Tale XXVII: One Thousand Years
Now and then in the far north, a trader adopts an Eskimo boy, always an orphan, and brings him up at the Station. When the boy reaches manhood he generally remains at the Post, acting as a general servant and interpreter. While his usefulness as a “jack of all trades” is great, his efficiency in English is invariably poor. No pure Eskimo can understand and speak fluently any other language but his own, and, although he is quite capable of remembering hundreds of foreign words, he has a very hazy notion of what these words really mean.
I remember well a certain Post servant called “Nero”. No one knew how he got that strange name. He was about sixty years old and thought himself head and shoulders above any other native in the country. Wise to the ways of white men, the equal of any other Eskimo in traveling and hunting, he was a well known character within a radius of five hundred miles.
One summer I was traveling with him along the eastern coast of Hudson Bay. The weather was clear and we were sailing in a little schooner a few hundred yards off shore.
Everywhere, Eskimos have a habit of erecting cairns of rocks on all the cliffs and high spots so as to have land marks when traveling in winter, especially during stormy weather.
I happened to notice one of those cairns which was of unusual size. The rocks, which had been piled very neatly and carefully one on top of the other, were enormous. It must have taken several men quite a few days of labor to put it up.
I called Nero’s attention to the cairn, and added that it looked very old and I wondered how long it had been there. Nero, never at a loss for an answer, nodded cheerfully and replied “Yes, much old—thousand years.” I grinned and remarked, “How do you know it has been there so long?” Nero hesitated a few seconds then retorted brightly, “Yes, thousand years. I know. It was here when I a little boy. I saw her, thousand years.”
After that answer, I gave it up and changed the subject of conversation.