The following is based on a story told to me by Morene Lamont of Pitka’s Point, Alaska
The Steam
“There wasn’t a breath in that land of death…” Robert W. Service
There was a whispering wind that entered the village but stayed. Not the kind caused by a fluke in the atmosphere but the kind that settled in the soul.
No one was as they had been and the elders said that this type of feeling was common in February, but the intensity was uncommon however they all admitted. People tried different thing to alleviate their situations but such relief, while welcomed, was only fleeting for the individuals and did nothing for the collective community.
The elders said that some One in the village would eventually be able to counter, what the local Shaman claimed was a curse, but that some One had yet to make them selves known. The village was dark, gloomy, and stagnate.
One day a mother decided that she and her son needed a steam. She had not had one for awhile and thought that it would at least temporally take away the feeling of despair. She felt the despair of the village but she had a private despair also. She had no husband to provided for the two of them this winter. Although her neighbors had helped her out in the past, there was no guarantee she could expect the same this winter given the circumstance, and they, the neighbors, would be facing their own hardships though out this particular Arctic night.
As she entered the steam she was excited to see that the stones were blazing red hot and ready to have water thrown on them to cause the healing steam to fill her and her son’s lungs and skin. She tossed water on the stones with the scoop that was used for such things, but instead of the crackling and steam vapor erupting from the stones there was nothing but a hiss, a little sizzle, nothing like the color of the stones indicated there should be. “I am wrong,” she said, “the stones are not ready.” They left the steam, fueled the fire underneath the rocks and waited. Eventually she felt like the time was now right and re entered the steam, threw the water on the glowing stones but the same thing happened as before.
Two more times she repeated this procedure.
On her fourth attempt when all she received for her efforts was a cackle and small sizzle, she decided to wait it out inside. It was warm after all and she was afraid that by the constant in and out she would catch cold or even worse her child would catch cold.
As she sat there waiting, her son said to her, “Momma, don’t let the man touch me this time.” She asked him what he was talking about. “Every time we walk in here a hand touches my head and runs his hand down my body onto my feet.” Just as he finished saying that the woman started throwing up, uncontrollably so. She could not stop. She held her hand out to her son and gestured that she needed water. The son provided a tin can full of water from the steam bucket. She knew what to do. She drank half of the can and threw out the rest. She did this three times. She stopped throwing up; she then urinated in the can and threw it on the fire. She then took the scraping knife hanging on the wall that was used to scrape bad skin off when having a normal steam. She scraped her body and then the body of her son. She took her towel and rubber he body down then the body of her son. She took her son and ran outside naked to the elements. Stunned by the cold, she forced herself and her son to stay there as long as they could. They both reentered the steam and noticed the embers looked different. She wrapped herself and son back up in the towels, tossed more water on the glowing embers and the steam erupted into a familiar cleansing vapor.
They stayed in there for an appropriate time. When they left the steam the sun was shining, there was a raven calling from somewhere and she felt as if the gloom of the earth had subsided. People started coming out of their dwellings and it was apparent that the whispering wind of depressions was no longer there.
The village was blessed the rest of the winter with full beaver and rabbit snares and over flowing fish nets. The moose from across the river were more prevalent than normal and even caribou were seen in the area, an event that had not happened even the eldest of elders’ memory. In deed the village had returned to normal, perhaps life was what it seemed.
It was a good steam. The shamans said that these things happen. The lady and her son were given extra portions of each hunters catch that winter to help them through the Arctic night.
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