Harpoon of the Hunter by Markoosie

First published: 1970; illustrated

Type of work: Folktale

Themes: Coming-of-age, nature, and death

Time of work: Unspecified

Recommended Ages: 15-18

Locale: Canada’s Northwest territories, within the Arctic Circle

Principal Characters:

• Kamik, a sixteen-year-old Inuit who yearns to be as great a hunter as his father
• Suluk, Kamik’s father and leader of the hunting expedition against the rabid bear
• Ooramik, Kamik’s wise and brave mother
• Mitik, a hunter left to protect the village, who raises a rescue party from a nearby settlement
• Issa, another hunter sharing in Mitik’s duties
• Antootik, the spokesman of the neighboring village and leader of the rescue party
• Putooktee, Antootik’s daughter, who becomes engaged to Kamik

The Story

Throughout this tale of winter hardships in Canada’s far north, the presence of harsh nature, oblivious to the welfare of humans and animals alike, makes itself known. Kamik’s community, never far from starvation, lives according to the rhythms of storms that may prevent hunting and winds and snows that may freeze their dogs. Nevertheless, Kamik understands the precarious nature of Eskimo life and strives to become a fine hunter like his father, Suluk. The story opens with an attack on Suluk’s dogs by a rabid polar bear. Suluk manages to wound but not kill the beast. Knowing that rabies is a threat to wildlife, and consequently to the villagers’ survival, Suluk leads an expedition against the dangerous animal. Only Mitik and Issa remain to protect the community.

Several nights into the hunt, a second bear attacks the party and is defeated by Kamik, but only after it kills his father. Saddened, the party continue the search for their rabid prey. Along the way, they lose their dogs, who, catching its scent, pursue the beast one night without the hunters. Following on foot, the men are ambushed by the bear, and all but Kamik are destroyed.

Meanwhile, Ooramik suffers presentiments of disaster and insists that Issa and Mitik raise a rescue party from a neighboring village. After a perilous journey, they succeed in doing so, for helping one another is an Eskimo tradition and necessary for life in their bitter world. Antootik leads the relief expedition.

Suffering from severe cold, hunger, and exhaustion, Kamik struggles home. The proven hunter craftily drives a musk ox over a cliff and thereby provides himself with food and clothing. He has almost reached his destination when the rescue party, having learned of the hunters’ fate along the way, overtakes him. Although saddened by the deaths the excursion has brought, Kamik and his rescuers rejoice that the youth has destroyed the polar bear and survived the bitter weather.

Putooktee comforts Kamik, and the two decide to marry. It is also decided that Kamik’s community, now deprived of the majority of its hunters, will join that of their rescuers. Unfortunately, on the return journey, Ooramik, Putooktee, and her father, Antootik, are drowned in a dangerous channel crossing. Kamik escapes the doomed sled and manages to clamber onto an ice floe. Although he can easily reach safety, he refuses, however, to save himself. With his village dispersed and his family, friends, and betrothed dead, he decides that his only peace lies in his own demise. After his icy perch drifts out of the sight of the remaining hunters, Kamik uses his harpoon to conquer his last foe—life. He puts the point to his throat and ends his struggle.

Context

Harpoon of the Hunter is the first Eskimo story composed in written form. Until its appearance, Eskimo literature was purely oral in nature, only a few traditional tales being recorded from time to time by interested anthropologists. It is particularly significant because its author, fluent in both Inuit and English, produced the story in both languages and thereby preserved more precisely than could a nonEskimo translator the perceptions and style characteristic of his culture.

Storytelling is essential to Eskimo society, for it is through tales that history, behavioral codes, spiritual and pragmatic beliefs, and indeed an entire way of life are preserved. Moreover, it is a responsibility shared by all—Markoosie by occupation is a bush pilot—and an activity reserved for long, dark winter nights when other work cannot be performed. Because of these qualities, many Eskimo stories are timeless and highly allegorical in mode. Reflecting the constant battle between humanity and nature, the parity between people and other species of the Arctic in matters of survival, the necessary communal effort, and the dark fatalism of the Inuit worldview, Harpoon of the Hunter is no exception. That the harpoon, rather than the man who bears it, dominates the title and the imagery in this story indicates the primacy of social needs over those of the individual, as well as the essential impersonality of nature and fate in the Eskimo vision. That vision, the product of a tenuous day-to-day existence in a hostile environment, places Markoosie’s work in the greater context of other heroic oral literatures, including the Homeric Greek school, the Scandinavian sagas, and the Anglo-Saxon tradition that produced such epics as Beowulf (c. sixth century).

Harpoon of the Hunter exemplifies another timeless and more universal concern: the coming-of-age of a young member of a society, presenting the theme in its most elemental form. Thus, it is ideal for any reader struggling with entry into adulthood and the conformity and judgment such entry requires. It also provides insight into the perceptions and the way of life of the little-known peoples living in one of the most inhospitable regions of the earth.