172 Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-18 



The soul is the mainspring of a man's vital strength. A dead man, or 

 more accurately his shade, tarrak, may steal the soul of a living man, who will 

 then pine away and die. In the winter of 1915 a Puivlik Eskimo named Wikkiak 

 and the little boy Haugak were both ill at the same time. Wikkiak recovered 

 soon after I visited their settlement, whereupon a shaman announced that his 

 soul had been carried away by the shade of a dead man, but that my dog Jumbo 

 had brought it back. Higilak therefore tied a strip of white deerskm round 

 Jumbo's neck, thinking that perhaps he might be grateful for its warmth and 

 bring back Haugak's soul also. The boy recovered, but a few months later 



Fig. 53. A Tree river Eskimo wearing a fillet of caribou-skin around his forehead to cure a 



headache 



Higilak fell ill herself, and Jumbo had to come to the rescue once again. In 

 the eyes of the Eskimos he was clearly not an ordinary dog, but possessed an 

 unusual amount of vital force. On this occasion, therefore, Higilak rubbed 

 his saliva over her forehead in order that some of this force might enter into 

 her and overcome her sickness. Jumbo's reward was another neckband of 

 white deerskin. 



Sometimes a friend will lend some of his vital force to drive away a disease. 

 For example, if a man has stomach trouble, a comrade will often spit on his 

 hand and rub the afflicted part, thereby instilling some of his own surplus 

 strength to aid in the patient's recovery.' The calves of Avranna's legs were 

 sore one day, and the natives asked me to rub them with my saliva. On another 

 occasion Avranna bound my belt around his head to cure a headache; TQ.y 

 vitality communicated itself to my belt, passed into his body and effected a 

 cure. A charm too will often keep off an aihnent. The bill of the yellow- 

 billed loon {Gavia adamsi) will help to ward off snow blindness, so in spring 

 some of the natives wear them on their shoulders or carry them in their hands. 

 An old hunter, Aiyallik, who had his thumb torn off by a brown bear, used 



'Ct. Rasmussen, p. 145; Egede, p. 198. 



