82 G. Holm. 



Children who are put to death and still-born children 'go to 

 heaven, where they cause the northern lights ^). The children take 

 each other by the hand and dance round and round and swing in 

 mazes; now they wind round each other at one end of the ring until they 

 form a spiral, and now untwine again. They play balF) with their 

 after-births, and when thej^ see orphans they run towards them and 

 knock them down. They accompany the games with a shrill whist- 

 ling sound.' 



The native narrator accompanied this description with lively 

 gestures, giving a vivid picture of the nortliern lights as the games 

 of children. The first game is seen when the northern lights appear 

 as broad streamers or draperies, in which the single rays point to 

 the zenith and are continually in wavy or maze-like motion. The 

 ball game is seen when single rays from the streamers shoot out at 

 a great speed towards the zenith. The children may be seen running 

 towards the orphans and knocking them over, when single rays 

 swiftly dart out in a horizontal direction, and, as it were, chase 

 away the rays already present. 



The northern lights are called according to the children, 

 Alugsukat. 



Spirits. — The Angmagsaliks believe in spirits which surround 

 them everywhere, but are only seen and perceived by some few 

 initiated persons, viz. the angakut. It is by the agency of the latter 

 that the spirits harm or benefit human beings. When a kaiaker is 

 at sea, he is surrounded by Inersuaks. They live under the sea but 

 otherwise engage in the same occupations as men. They are some- 

 what broader than men, are closely-cropped and have no noses. 

 The angakut, or those who are to become angakut, are able to 

 see them and they relate how they visit them under the sea, where 



^j The northern lights are ver3^ frequent at Angmagsalik, which lies close to the 

 belt where the northern lights appear in all directions. 



-) The West Greenlanders believed in former times, that the souls of the deceased 

 in the supernal world plaj'ed ball with a walrus head, and that this was ob- 

 served from the earth as northern lights*). These are, accordingly, named: 

 arssarnerit 'the ball plaj^ers' (arssarpok 'to play ball')*'). According to 

 Aztec m3'thology the souls of the departed brave ones dлvelI in Tlalocan, the 

 terrestrial paradise*"*). A hymn to TJaloc contains the following: "In Tla- 

 locan, in the verdant house, they play at ball. . .". Another hymn: "He plaji's 

 at ball, he plays at ball, the servant of marvellous skill; he plaj's at ball, tiie 

 precious servant; look at him; even the ruler of the nobles follows him to 

 the house." To this Hiunton adds: "ГЛе house of the ball-plaijcr is the tomb'\ 

 ') Eckde: Grønlands Perlustration, 1741, p. 93. 

 **) KLEi.NSCMiirr : Grønlandsk Ordbog, p. 42. 

 "') Bbinton: Rig Veda Americanus, p. 24, 26 and 55. 



