Taklaingiq

 from fragments of hicias’ and taki’s notebook

Taki was beautiful.

She was beautiful on the outside, with black hair, brown eyes, and dark skin against the white snow.

She was beautiful on the inside, with a warm heart beating against the Arctic cold.

She was kindly beautiful, beautifully kind.

When she was born, her aaka swaddled her in a blanket her aakaaluk sewed for her.

The blanket was red, the color of the sky over Point Hope at dusk, just before the night sky blanketed the people in frozen darkness.

Across the blanket, stitched with bright yellow thread, were the three Arctic whales - the beluga, the narwhal and the bowhead.

“With the beluga whale, I hope curiosity and music into the life of the baby,” she whispered, “For the beluga look quizzically at you and sing songs that cause us to call them the canaries of the sea.

With the narwhal, I hope compassion and empathy into the life of the baby, for the narwhal will place the tip of its own hornlike tooth into the broken tooth of another narwhal to ease its suffering and assuage its pain.”

And with the bowhead whale, I hope mystery and endurance into the life of the baby, for the bowhead’s scientific name is Balaena mysticetus and that best describes its wonderful, mysterious ways. It lives longer than any creature on Earth, for its heart beats slow and strong in the cold, cold waters.

Taki's aakaaluk was an artist with needle and thread.

There were two narwhals.

The long tooth of one of the narwhal's, the one that extended out from its upper lip, the one that makes all narwhals look like unicorns of the sea, was broken.

She sewed the hurt and despair of the wounded whale into its face so you could feel its pain just by looking at it.

In the face of the other whale she sewed compassion and hope that you could also feel as it placed its own tooth into the hole of the broken tooth to assuage the pain of her friend.

Taki’s aaka and aapa planned to name her after her aakaaluk, whose name was Asiavik.

Asiavik is the Iñuit word for the Alpine blueberry.

It’s a berry that grows over the Arctic tundra.

It provides food for the smallest mouse to the largest polar bear in the time of its harvest til the deep winter.

It can be frozen and preserved for good use.

Asiavik was beautiful, helpful and always there when you needed her, like the berry for which she was named.

The week before Taki was born, Asiavik died.

A strong, healthy heart has two billion heartbeats to give to the world.

Asiavik’s heartbeats made the world a more beautiful, ingenious, wonderful, courageous place.

In the Iñuit way, when people die, their names are given to the next babies born into their families.

In this way, the loved ones can live again among the people.

Their beauty, ingenuity, wonder and courage can grow in the new person.

Yes, Taki was to be named Asiavik.

Her parents changed their minds, however, when she whistled the song of the bowhead whale from her aapa's memory.

“Her name is Taklaingiq,” they announced as they introduced her to Point Hope.

“What!?” asked the people as they whispered among themselves.

“How could they not name her after her aakaaluk?

Why would they not welcome Asiavik back among the people?”

No one asked these questions out loud, though.

The Iñuit people are polite and thoughtful and do not question the motives of others.

They wondered silently.

What might become of the baby?

Would she be broken because her parents broke the old ways of the Iñuit?

Her parents never answered the unspoken questions or addressed the concerns of the people.

They simply let her name stand as it was.

Taklaingiq.

In the ancient, sacred language of the Iñuit people, it was the word for the bowhead whale.

That is what she would become.

Like the bowhead whale.

Life for the people.

Life for the world.

They would call her Taklaingiq.

Taklaingiq the courageous.

Taklaingiq the wonderful.

Taklaingiq the genius.

Taklaingiq the beautiful.

Taki.