88 G. Holm. 



words themselves, they declare, which have 'power'. The angakut 

 say, that they look like swollen guts. 



The magic chants (see no. 53—54) are sung in the same way 

 as the drum chants, but without a drum. 



The words used in them are intelligible, and they are more 

 openly used than the charms. 



They are used, for instance, the first time a lad gets his kaiak 

 or the first time he comes home with game. 



Angakut. — As has been already mentioned, the angakut 

 alone are able to see and to have intercourse with spirits. Anyone 

 can become an angakok or imitate angakok incantations, but those 

 who are to acquire a reputation for being good angakut must be 

 specially adroit and cunning. 



The angakok disciples learn from the elder angakut what 

 they must do in order to become angakut themselves, or, as they 

 put it, 'how they are to seek for that which may put them in com- 

 munication with the spirit world'. It is usual for two to 

 undergo training together. The first thing the disciple has to do is 

 to go to a certain lonely spot, an abyss or cave, and there, 

 having taken a small stone, to rub it on the top of a large one the 

 way of the sun. When they have done this for three days on end, 

 they say, a spirit comes out from the I'ock. It turns its face to- 

 wards the rising sun and asks what the disciple will. The disciple 

 then dies in the most horrible torments, partly from fear, partly 

 from overstrain; but he comes to life again later in the day^). 



This probation is repeated for three or four years, during 

 which time the disciple enters into communion with various spirits, 

 tartoks, which enter his service^). Some of these I have already 

 mentioned: 



Tarajuatsiaks, which the angakut can send wherever they list 

 to carry out their behests, as, for instance, to the lord of a wind 

 to set his wind blowing, to rob the soul of a man, or to recover 

 a sick man's soul. Inersuaks, being spirits of the deep, can help 

 them in getting the marine animals along to the coasts. The 

 Timerseks can be set about robbing and carrying off the souls of 

 other men. 



Most angakut have an Amortortok^) as their iartok. It acts 



^) It is quite possible tiiat h3'pnotism and suggestion ma}' play an essential 



part in angakokism. 

 ■-') The Makah-Indians communicate with their guardian spirits in a similar way. 



(Swan: The Indians of Cape Flatter}' p. 62). 

 ^) Hansiîkak calls this being 'kimarrat'. 



