INNUITS OF OUE AECTIO COAST. 125 



of theii" apparitions, converse with the spirits and all the mummery connected with it ; Itut 

 still they appeal to their ancient traditions for the truth of revelations made to their fore- 

 fathers and miraculous cures which they performed by a certain sympathy. With regard 

 to their own practice, they readily admit that their intercourse with the spiritual world is 

 merely a pretense to deceive the simple, and that their frightful gesticulations are necessary 

 to sustain their credit and give weight to their prescriptions. Still there are many, even 

 among those who have renounced these impostures with heathenism, who aver that they 

 have frequently been thrown into supernatural trances, and that in this state a succession of 

 images appeared before them, which they took for revelations, but afterward the whole 

 scene appeared like a dream. The larger portion of these diviners are, however, bare- 

 faced imposters, who pretend to have the power of bringing on and driving away disease, 

 enchanting arrows, exorcising spirits, bestowing blessings, and performing a whole catalogue 

 of similar feats. Tlie dread excited by these imagined powers of good and evil procures 

 them a fiirmidable name and an am[)le reward for their services. These sorcerers mutter a 

 charm over a sick man and blow upon him that he may recover, or they fetch him, they 

 say, a healthy soul and breathe it into him, or they confine themselves to a simple prediction 

 of life or death. For this latter purpose they tie a bandage around the head, by which they 

 raise it up and let it fall ; if it feels light the patient will recover ; if it is heavy the patient 

 will die. In the same manner they inquire the fate of a hunter who has stayed unusually 

 long at sea; they bind the head of the nearest relation and lift it by a stick ; a tub of water 

 is placed underneath, and there they pretend to behold the absentee either upset in his 

 kayack or paddling in his proper pcisition. They will also conjure up the soul of a man 

 whom they wish to iujure, to appear before them in the dark, and wound it with a spear, 

 after which their enemy must consume away by a slow disease. The company present will 

 [iretend to recognize the man by his voice. The prescriptions of the angekoks relate either 

 to certain amulets or else to a course of diet, which includes the healthy as well as the sick. 

 Woman in child-bed have particularly much to observe ; they dare not eat in the open air ; 

 no one else must drink at their water-tub, or take a light from their lamp, nor must they 

 themselves boil anything over it for a long time. Their meals must consist of what their 

 own husbands have caught ; the fish must be- eaten before the meat, and the bones are not 

 to be thrown out of the house. The husband must abstain for several weeks from all pur- 

 suits except the necessary fishing. The ostensible reason of these restrictions is to prevent 

 the death of the child, though it is plain that they were originally invented for the 

 preservation of the feeble mother. 



Abstinence from food and labour ot certain kinds is also enjoined to young maidens who 

 have had the misfortune to be aifected by the beams of the sun or moon, or the shadow of a 

 bird flying overhead. Those who neglect these precautions are liable to some misfortune, 

 perhaps even the loss of their lives ; besides, the "Torngak" of the air might be provoked 

 on her account to raise stormy weather. A man never sells a seal on the day it is caught, 

 and they always keep back the head or some other part, even if it is only a few bristles from 

 the beard, lest he should forfeit his luck. Their amulets and pendants are so various that 

 one conjurer laughs at another's. They consist of an old piece of wood, a stone, a bone, or 

 the beak and claws of a liird hung round the neck, or a leather cord tied round the forehead, 

 breast or arms. These potent charms are preservatives against spectres, diseases and death ; 

 the}' confer prosperity, and they especially prevent the children from losing their souls in 



