ Shaman Kumaginya? I can't stay with him all the time.”
“
Eii
â that is for you to find out.” The shaman rubbed his hands together. “You have done a terrible thing.”
“I knowâ I know.” Toozak bent his head. “But I'm a seal hunter and I do not know how to protect a whale.”
“Learnâ” the older man said.
Toozak's hands grew cold. His mind was racing.
The shaman saw his misery and addedâ “If a whale saves a Toozakâ your family will be free of the curse.”
“How can a whale save anybody?” Toozak asked in confusion.
“It is said that an ancient great whale hunter lives to the north. You must learn from himâ” the shaman replied. “Now leave our village. Take the curse with you.”
“Where will I go?”
“To the north. Follow your whale. Protect him.”
“Then I will find the ancient whale hunter. Butâ how will he help me protect Siku?” Toozak said.
The shaman looked closely at Toozak. “Eskimos love the whale best. Whales give them foodâ shelterâ utensilsâ life. Whale hunters know more about the whales than anyone. Andâ the whales know themâ too. That is how a whale knows when to give himself. Go. Learn.”
Shaman Kumaginya had one more thing to say.
“The whale may live longer than you. It is said that they live two human lifetimes.” The rising smoke obscured him for a moment. “Give the name Toozak to your firstborn. Tell him to protect and respect the whale. His life might not be long enough eitherâ so he must name
his
son Toozak. And the next generation and the next must be named Toozakâ until the whale dies or saves a Toozak.”
Shaman Kumaginya threw some more reindeer moss on the fire. In the smoke that now arose around themâ he took down his dance drum. He beat two deep notes.
“
Ayeâ yaâ yaâ ayeâ aye.
You betrayed the whalesâ” he chantedâ then stepped into the thick smoke and becameâ to Toozak's eyesâ only a voice and a drumbeat.
Toozak was terrified.
Shaman Kumaginya paused and said, “The spirits say if you can lift the stones in the Circle of Stones in the villageâ the curse will disappear.”
“I am strongâ” Toozak whispered.
“Go nowâ” Toozak heard the shaman's wavering voice say.
Toozak put his hands over his ears and ran toward the door.
I have seen you bornâ Siku
â he said to himself.
I have looked into your human-like eyes. We are brothers. You are my whale. I will protect you as long as I live even if I can't break the curse!
Toozak shudderedâ the shaman's words still ringing in his ears. “Now leave our village. Take the curse with you.”
Toozak ran right to the center of the village. Thereâ thirty stones were arranged in a circle. They had been placed in this spot for the hunters to pick up every day to make them strong.
I must pick up all of themâ even the heavy one in the middle.
Toozak gritted his teeth.
Smoke was rising from the holes that had been cut into the homes of skin and driftwood much like the shaman's. The townsfolk were preparing food. Toozak was not thinking of eating. He stepped into the ring of stones and lifted oneâ then the next. At number twenty he fell to his knees. He tried again, straining every muscle and tendon.
“I can'tâ” he saidâ and walked slowly homeâ his muscles trembling with exhaustion. Once he was homeâ he told his father and mother what he had done.
“I showed Yankee whalers where some whales were feedingâ” he said. “They killed them. This was a terrible thing to doâ and because of itâ the shaman says I must leave the village and learn from an ancient hunter how to protect Siku.”
His parents held their son.
A family was leaving the island on the difficult crossing to the Siberian mainland in their skin boat. They had room for Toozakâ his dogs and gearâ all the things that he needed for his journey. His parents were distressed at his leavingâ but they agreed that the shaman must be right and so they helped Toozak get ready. They put dog packs on the two dogsâ named Woof and Lik. Toozak filled and strapped onto one pack a bowâ some arrowsâ a seal hookâ fire toolsâ a knifeâ a netâ and a sleeping fur. He also brought his harpoonâ his ice chiselâ and his lance. With these tools he could survive anywhere in the Arctic.
Then Toozak went to his father's ice cellarâ which had been dug into the frozen soil. He climbed down the ladder to the bottom of the bigâ icy room and brought up some frozen fish for himselfâ his dogsâ and other travelers. He was sorry he would not be able to go fishing and replace what he had taken from his parents. His mother helped him fill the other pack with fish and dried food.
He was ready to leave. As he was tying a towline to his kayak from the back of the boatâ his sister ran out of their home. She handed him an exquisite sable that their father had gotten in a trade with Siberian Eskimos for a polar-bear skin. He had given the sable to her. Now she presented it to Toozak and hugged him closely.
“Its spirit will go with youâ” she whispered. “It will make you smart and skilled like the sable.”
Toozak hugged her long and hard. His parents stepped forward to embrace their son. They knew they might never see him again. They all broke down in tears and sobbed. Wiping the tears from his faceâ Toozak stepped into the skin boat. His journey had begun.
Once I am on the Siberian mainlandâ I will paddle north to Naukanâ staying near shore
â he thought.
The dogs will tow me when it is possible; otherwise they will run along the shore and follow me. Sometimes they will ride with me in the kayak. There I will cross to the Diomedes and on to the Inupiat nations to the east in Alaska. I'll find a village and wait for the sea to freeze. I will make a sled of willows and driftwood to use on the ice and snow.