All this the weeping woman told in her chant to the departed. When she
saw Annadoah approaching, she paused.

"Here cometh the she-wolf that hath devoured the food of our tribe,"
she wailed, intense bitterness in her voice. "Yea, by her cajolery she
persuaded our men to give unto the traders from the south our precious
food. And now we starve! Yea, she hath robbed us. She is as the
breath of winter, as the blackness of the night."

Along the line of wailing women Tongiguaq's reproach was suddenly taken
up. As Annadoah walked by them they did a strange thing. The natives
fear their dead--they never even mention their names. For possessed of
great power are the dead, and they can wreak, as befits their moods,
unlimited good or ill. Believing they could persuade the dead to array
themselves against Annadoah, the women took up Tongiguaq's denunciation
and reviled Annadoah in their weird chant to the departed. Annadoah
wrung her hands and wept. Bitter and jealous because the white chief
had selected her during his stay, their bosoms full of the harbored ill
will and envy of years because she had been the most desired by the
young men of the tribes, the women now invoked curses upon the deserted
and unprotected girl through the medium of the incorporeal powers.

The dread of it filled poor Annadoah's heart. She quailed at the
bitter execrations called upon her head. Instinctively her hand
reached through the opening of her _ahttee_ and she clutched at a piece
of old half-decayed skin. This was a remnant of her mother's father's
clothing, a amulet given her as a child, when saliva from the maternal
grandfather's mouth had been rubbed on her lips, and which she believed
protected her from ill fortune.