Page:Eskimo Folk-Tales (1921).djvu/82

 MAKÍTE

AKÍTE, men say, took to wife the sister of many brothers, but he himself could never manage to catch a seal when he was out in his kayak. But his wife's brothers caught seal in great numbers. And so it was that one day he heard his wife say she would leave him, because he never caught anything. And in his grief at hearing this, he said to himself:

"This evening, when they are all asleep, I will go up into the hills and live there all alone."

When darkness had fallen, he set off up into the hills, but as he went, his wife's father, who was standing outside, saw him going, and cried in to the others in the house:

"Makíte has gone up into the hills to live there all alone. Go after him."

The many brothers went out after him, but when they had nearly come up with him, he made his steps longer, and thus got farther and farther away from them, and at last they ceased to pursue him any more.

On his way he came to a house, and this was just as it was beginning to get light. He looked in, and saw that the hangings on the walls were of nothing but reindeer and foxes' skins. And now he said to himself:

" Hum—I may as well go in."

But as he went in, the hinge of the door creaked, and then a strange, deep sound was heard inside the house, and it began to shake.

At the same moment, the master of the house came in and said:

"Have you had nothing to eat yet?"

Makíte said: "I will eat nothing until I know what are those things which look like candles, there in front of the window." Then the lone-dweller said:

"That is no concern of one who is not himself a lone-dweller. Therefore he cannot tell you."

But then Makíte said: "If you do not tell me, I will kill you."