Sickness, Death and Burial 173 



to wear it as a charm in a small skin bag suspended round his neck, but whether 

 it was intended to give him good luck in general, or to ward off some specific 

 danger or sickness, I did not discover. 



Not infrequently a malady is conceived of as something concrete implanted 

 in the body by an offended soul. The shaman then has to extract the object, 

 which he does by the aid of his familiar spirits. To prove his success he displays 

 to his audiences pieces of bone, or worms, or similar things that he has secreted 

 on his person beforehand. The laxatives that we occasionally administered 

 answered the same purpose. Both sickness and ill-luck can be embodied in 

 physical objects and carried away. Haviuyak had a boil on his arm which he 

 pricked with a needle as soon as it came to a head, squeezing the pus on to a 

 piece of caribou meat. He asked me to let him give it to Scotty, the biggest 

 dog in my team, who would carry the contagion away with him when I left. 

 One of his own dogs snatched at the meat, but he kicked it away and anxiously 

 watched till the whole morsel had disappeared down Scotty's throat. To 

 propitiate the dog he tied a band of white deerskin round its neck. Some 

 days later he was asked how the boil was progressing, and answered, "It has 

 all disappeared, thanks to the dog." Another Eskimo, Kaiyoranna, made me 

 a present of two bone pins fastened to the outside of a small deerskin bag. 

 I wanted to look inside the bag, but he checked me and tried to draw my atten- 

 tion to the fine workmanship in the pins. Later, after I had left the camp, 

 I found only four old scraps of skin in the bag. I showed it to some of the 

 natives, and they explained that Kaiyoranna had fastened some one's illness 

 or ill-luck in the bag, and added the pins as a bribe to induce me to take it away. 

 A woman must abstain from sewing, and usually from fishing and hunting, 

 whenever hfer husband or brother is ill. A shaman sometimes enjoins on her 

 certain food restrictions as well. Thus Higilak was forbidden to eat either the 

 liver or the kidney of a seal when her brother Tusayok was ill. In this par- 

 ticular instance the prohibition was suggested by her second name Taktu 

 (Kidney). Sometimes the malady itself suggests it, as when Ikpakhuak 

 was forbidden to eat the stomach of the caribou when he himself was suffering 

 from stomach trouble. 



Tales of people dying and coming to life again are so common among these 

 Eskimos that one is almost tempted to believe that catalepsy may not be at 

 all infrequent. In the majority of cases, of course, the story has arisen from 

 the difficulty of distinguishing the unconsciousness of an invalid from death. 

 Milukkattak told me that her grandfather died on the trail one day. His 

 sons wrapped him in his sleeping bag, laid all his possessions on the ground 

 beside him, and went on and made camp. In the midst of their weeping the 

 old man suddenly appeared with his sleeping bag still wrapped round his 

 shoulders. He wandered around the camp for a few minutes noting the 

 arrangement of everything, then took his fishing rod and went off to fish in a 

 lake near by. Several times afterwards he died and came to life again, but at 

 last he died and never recovered.' 



There are numerous tales of this nature. A man named Okalluk died and 

 was laid out by his relatives in the usual manner, wrapped in a deerskin. Four 

 days afterwards he came to life again, cut the lashings of his deerskin wrappings 

 and followed the trail of his kinsmen, whom he found fishing in a lake. 

 They laid hands on him and conveyed him to one of their tents, where the 

 shamans held a stance and restored him to health again. Again in Bathurst 

 inlet a woman named Allanak died one winter and was laid out on the sleeping 

 platform of her hut, covered over with skins; she too came to life again 

 five days later and regained her usual strength. In the same region Inernek 

 or Ikpakusaluk, for the man had two names, fell ill, and was left in his house 



iCf. Stefansson, Anthrop. Papers, A.M.N.H., Vol. XIV, pt. I, p. 222. 



