BOAS.] RELIGIOUS IDEAS. 593 



answering his questions. Then he asks the sit-k jjerson: " Did you 

 work Av^hen it was forbidden?" "Did you eat when you were not 

 aUowed to eat?" And if the poor fellow happens to remember any 

 transgression of such laws, he cries: "' Yes, I have worked."' '•Yes. I 

 have eaten." And the angakoq rejoins "I thought so" and issues 

 his commands as to the manner of atonement. 



These are manifold. Exchange of wives between two men or 

 adoption of a sick child by another family in order to save its life 

 are frequently demanded. The inhabitants of a village are forbid- 

 den to wash themselves for a number of days, to scrape the ice from 

 the windows, and to clean their urine pots before sunrise. Some- 

 times the angakoq commands that the clothing be thrown away or 

 gives regulations for diet, particularly forbidding the eating of veni- 

 son, working on deerskins, filing iron, &c. 



Disorders of women are considered as a punishment for the neg- 

 lect to observe the regulations referring to their behavior at certain 

 periods, which regulations were established by Sedna. The same is 

 stated by Lyon (p. :5G:5). 



A method of finding out the reason of a disease is by " head lifting." 

 A thong is tied round the head of the sick person or of a relative, 

 who must lie down on the bed, the angakoq holding the thong. Then 

 he asks his tornaq the reason of the sickness and the remedy. If the 

 tornaq answers a question of the angakoq in the affirmative the head 

 is easily lifted. In the other case it feels so heavy that he is unable 

 to move it. Another method is by lifting a boot or a stone, which 

 has been placed under the pillow of the patient. The angakut be- 

 lieve that the boot or stone becomes heavy and cannot be lifted when 

 the tornaq answers their incantations. 



At the beginning of some of their performances I have observed 

 the angakoq crawling about in the passage of the hut, howling and 

 shouting, while those inside kejit on singing. Then he entei-ed the 

 hut and continued the incantations on the back part of the bed. 



Sometimes their cure for sickness is lajdng a piece of burning wick 

 u]Min the (lisi^isod ])art of the bodv and blowing it u]) into the air or 

 nu.ivlybl..\viii,-iiiH,nit. 



Sturm and liad weather, when lasting along time and causing 

 want of food, are 'conjured by making a large whip of seaweed, 

 stepping to the beach, and striking out in the direction whence the 

 wind blows, at the same tinif cryint; Taba (It is enough). 



A great number of the i»tiMiiiiaii(i's.)f the angakiit require much 

 skill andexpertness. Thus in iiiv,,kiiigatornaq or flying to a distant 

 place they can imitate a distant v(jice by a sort of ventriloquism. In 

 these performances they always have the lamps extinguished and 

 hide themselves behind a screen hung up in the back part of the 

 hut. The tornaq, being invoked, is heard approaching and shaking 

 the hut. The angakoq believes that it is unroofed and Hies with 

 6 ETH .'SS 



