Hammer of the Gods

Chapter 11

“Your daughter sent us to find you. We are on a quest to find someone named Aternerk Sangliak. Your daughter explained that Aternerk means Chief, but she did not know the translation for Sangliak,” Jonah said.

Chief Konosak’s eyes grew wide, and then narrowed in consideration as he considered the name.

“Where did you come by that name?” He asked cautiously.

“Gabriel sent us to find him.”

Chief Konosak took a step back as he looked up, deep in memory and said, “Gabriel! Once you have met Gabriel you will never forget him.”

“You know him?” Angelica asked.

“He came to me when I was young, but the tale is too long, for he is an anerwerk, an angel you would say. You must come with me to my house for dinner. My daughter, you have met she will be home soon and will prepare dinner, for us.”

He called to Denali and loaded him in a box built on the front of a four-wheeler and said, “Follow me.”

Chief Konosak drove slow enough for them to keep up on foot. Near the corner of Bering Street and Third Avenue, he pulled into the yard of his home. The house was not what one would normally expect, if you had never been to Alaska that is. A white picket fence surrounded the yard. A cache, (which is how the natives keep food away from bears and wolves) was in the front.

The cache had numerous ocean buoys hanging from it giving it, the appearance of an odd Christmas tree. Several snowmobiles (snowmachines as they are called there) were parked out front, and an old truck was up on blocks, its tires missing. A pair of green ATVs, were parked on one side of the house. A strip of black, whale baleen hung over the porch doorway, carved with scenes of native whaling, walrus, and caribou. A large walrus skull with three-foot tusks was mounted to one side of the door. Smoke rose from a stove-pipe above the roof. Grey tendrils of wispy cloud drifted lazily towards the sea; it faded off like some ethereal spirit watching over the home. The roof was covered with grass, and many large pairs of antlers adorned the roofline. They were trophies attesting to the chief’s hunting skills.

Jonah and Angelica followed him into the house, leaving Denali on the front porch. His daughter was in the kitchen, and the smell of cooking caribou meat filled the air; causing Jonah and Angelica’s taste buds to water.

They had noticed early on, that while Konosak was broad and round in appearance with narrow eyes, thick hands and skin, that Lorne was tall, lean, and an even darker complexion than her father.

“Sit.” Chief Konosak said, as he pointed to the dining room table.

They noticed the flat top was a single section of a large tree, cut cross wise revealing the many rings that marked its long life. It had been sealed in varnish. The table was held aloft by a pair of large mammoth tusks. Chief Konosak informed them that he’d found them years ago up the Yukon River.

“You have met Alornerk.” Chief Konosak stated.

“Yes, but we had not gotten her name.” Jonah replied.

“Call me Lorne,” she stated from the kitchen, “No one but Dad and my uncle call me Alornerk.” She spoke with a sarcastic look on her face as she gave her dad a glare-full look.

The Chief chuckled to himself as his belly jiggled. “Alornerk means ‘under feet’ he stated laughingly, she hates that name!”

Lorne finished cooking dinner while humming a beautiful, soothing tune. She served them at before sitting down to join them.

Konosak blessed the food. Dinner consisted of fried caribou that had been rolled in pancake mix, and just a little bit of salt and pepper. With that, they had bowls of blueberries and some freshly baked bread. He said to Lorne, “They are here about the Ignaugalurauks.”

Lorne looked surprised, and asked, how do you know about the Enukins? I say Enukins, as you would have trouble saying Ignaugalurauks, but both stand for the little people,” Lorne explained as she leaned forward, anticipating their answer.

Jonah shared a brief version of how Gabriel had appeared to he and his sister, and how the archangel had brought them to Nome and instructed them to seek out someone named Aternerk Sangliak.

Lorne had not heard of Gabriel, and she still did not know what Sangliak stood for, so she asked her father for more details.

He explained that Gabriel was one of the chief ‘anernerk’ or angels, and that he had come to he and his brother when they were young men. Gabriel had brought them a staff that had living, small branches, and leaves atop. He instructed them to seek out Aternerk Sangliak’s father, Isumatturuk Umialik whose name meant ‘The Wise King.’ He explained that these were some of the Enukin who legends claimed lived in the mountains north of Nome. Konosak and his brother Awarumtok, made the journey by boat and spent nearly a week searching, before encountering one of the little people.

“Aternerk Sangliak means Strongest of All,” Konosak said, giving his daughter a playful grin. “We were taken to The Wise King, in their caverns beneath the earth and presented him with the staff. King Umialik said the staff had been prophesied to come to his people one day for safe keeping.

Although the Enukins are normally playful, and mischievous, he took the rod with reverence and instructed a servant to place it in his vault.

