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We had not been in the tent many minutes when a pair of yellow-billed loons pierced the heavy silence with their frantic cries. They were the first living things we had heard for days. But instead of relieving the tautness in us, they only intensified it, for their lunatic babble was not what one expects from creatures of flesh and blood.
Hardly had they begun their wailing refrain when Ohoto's voice joined them. The sounds of the loons became a manic chorus for Ohoto's voice as he listened. The high-pitched and monotonous chant which is peculiar to the Ihalmiut who know they are going to die.
Farley Mowat, People of the Deer, Pyramid, New York, 1968, p. 146.
TIME: 20th c.
PLACE: Northwest Territories, Canada
There was an absolute and tangible silence broken only by the fluid dip of paddles and the gentle mutter underneath the bow of the canoe.
Farley Mowat, People of the Deer, Pyramid, New York, 1968, p. 231.
TIME: 20th c.
PLACE: Northwest Territories, Canada
CIRCUMSTANCE: among the Ihalmiut people
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