132 



filled with blood comes in handy) ; grinding up a bead and making 

 it appear whole again; squeezing blood out of a handful of snow; 

 and other tricks which appear crude to a white man but wonderful 

 to an Eskimo. 



DIVINING. 



Modern representatives of the old angekok have degenerated 

 into mere conjurers. One of the last of these was Toma'suk, a 

 southern Labrador Eskimo, who lived in the vicinity of Sandwich 

 bay. Toma'suk used to oblige his friends by calling up the 

 spirits of the dead whenever they wished to inquire regarding 

 the welfare of the departed or the whereabouts of absent rela- 

 tives at sea. 



He would blindfold the questioner, and rap three times on 

 the ground with a stick. On the third rap, a spirit would come 

 up, of whom he would make the inquiry desired. After the 

 answer had been obtained, the spirit would be sent back by 

 rapping three times on the ground again. This species of 

 conjuring was known as kilu'xin, "conjuring with a stick." 



I have seen a somewhat similar method used by an Alaskan 

 angekok. He put on a raincoat, as the Alaskan and Asiatic 

 shamans invariably do, as it is supposed to be the dress worn 

 by Ka'cak, the Bering Strait male deity, and called up the spirit 

 of the deceased's grandfather. The Western Eskimo believe 

 that the spirit arises from the world beneath the earth and comes 

 up through the body of the shaman. By a little clever ventrilo- 

 quistic work the shaman carried on quite a conversation with the 

 shade. After the information desired had been elicited, it was 

 sent back to its abode beneath by a stamp of the foot. 



The Moravians report that some harmless old fellows among 

 the Mission Eskimo have a reputation for "rubbing" the pain 

 away from an affected part. The Eskimo believe that when 

 a part is affected, it is "broken," and the "doctors" mend it by 

 certain mysterious manipulations. I could not get any infor- 

 mation as to what they were like. 



An ancient and different form of divining is described by 

 Jens Haven : 



