Orulo's Story: 'To Think I Had Been So Happy'

Orulo continued telling the story of her life to the explorer Knud Rasmussen:

"Next spring, we left there and went to Admiralty Inlet. We reached there just at the time when folk were laying up their sledges and belongings before going up country to hunt caribou. There was a man named Kipumeen; his wife Kunualuk had given birth to a stillborn child a little while before, and was not allowed to go with the hunting party. So my mother went instead, and I went with her. We stayed inland all that summer. The men were successful in their hunting, and we helped them to drag the meat and store it in depots or cut off thin slices and laid them on stones to dry. It was a pleasant time. We lived in abundance, with all manner of dainties besides, and the day passed as in play.

"Then one day, I remember, we were startled to hear a woman from one of the tents calling out: "Here, come and look, quick, come and see". We all ran to the spot, and there we saw a spider letting itself down to the ground. We could not make out where it came from; it looked as if it were letting itself down from the sky. We all saw it, and there was silence among the tents. For when a spider comes down from the sky, it means someone is going to die. And true it was; when people came up from the coast, we learned that four men had perished in their kayaks. And among them was my stepfather. And thus we were left alone and homeless once again.

"But it was not long before my mother was married again, this time with a young man, much younger than she was. They lived together until he took another wife, a young one about his own age. Then my mother was cast off, and we were alone again. Then my mother was married to a man named Augpila ("the red one") and we had someone to look after us once more. This Augpila wanted to go down to Ponds Inlet to look for white men. He had heard that whalers often came there in the summer. So he went off with my mother, and I was left alone in the care of Amarualik and his wife Tutuk. But I did not stay with them long, for Amarualik thought he had too many mouths to feed, so I went to live with Kanajoq.

"I was there when Uvitaara, ("my new husband.") – that is my pet name for Aua – came and fetched me, and that is the end of all my adventures. For one who lives happily has no adventures, and in truth, I have lived happily and had seven children."

Rasmussen asked the woman, "What is the bitterest memory of all you can remember?"

Without hesitation, she answered, "The bitterest I have ever known was a time of famine shortly after my eldest son was born. And to make matters worse, all our stores of meat from the previous hunting had been destroyed by wolverines. During the two coldest months of the winter, Uvitaara hardly slept indoors a single night, but was out all the time hunting seal, and made do with a snatch of sleep now and then in the little snow shelters he built by the blow holes. We nearly starved to death, for in all that time he got only two seals. To see him go out, cold and hungry day after day to his hunting, in all manner of cruel weather, to see him grow thinner and weaker all the time – oh, it was terrible. But then at last he got a walrus, and we were saved."

Rasmussen then asked the obvious question, "And the happiest thing you can remember?"

The old woman broke into a broad smile and put down her sewing, as she recalled a time long ago. "It was the first time I came back to Baffin Land after I was married," she began.

"I had always been a poor fatherless creature, passed from hand to hand; but now I was welcomed with great festivity by all in the village. My husband had come to challenge one of the others to a song contest, and there were many feasts on that occasion, feasts such I had only heard about, but never taken part in myself."

When she had finished her reverie, Orulo suddenly burst into tears. But they were tears of joy. She explained to Rasmussen, "I have today been a child once more. While I was telling you all about my life, I lived it over again, and saw and felt everything in the same way as when it really happened. There are so many things we do not think of until the memories are upon us. And now you have learned the life of an old woman from the very beginning to this day. And I could not help crying for joy to think I had been so happy."

Taissumani recounts a specific event of historic interest. Kenn Harper is a historian, writer and linguist who lives in Iqaluit. Feedback? Send your comments and questions to kennharper@hotmail.com.