"MacLeod, Ian R - Tirkiluk" - читать интересную книгу автора (Macleod Ian R)

to get there, and my boots and leggings were sodden.

No igloos, of course, but it was still odd to see Eskimos living in what looks
remarkably like a red Indian encampment from an American western movie, and even
more so because peatsmoke and the dimming light gave the whole place a sort of
cinematic grainy black-and-whiteness.

Was unprepared for the smell, especially inside the tent of caribou skin and
hollowed earth that I was taken into. Seem to regard urine as a precious
commodity. They use it for tanning -- which is understandable -- but also to
wash their hair. But for all that, I was made welcome enough when I squelched
toward the camp yelling "Teyma!" (Peace -- one of the few Eskimo words I can
remember) although the children prodded me and the dogs growled and barked. A
man called Unluku, one of the elders, could speak good English -- with a
colorful use of language he'd learned from the whalers. He told me that they
knew about my hut, and that they didn't mind my being there because I wasn't
eating their caribou or their seals. Also asked him what they knew about the
war. Stroking the head of a baby who sat suckling on his mother's lap beside
him, he said they knew that kaboola -- whiteman -- was killing himself. They
strike me as a decent people; strange and smelly and mercurial, but content with
their lives.

September 15th

Rereading my encounter with the Eskimos, I don't think I've really conveyed
their sense of otherness, strangeness.

The liquefying, maggoty carcasses of several caribou had been left at the edge
of the campground, seemingly to rot, although I gathered that this was their
store of food. And, although the people looked generally plump and cheerful,
there was one figure squatting in the middle of the rough ring of tents, roped
to a whalebone stake. The children would occasionally scoop up a pile of dog
excrement and throw it at him, and Unluku took the trouble to walk over and aim
a loose kick. He said the figure was Inua, which I assumed to be some kind of
criminal or scapegoat, although tried to look it up, and the closest I can come
is a kind of shaman. Perhaps it was just his name. I don't know, and the sense
that I got from those Eskimos was that I never could.

September 20th

Supply ship came this morning -- the Tynwald. Was expecting her sometime today
or tomorrow. I was given a few much-read and out-of-date copies of the Daily
Mirror, obviously in the expectation that I would want to know how the world and
the war and Jane are getting on. And more food, and spare lanterns, and a full
winter's supply of oil. And fresh circulars from Godalming, including one about
the pilfering of blotting paper.

Stood and watched the ship turn around the headland. Say they'll probably manage
to get back one more time before the route between the islands becomes
impassable. Already, I'm losing the names and faces.