GREENLAND BY THE POLAR SEA 



and childish to us, were maintained with much authority by 

 the necromancers. These correspond to the medicine-men of 

 other primitive peoples ; they are in a position to act as middle- 

 men between man and the powers that meddle with life. This 

 they are able to do because they have knowledge of and inti- 

 macies with things which are hidden from ordinary mortals. 

 Therefore, it is not everybody who may be a necromancer, for 

 it is not everybody whom the spirits will serve. A man must 

 have a vocation, and very special abilities are required, which 

 are developed in the great loneliness of the mountains far away 

 from people. Nature is imagined to be full of invisible beings 

 with supernatural powers and abilities, the so-called Tornarssuit. 

 But the necromancers have the power to subject these beings 

 to their will to such an extent that they can employ them as 

 "ministering spirits," which are invoked under the observance 

 of secret ceremonies, preferably with extinguished lamps and to 

 the accompaniment of a weird and gripping ghostly chant. 



These necromancers are not frauds and charlatans, as one 

 has so often been disposed to presume, but as children of their 

 day they themselves have implicit faith in the seriousness of 

 their mission. Their significance is based on the fact that the 

 primitive religion lacks the worship of a deity ; thus the weak 

 and timid find a refuge with the one who understands how to 

 master the mystic forces of Nature, forces easily offended and 

 dangerous in wrath. 



The following may serve as an example of the rules : 



Those who have been engaged in burying the dead must 

 keep quiet within their houses and tents for five days. During 

 this period they must not prepare their own food or divide up 

 the cooked meat. They must not take off their clothes during 

 the night or push back from their heads the fur hoods. When 

 the five days have elapsed they must carefully wash hands and 

 body to rid themselves from the uncleanness which they have 

 contracted from the dead. The Eskimos themselves give the 

 following explanation of the reason for observing this rule : 



" We are afraid of the big evil power which strikes down 

 men with disease and other misfortunes. Men must do penitence 

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