Lorne interjected, “Jonah, Angelica, your people would call Enukins gnomes. The current spelling of the city of Nome was a mistake made by the original mapmaker, who mistranslated the name written down by the First Chief at the turn of the 20th Century. The chief had written Ignaugalurauk on the map, but when he told the map maker that this meant gnome or little people, in English, the mapmaker, who was not one of our people, did not believe him and so he changed the spelling to Nome.”

“That is so interesting. Can you take us to find the gnomes?” Jonah said.

Konosak thought long on this. “If you were sent to me by Gabriel, then I will try and help you. My brother’s cabin is partway up the river, and hopefully, we will run into my son Nanuk at his hunting camp on our way to Enukin Ingik or Gnome Mountain. You will need better clothing and gear; we have extra that should fit. We can leave tomorrow, but first, it’s time for muktuk and dessert, Eskimo ice cream!”

“What is muktuk?” Angelica asked.

The other three all grinned at her.

Konosak explained that muktuk was whale or walrus blubber and would be eaten raw.

Jonah said, “I have heard of it, but have never had the…er…um…pleasure of trying it.”

He forced down a gulp in his throat as did Angelica. Lorne smiled ear to ear as she retrieved a large bowl from the refrigerator and removed the plastic wrap before placing a slab of fatty, oily, walrus blubber on a plate in front of each of them.

Konosak, happily picked up his blob of gelatinous fat and began to eat. He grunted and motioned Jonah and Angelica to try theirs. His large-mouth chewed the blubber while he grinned in anticipation. His eyes narrowed upon his chubby face until they were but mere slits as his smile intensified. Lorne also began to eat hers and she was obviously humored as well. Angelica and Jonah looked at one another for a moment, but not wanting to be rude they finally bit into the muktuk. It tasted like fatty, greasy, chewy, shortening.

Konosak and Lorne had a good laugh watching Jonah and Angelica choke down the walrus fat with their faces turning red. A couple of gaging sounds were heard when they tried to swallow. They resisted the urge to vomit. After feigning being overly full after the first bite, what they didn’t finish was added back to the bowl and mixed with sugar, blueberries, and fresh snow.

Angelica thought that Eskimo ice cream was quite a bit more palatable than straight muktuk, but she did not say this out loud. Konosak said in a pinch they make the desert in the Alaska interior villages like McGrath, and Nikoli and others out of shortening, mixed with sugar, snow, or ice and berries, but fresh whale or walrus blubber is the best.

“I have a sister who married the chief of Nikoli, and every year for her birthday and for Christmas I mail her muktuk packed in dry ice,” the Chief said.

Angelica asked, “Is there a Mrs. Konosak?”

Konosak and Lorne exchanged sad glances at each other and then looked down at the table as they reflected on painful memories.

Konosak quietly said the words, “Tonrar Kiisiwok.”

Angelica and Jonah looked to Lorne for an interpretation.

Lorne explained solemnly, “It means ‘devil biter.’ There is a reason why so many people turn up missing in Nome, and there are reasons why so many claim their houses are haunted and see strange things in the middle of the night. Parents keep their children indoors after sunset. But even locked doors do not keep the spirits away. Over three hundred villagers have claimed to have seen these devils in their homes, and usually, they come in the dead of the night. Some have taken their own lives rather than continue to face these nightmares, and others have had their children taken from them, but this is not the work of the Enukins. These spirits are hideous. They are described as having large black eyes, wearing dark hooded robes, with wraith-like, clawed hands. Some appear human-like, and others more like monsters. The experience is so traumatic that many cannot recall exactly what they saw and are scared to go to sleep.”

Jonah asked, “When did this start? Is there something in common about who has these nightmares or visitations?”

“They have afflicted both native and whites. Most are people who do not follow a religious path or have fallen away from their religion. We have heard that it first started with a group of teenagers who tested the occult. Tarot card reading and other mystical practices have also seemed to be a common theme for those who have experienced the nightmares. Some have been calling in the local shaman to bless their homes, but this does not seem to be stopping the spirits, if that is what they are. Those who are afflicted have trouble remembering all of the events.” Lorne said.

“My mother saw them. She was Athabaskan, not Inupiaq like father. She believed in the old ways. Father became a Christian many years ago, and my brother and I are also believers in that faith. Neither the Tonrar Kiisiwok nor the Enukins seem to like being around Christians. My mom could no longer take the night terrors, so she walked out onto the thin ice just south of town. It broke away from shore and drifted out to sea. Father only arrived in time to cry out to her before she drifted out of sight. There was nothing he could do. It is the old way, that when an elder no longer could carry their own weight, they would set themselves adrift on the ice. It seems so harsh now in modern times, but life was always a constant struggle to survive before white men came and brought electricity and motorized vehicles and better health care. The elders in the old days, were proud, and did not want to become a burden on their children.”

“Some nights, if you walk along the shore in winter, you can hear the cries of the spirits of those who were set adrift. Some people say freezing to death is a good way to die, but I don’t think that is how I want to go.” Lorne finished.