Pomiuk, Prince of The North by Alice Walsh

Author:Alice Walsh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: JUV000000
Publisher: Dundurn Group
Published: 2006-09-01T00:00:00+00:00

I struggle to sit up, but cannot. The pain is too great. Makpa leaves quickly to find Kupah. I try to get up, but I keep falling down.

Kupah comes after a while, and because I am unable to stand, he picks me up and carries me. There is no medicine man on the fairground. There is only a nurse. She sets my leg in a hard white shell. Everywhere I go I have to crawl or be carried. I cannot walk.

Day after day I sit outside the hut. No longer can I twirl my whip. No longer can I wander around the exhibition. I cannot ride the Ferris wheel. I, who they call Prince Pomiuk, can only sit and watch my friends as they wield their long whips. At times I feel as lonely as an abandoned igloo.

I am sitting outside our huts when the man with the glass goggles and funny hat stops to talk with me. I am surprised he can speak my language so well. His name is Mr. Martin, and he writes stories for children. He tells me he used to be a missionary on the Labrador coast. That is where he learned our language. We quickly become friends.

Mr. Martin often sits outside the huts with me, sometimes for hours at a time. Occasionally I sing to him. Other times he reads me selections from my book of white men’s tales. In the book there are men named Ulysses, Hercules, Theseus, and Perseus, all brave heroes who do courageous deeds. And like our own stories there are tales about clever beasts who can talk and do amazing things. I am astonished at how those little black dots captured on paper can make so many pictures in my head.

One of the stories I like best is about a man named Arion who played beautiful music on an instrument called a “lyre.” He lived a long time ago in a place called Corinth in a country far away. Arion wanted to travel, but an oracle, a man much like our shamans, warned him that no ship would bring him back from his voyage. Arion ignored the warning and set sail for a country called Italy. He played and sang so well that he delighted everyone in his new land. Strangers heaped gifts upon him—a jewelled sword, a suit of silver armour, an ivory bow, and a quiver of bronze-tipped arrows.

So happy was Arion that he forgot all about the oracle’s warning. He took a ship back to his home in Corinth. During the voyage, bad men tried to rob him. With his lyre in his hand, and still singing, Arion jumped from the bow of the ship. His voice was so enchanting that the creatures of the sea rose to hear him. The dolphins especially liked Arion’s music. They came to the surface of the sea, and the biggest one lifted Arion onto its back and swam with him to Corinth. For the rest of his life Arion made wonderful music on his lyre.

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