96 G. Holm. 



the hunt has been successful, it is not usual to perform angakok 

 arts. The angakok's skill is likewise brought in request in order 

 to produce a certain wind. In this latter case he will have to take 

 his iartok with him and go on a journey to the lord of this wind. 



Finally the natives seek the angakok's assistance in all 

 kinds of sicknesses. His function, however, is not that of a 

 doctor, — he does not know a single medicine, nor can 

 prescribe a single remedy, much less perform operations — 

 no, his business is, during the performance of the incan- 

 tations, to examine the sick man's 'soul'. They maintain that 

 all sicknesses can be traced to some harm which has happened to 

 the soul, or to the sick man's soul having been robbed by an ilisitsok 

 or angakok or having been lost in some other way. It is therefore 

 the angakok's business to see whither it has gone and to get it 

 back again. His tartok informs him what is the cause of the man's 

 sickness, whether any harm has happened to the soul, or whether 

 it has been stolen. The angakok must then take his tartok with 

 him and go on a journey to the nether world or the horizon, to 

 fetch the soul back again. But sometimes he merely dispatches one 

 of his tartoks to fetch it back, and in that case several days may 

 elapse before the tartok can return. If any serious harm has happened 

 to the soul e. g. if it has been eaten by the tornarsuk of a hostile 

 angekok — , the man is bound to die. 



Hanserak writes in his diary: "The natives give the following 

 account of the angakok's journeys through the air. They bind the anga- 

 kok's hand and foot, just as if he were going to perform his arts, and 

 then they bend him double by binding him tight from neck to 

 knees. As this causes him a great deal of pain, he is unable to rise 

 up by himself, and, therefore, so they say, his drum sets itself in 

 motion, goes and lifts him up in the air by the head, thus enabling 

 him to sit up, and then lifting him in a similar manner by his 

 back, enables him to stand on his legs. Then the angakok walks 

 round the floor, though with no small trouble, and at last he 

 succeeds in getting a start, flies round the house, and finally alights 

 on the end of the drj'ing-frame under the roof. He then sets off 

 flying once more, and finally passes clean through the roof or the 

 wall out into the air; his drum, which is all that is left of him, 

 sets up an everlasting dance on its own account. The angakok, 

 bound as described, flies out quite naked into the cold night air, 

 and is soon far away. His companions sit in pitch darkness 

 awaiting his return, which sometimes does not take place before 

 dawn; his drum is still dancing away. When the air-voyager returns, 

 he relates, either that he has been up in heaven or to remote 



