Papik and Ootah disappeared--Papik to his shelter, Ootah to Annadoah's
igloo. The parents, left alone, dug up stones and ice and buried the
child. Then beneath the stars they stood in silent grief. Other
natives, emerging from their houses and seeing them, understood and
disappeared, for while relatives weep over their dead none dare disturb
their mourning. For five days, in commemoration of the death, the
parents would visit the grave of their child, During this time no
native dare cross the path leading from their igloo to the silent
resting place, and while they stood beneath the stars all alien to
their sorrow must remain within their houses. Only the Great Spirit,
who lives beyond the golden veils of the boreal lights, may hear the
sobbing of a stricken human creature over the thing of which it has
been bereft.

In the course of ten sleeps--as days are called--the first moon of the
long night sank below the horizon and the colorful stars fierily
glittered over a world of black silence. The cold increased to an
intolerable bitterness. Ootah, venturing from his igloo to dig up
walrus meat, found the earth frozen so solid that it split his steel
axe.

It was not long before many white mounds appeared beneath the liquid
stars. The old and the very young, unable to endure the rigorous cold
and dearth of food, passed into the mysterious unknown of which the
long dark of earth is only the portal. After the passing of the first
moon the storms came; the sky blackened; the winds voiced the desolate
woe of millions of aerial creatures. Terrific snow storms kept the
tribe within their shelters for days. Often the winds tore away the
membrane windows of their snow houses, and blasts of frigid cold
dissipated the precious warmth within. In the lee of circular walls of