98 G. Holm. 



visions in which they can see what is the matter with a sick person, 

 or giA'e answers to questions laid before them. They can perform 

 their arts in the same way as the angakut, or they may have 

 special arts of their own. 



Adlagdlak was to become an angakok, and had only two years 

 of his novitiate left. But when he was about to perform a drum 

 dance with his tarajuatsiak, he found he had something the matter 

 with his feet. In order that he might be cured of his disease he 

 had to confess that he was an angakok novice. 



He has, however, retained his tarajuatsiak, who speaks through 

 him when he performs his arts lying on the platform, covered up 

 wûth skins, and rotating the drum. His cures and prophecies inspire 

 just as much confidence as those of the angakut. 



There was only one man at the time who was universally 

 regarded as a really great angakok, name\y Avgo of Ser milig ak; but, 

 they said, he is now so old that he is no good any longer. When 

 his tartok appeared, the whole house began to shake. He could fly 

 to the moon and fetch children, and he had robbed a great number 

 of people of their souls. It is related that once during the per- 

 formance of his arts he was seized by a bear, who dragged him 

 down to the shore, where a walrus fastened its teeth in him, dragged 

 him out to the horizon, and devoured him there. The skeleton 

 returned and met on its way the pieces of flesh, which little by 

 little grew up around it, and finally the eyes, so that the man re- 

 turned whole. 



This man is the only now surviving angakok who has been 

 able to perform such difficult arts. Wise old folks shake their heads 

 ол'ег the present-day angakut and say they are no good, but can 

 relate marvellous tales of the wondrous skill of the angakut in 

 times gone by, as, for instance, that they could recover, after having 

 cut their own throats, by just passing their hand over the gash. ^) 



The ill-famed angakok Augo of whom we have just been speaking 

 came to me and told me of his own accord that he had certainly 

 performed angakok arts in his younger days, but that he could not 

 bring the drum to dance of itself and was therefore no real anga- 

 kok. Sanimuinak, on the other hand, he said, was able to make the 

 drum dance, and Avas therefore a far greater angakok. Avgo said 

 that he could not cure people, much less travel to the moon and 

 fetch down children. He had never seen Timerseks, Tarajiiatsiaks, 

 Inersuaks or other spirits, like the other angakut. When people 

 said about him that he robbed souls, they lied, for he was just as 



' Possibly to he explained In' suf(ge.stion. 



