The Esquimaux shook his head. “Ah-ka.” The man made a wide sweep with his arms and hands, encompassing all the other Esquimaux as well as himself. “Inuk,” he said firmly. Holding up his mutilated hand and waggling his two remaining fingers while hiding his thumb, he said again, “Tikerqat.”
Irving interpreted all this to mean that “Inuk” was not the man’s name but a description of all ten Esquimaux there — perhaps their tribal name or racial name or clan name. He guessed “Tikerqat” to be not a last name now but the entirety of his interlocutor’s name, and probably one meaning “Two Fingers.”
“Tikerqat,” said Irving, trying to pronounce it properly while still cutting and chewing blubber for himself. The fact that the meat and greasy fat were old, smelly, and raw meant almost nothing. It was as if his body craved this fat above all other things. “Tikerqat,” he said again.
There followed, in the midst of the squatting, cutting, and chewing, a general introduction. Tikerqat began both the introductions and the explanations by acting things out to explain the meaning of the name — if the names had a meaning — but then the other men picked up on it and acted out their own names. The moment had the feeling of a joyous child’s game.
“Taliriktug,” said Tikerqat slowly, pushing forward the barrel-chested young man next to him. Two Fingers grabbed his companion’s upper arm and squeezed it, making ah-yeh-I noises, then flexing his own muscle and comparing it to the other man’s thicker biceps.
“Taliriktug,” repeated Irving, wondering if it meant “Big Muscle” or “Strong Arm” or something similar.
The next man, a shorter one, was named Tuluqag. Tikerqat tugged the man’s parka hood back, pointed to his black hair, and made flapping noises with his hand, miming a bird flying.
“Tuluqag,” repeated Irving, nodding politely toward the man as he chewed. He wondered if the word meant “Raven.”
The fourth man thumped himself on the chest, grunted, “Amaruq,” and threw back his head and howled.
“Amaruq,” repeated Irving and nodded. “Wolf,” he said aloud.
The fifth hunter was named Mamarut and acted out some pantomime involving waving his arms and dancing. Irving repeated the name and nodded but had no idea what the name might mean.
The sixth hunter, a younger man of very serious demeanor, was introduced by Tikerqat as Ituksuk. This man stared at Irving with deep black eyes and said and acted out nothing. Irving nodded politely and chewed his blubber.
The older man with the headband and the pouch was introduced by Tikerqat as Asiajuk, but the man neither blinked nor showed recognition of the introduction. It was obvious he did not like or trust Third Lieutenant John Irving.
“A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Asiajuk,” said Irving.
“Afatkuq,” Tikerqat said softly, nodding slightly in the direction of the unsmiling older man in the headband.
Some sort of medicine man? wondered Irving. As long as Asiajuk’s hostility remained only on the level of silent suspicion, the lieutenant thought that things would be all right.
The old man at the sled was introduced as Kringmuluardjuk to the young lieutenant. Tikerqat pointed to the still-snarling dogs, brought his hands together in some sort of diminutive gesture, and laughed.
Then Irving’s laughing interlocutor pointed to the shy boy, who appeared to be about ten or eleven years old, pointed to his own chest again, and said, “Irniq,” followed by “Qajorânguaq.”
Irving guessed that Irniq might mean “son” or “brother.” Probably the former, he thought. Or perhaps the boy’s name was Irniq and Qajorânguaq meant son or brother. The lieutenant nodded respectfully, just as he had with the older hunters.
Tikerqat shoved the old woman forward. Her name appeared to be Nauja, and Tikerqat again made a bird-flying motion. Irving repeated the name as best he could — there was a certain glottal sound that the Esquimaux made that he could not approximate — and nodded respectfully. He wondered if Nauja was an arctic tern, a seagull, or something more exotic.
The old woman giggled and stuffed more blubber in her mouth.
Tikerqat put his arm around the young woman, not much more than a girl really, and said, “Qaumaniq.” Then the hunter grinned broadly and said, “Amooq! ”
The girl wriggled in his grasp while smiling, and all the men except the possible medicine man laughed loudly.
“Amooq? ” said Irving, and the laughter rose in volume. Tuluqag and Amaruq spit out blubber they were laughing so hard.
“Qaumaniq… amooq! ” said Tikerqat and made a two-handed, open-fingered grabbing gesture in front of his own chest that was universal. But to make sure he got the point across, the hunter grabbed his wriggling woman — Irving had to think she was his wife — and quickly lifted her short, dark parka top.
The girl was naked under the animal skin, and her breasts were, indeed, very large… very large indeed for a woman so young.
John Irving felt himself blush from his blond hairline down to his chest. He lowered his gaze to the blubber he was still chewing. At that moment he would have laid fifty quid that Amooq was the Esquimaux language equivalent of “Big Tits.”
The men around him howled with laughter. The Qimmiq — the wolflike sled dogs around the wooden kamatik — howled and leapt against their tethers. The old man behind the sled, Kringmuluardjuk, actually fell onto the snow and ice he was laughing so hard.
Suddenly Amaruq — Wolf? — who had been playing with the telescope, pointed to the bare ridge from which Irving had descended into the valley and snapped what sounded like “Takuvaa… kabloona qukiuttina! ”
The group fell silent immediately.
The wolfish dogs began barking wildly.
Irving stood from where he had been crouching and shielded his eyes from the sun. He did not want to ask for the telescope back. There was the quickest motion of a human form in greatcoat silhouetted against the top of the ridge.
Wonderful! thought Irving. All through the blubber feast and introductions, he’d been trying to decide how to get Tikerqat and the others to come back to Terror Camp with him. He’d been afraid that he would not be able to communicate well enough with just his hands and motions to persuade the eight Esquimaux males and two women and their dogs and sled to make the threehour trip back to the coast with him, so he’d been trying to think of a way to get just Tikerqat to come along with him.
It was certain that the lieutenant could not just let these natives hike back to wherever they had come from. Captain Crozier would be at the camp tomorrow, and Irving knew from several conversations with the captain that contact with the local peoples was precisely what the tired and beleaguered captain most hoped might happen. The northern tribes, what Ross called northern highland tribes, are rarely warlike, Crozier had told his third lieutenant one night. If we come across a village of theirs on our way south, they may feed us well enough to get us provisioned properly for the long upstream haul to Great Slave Lake. At the very least, they could show us how to live off the land.
And now Thomas Farr and the others had come looking for him, following his footprints through the snow to this valley. The figure on the ridgeline had gone back over the ridge and out of sight — out of shock at seeing ten strangers in the valley or concern that he might frighten them? — but Irving had caught a glimpse of the greatcoat blowing in silhouette and the Welsh wig and comforter and knew that one of his problems had been solved.