"We come, we take, and then, as the circle of life completes itself, we give back."
The chieftain's wife had a strong voice. One that commanded authority, silence, and open ears. It was heard clearly by all in the stillness of the early morning. She cast blackened eyes out to the water at her back and then back to the crowd, nodding went she met Lakal's gaze.
"One of the first lessons we learn our young is that in order to live we must take life. It is nothing more than a fact of this world. For each taken there is another given or maintained. The bear passes and the tree grows taller in its absence, feed.
"The sea, the earth - these are our sources of life. We eat the fish and the bear's furs becomes our coats and then once our spirits leave our bodies we too much become a part of this cycle. We give our bodies back to the sea, both as a thanks and as a sign of respect. We have lived off the sea and the sea shall live off of us. There is balance to the world, one we cannot see. One which we must respect.
"We should not come to fear the end of our lives for our lives never truly end. We give life to the fish and the bears and the trees, just as they have given life to us. Our bodies live on this way and our spirits live on in the eternal.
"Serne was a wonderful woman. She respected all life. The cycle of her life, which we are born with but never shall know, has now ran its course. We may mourn, we may cry, but we must respect the movement of life. Serne did not fear what she knew lay ahead of her but pushed on towards. It is now time for her to return to the earth from which she was born. Her soul lives on and now her body shall as well."
"We come, we take, we give back," the crowd responded once the pause occurred in the speech.
The chieftain's wife, Mara - a strong woman with three grown men who could still pick off a tigerseal from man feet away, nodded slowly and then took a step back, allowing the men to come forward. Their hands all found a place on the canoe holding Lakal's mother - Serne - and slid the vessel into the icy water without so much as a splash.
The sun was rising now, casting an orange fire glow across the ocean and the ice and everybody under it. The hands resting on Lakal's back and shoulders and sides, way more at the end of the speech than at the beginning, pushed her forward towards the edge of the ice to watch her mother float out with the currents.
Lakal tried to imprint the moment into her mind. The rising sun, the people surrounding her, Mara kneeling with her staff praying for her mother's safe passage, and the canoe slowly drifting away out to sea. She tried to imagine her mother's spirit rising above the water, drifting with Twao's blanket held close, greeting the curious and mysterious spirits that revealed themselves upon death. Lakal tried to remember all of this, this imagine - this feeling, to tell her father and brother once they returned. Also for herself. Eventually the canoe would melt and her mother's body would sink into the ocean to be consumed by the tides and creatures and some say her spirit would move onto the other world but Lakal never wanted to forget this moment of sorrow and community.
