I am the Walrus, Literacy and Domestication Among the Thule, Part Four
The first Thule to ride a Walrus is K’Eyush, a local Shaman who is able to ride upon the back a cow she has personally raised from infancy. The animal is placid of temperament and well tamed. It will swim on the surface as she rides on its back. The innovation of riding Caribou is well established by this time, and K’Eyush has clearly generalized this to Walrus. She has no harness or bridle and no saddle, he does not control the path or progress of the animal.
Her first ride is undoubtedly out of the sight of witnesses, a mixture of boldness and foolishness. At some point, she grows confident enough to announce her ‘ability’ to his community, and to his colleagues in correspondence. The event is almost miraculous, a stunning demonstration of mystic or supernatural ability. Pilgrims begin to congregate, and other Shamans travel great distances to witness this feat.
We do not know the name of the second man or woman to ride a Walrus, or of the third. We do know the name of the first to die doing so. Sirmiq, who having successfully ridden once, attempts to mount on land, only to have his beast turn on him and rip him limb from limb with its tusks. We know the name of the second to die, Okauyuk, when his mount dives on him, dragging him to the bottom tangled in a crude harness.
Although utterly meaningless in any practical sense, the act of riding a Walrus as you would a Caribou is far too supernaturally potent to simply ignore. Sculptures and rock drawings come to universally depict coastal Shaman’s as riding Walrus, even on land. One simply cannot be acknowledged as a Shaman in some areas unless one can demonstrate having ridden one at least once. In other areas where locals are more exacting, the feat must be performed regularly.
Simple survival instinct impels innovation. Having culturally caught themselves up in a very, very bad idea, the continuing chains of correspondence, the coastal Shaman’s of the Walrus ‘network’ explored ways to do it and stay alive. Using developments with Caribou as a guide, bridles and harnesses are discussed, and when M comes up with a bridle which prevents the Walrus from diving, the innovation rapidly spreads. ‘Saddles’ or ‘cushions’ are tried and debated, inflated bladders are carried by some to escape drowning, which comes to be refined in some cases into a ‘vest for floating’. There are efforts to avoid hypothermia from immersion with watertight or waterproof garments or body grease.
Despite generations of efforts, Walrus remain dangerous and unpredictable animals. While some are tame and even affectionate, it is always a risky proposition. Over the decades there is a small but significant attrition among Shamans and an emerging caste Walrus handlers and harvesters. K’Eyush herself is eventually drowned.
In part because it is so dangerous, the act of Walrus riding is a potent demonstration of physical courage and spiritual prowess. The fact that it is a useless activity counts for little.
For the most part, Walrus riding is confined to relatively short surface jaunts. There are stories of great Shaman riding Walrus across large expanses of sea, but typically what happens is that the Shaman travels by boat most of the way, with a particularly tame Walrus following, and that just as they approach the destination, the Shaman will leave the boat to ride his charge in to shore.
Over time, of course, skills generalize. What is in one generation, the potent act of a magician, in two or three generations may become the foolish act of reckless youth, and a generation later a rite of passage for those chosen to handle the animals.
By the time of regular European contact, the practice is widespread enough and well developed enough that Europeans will carry stories back to their homelands, supplemented in many cases by tall tales received as fact.
As with everything, folklore and mystical tales abound. There are the stories of the Shaman Mequsaak known not for riding, but for standing straight atop the back of a great Walrus, which carries him everywhere on land or water. Mothers tell many stories of Mequsaak over the generations, almost all of the false or misattributed. But he was a historical Shaman who lived around 1500, and he did once stand on the back of a Walrus as it swam.... before falling off. In folklore K’Eyush leads herds of Walrus against her enemies, before eventually going down to live at the bottom of the sea
The notion of a Walrus cavalry, again inspired by emerging Caribou Cavalry, comes about as part fact, and part fiction. There are ambitious pioneers who try to take the practice of riding up to the next step, most of them die. There are warlords and kings, rulers of empires and towns, shamans who know more of politics than they do of the sea, who dream of such things and order its creation by fiat. At times there are half hearted attempts to comply with such fiats, or earnest but doomed attempts, and in some cases utter fabrications.
For those who know the subject matter well, its an amazingly bad idea. Useless, pointless, appallingly dangerous and all but impossible. But Walrus knowledge is often specialized to a particular caste of coastal shamans and Walrus harvesters, who for their own reasons, may be somewhat vague to others about the limitations of work with the animals. Walrus Cavalry becomes part of myth and folklore, part of common knowledge - something that exists for real, just a hundred miles away.
When Europeans sailors encounter Walrus with riders swimming up to their ships, they will be amazed. When they hear tails of Walrus cavalry, they will believe it and assume that this is what they have seen - not magicians demonstrating their prowess to what they see as a rival group of magicians in a sailing ship, but cavalry officers scouting. Inevitably reports and conflations will follow. The Walrus Cavalry will become an intrinsic part of the European image of the Thule.
