Yet from the loins of some such
tender woman had he sprung with a kingly inheritance,--an
inheritance which gave to him and his dominance over the land and
sea, over the animals and the peoples of all the zones.
Single-handed against fivescore, girt by the Arctic winter, far
from his own, he felt the prompting of his heritage, the desire
to possess, the wild danger--love, the thrill of battle, the
power to conquer or to die.
The singing and the dancing ceased, and the Shaman flared up in
rude eloquence.
Through the sinuosities of their vast mythology, he worked
cunningly upon the credulity of his people. The case was strong.
Opposing the creative principles as embodied in the Crow and the
Raven, he stigmatized Mackenzie as the Wolf, the fighting and the
destructive principle. Not only was the combat of these forces
spiritual, but men fought, each to his totem. They were the
children of Jelchs, the Raven, the Promethean fire-bringer;
Mackenzie was the child of the Wolf, or in other words, the
Devil. For them to bring a truce to this perpetual warfare, to
marry their daughters to the arch-enemy, were treason and
blasphemy of the highest order. No phrase was harsh nor figure
vile enough in branding Mackenzie as a sneaking interloper and
emissary of Satan.
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