GILBERTSON: ESKIMO CULTURE 19 



&quot;a man has many souls. The largest dwell in the larynx and in the left 

 side, and are tiny men about the size of a sparrow. The other souls dwell 

 in other parts of the body and are the size of a finger joint. If one of 

 them is taken away, its particular member sickens.&quot; (30: 112.) 



The soul can be seen under certain conditions by the angakoks. 

 There is evidence, linguistic and otherwise, connecting the soul 

 with the shadow and the breath. (43 : 226.) The soul can leave 

 the body, as in dreams. It can be lost, or stolen by witchcraft. 

 Refusal to be photographed can be thus explained. Nelson tells 

 an incident where an Eskimo, on seeing the figures on the ground 

 glass of a camera, shouted to his fellows, He has all of your 

 shades in his box, whereupon a panic ensued among the group 

 and in an instant they disappeared in their houses.&quot; (45: 422; 

 cf . 1. 2:11; 33 : 41. For similar fear of having writing in a book 

 in their presence, see 4: 396.) The loss of the soul results in ill 

 ness, which can be cured by the angakok s fetching the soul back 

 again : 



&quot;The strangest thing of all is that the soul could not only be lost 

 in its entirety, but that pieces of it could also go astray; and tthe 

 angakok had to be called to patch it up.&quot; (43: 228; cf. 50: 101.) 



Animals too have their souls, with similar attributes to the 

 human. (45: 423; 50: 111.) Indeed the two soul-species, if we 

 may so call them, appear to be interchangeable. The angakoks 

 sometimes provide a man whose soul has been lost beyond 

 recovery, with a new one obtained from some animal. (43 : 228.) 



Now the animals, like the souls of the dead, are offended by 

 the transgression of taboos. The best account of this feature, in 

 its relation to the Sedna belief, is given by Boas, in his descrip 

 tion of the Eskimo of Cumberland Sound and Hudson Bay. The 

 violation of a taboo, proscribed after the killing of certain sea- 

 animals, becomes attached to the soul of the slain animal, that 

 takes it down to Sedna. The attachments cause her pain, for 

 which she punishes the guilty people, by sending them sickness, 

 bad weather, and starvation. 



&quot;If, on the other hand, all taboos have been observed, the sea-animals 

 will allow themselves to be caught : they will even come to meet hunters. 



This shows as Boas points out, that 



&quot;The object of the innumerable taboos that are in force after the killing 

 of these sea-animals is to keep their souls free from attachments that 

 would hurt their souls as well as Sedna&quot; (6: 120). 



