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retires to a lonely place, where for a space of time he lives the life 

 of a hermit, praying and fasting until his familiar spirit appears. 

 Torngar'soak appears in the form of a great white bear and de- 

 vours the aspirant limb for limb. Other Tornait appear in 

 different but no less terrible forms. An angekok novice, Angu'- 

 kvaluk, thus described the terror of the acolyte to Jens Haven, 

 the famous Moravian missionary. 1 



"My parents told me that their familiar spirit, or Torngak, 

 lived in the water. If I wished to consult him, I must call upon 

 him as the spirit of my parents to come forth out of the water, 

 and must remember this token, that I should observe a vapour 

 ascending; soon after this spirit would appear and grant what I 

 asked. 



"Some years ago, when my little brother was ill, I tried this 

 method for the first time, and called upon the Torngak, when I 

 really thought I perceived a thin vapour rising, and shortly 

 after, the appearance of a man in a watery habit stood before me. 



"I was filled with horror; my whole body shook with fear, 

 and I covered my face with my hands." 



Having passed through this ordeal, the apprentice receives 

 a portion of power and the promise of future assistance from his 

 familiar spirit. He returns to the village and relates his adven- 

 tures. His power is soon put to the test. A stance is held the 

 first favourable evening. Singing and shouting and beating 

 his drum, he quickly works himself up into a frenzy. The ap- 

 pearance of his familiar spirit and its possession of him is heralded 

 by frightful cries and the redoubled beating of the drum. At 

 this point the demeanour and speech of the labouring angekok 

 entirely changes. The method of a famous early Labrador 

 Eskimo conjurer, Seguilak, 2 is described in Jens Haven's Diary: 



"Falling into an ecstasy, he first sang to his wives, then 

 muttering some unintelligible jargon, made strange gestures, 

 blew and foamed at the mouth, twisted his limbs and body 

 together, as if convulsed, throwing himself into every possible 



1 During their long stay on the Labrador coast, the Moravian Missionaries have kept a 

 constant diary. The following quotations are from that of Jens Haven, the first and most 

 famous of the early Labrador missionaries. 



1 Seguilak was a brother-in-law of the famous Mikak, the Eskimo woman who befriended 

 the first Moravian missionaries. 



