Excerpt
Flaps in front and back were inlaid seamlessly
with different coloured hides.
This was marvellously intriguing. Everything I looked at now took on an
ever-increasing significance. Because this was such a vast place I noticed the
smallest of things. I was in a place where all the things I was used to – buildings,
trees, cars, noises – were completely absent. Even the land itself was a
nonentity. It was a place of sky. I was in a state of sensory deprivation and at
the same time, in a place of sensory overload. I was feeling emotionally disturbed
at times and I thought that was because of the recent tragedy in my
life but added to that was the combination of deprivation and overload. The
story the old woman had told about people going crazy made sense. Unless
you had a compelling desire and reason to be in this world, you would simply
fall apart here. I was so thankful for the upbringing I’d had, particularly
with Francisco – somehow it had prepared me for this kind of life.
The old woman gave Ken the paper and pencil he had left at the camp
and motioned him to make more drawings, especially of the children. As
he flipped through the roll to find fresh paper, he noticed that someone
had made a series of remarkable drawings of groups of people hunting
or fishing. There was no horizon line and no other object to give them a
sense of place but their simple clarity told a story that was understandable
to any culture in the world.
When Ken looked up from the roll he noticed that the children had
taken their clothes off and were swimming and playing in the water of the
shallow lake. Everyone else in the camp quickly joined them.
Ken stood on the edge of the lake, fully dressed. A little boy ran out
of the water, tugged at Ken’s sleeve and called out a word several times.
“What does this word mean?” he shouted to the hunter who was splashing
in the lake.
“It means uncle,” he called back, explaining that every young male is
uncle and every man who is old is grandfather. Everybody is related on
that level, he said. And there were words in the language that asked, when
you greeted each other, “Are we related?” The laws and rules of the people
were actually taboos and if you were related to someone, it was forbidden
to hurt them – that was the biggest taboo.
With the child’s urging, Ken shyly took his clothes off and dipped his
foot into water as warm as his body temperature. He plunged in, bemused
by the idea of swimming in the Arctic, the land of cold and ice. As
he stroked through the water he asked the hunter about the tattoos that
covered the bodies of the two old women. He said that before Kablunat
began to rule the Arctic, tattoos were a sign of great beauty. Some people
had their faces tattooed as well as their bodies and many of the tattoos
had significance. Now, most of the people no longer lived on the land and
tattoos seemed to be offensive to Kablunat.
Libros Libertad 