180 Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-18 



If the Copper Eskimos see a rainbow while they are out hunting they 

 throw a small piece of skin from the belly of a deer toward it, to win its favour 

 and give them good luck. They call the aurora ahanik, and believe it to be a 

 manifestation of the spirits that bring fine weather. Rain comes from snow 

 that goes up into the sky when the weather is warm, while hghtning is due to 

 a being named Asiranna shooting his arrows. Not all of the natives, however, 

 agreed to this interpretation, for some called it fire, ignik, and thought that 

 it was caused by the sky, kilak, or by the shades of the dead. The winds, 

 annorait, issue from two holes in the sky. In stormy weather the shamans 

 sometimes tie them all together with a cord of fur taken from the throat of a 

 caribou and push them back into one of their holes. Then the Eskimos enjoy 

 fine weather until the malignant spirits of the dead, aggioktun tarrain inyuin, 

 desiring the destruction of people still living,, untie them again and let them 

 loose. The old shaman Ilatsiak, however, confessed that he did not know 

 what became of the winds in calm weather; nevertheless he knew certain things 

 that would cause them to blow hard, for example, "if the women sewed new 

 deerskin clothes during the dark days of winter, or if in spring and summer 

 the Eskimos lingered too long round the lakes and islands, or ate the lungs 

 of the cariboo." 



Even the solid earth is full of mystery. Many a strange and only semi- 

 human race surrounds the Eskimos, and is known through the spirit-flights 

 of their shamans or through ancient tales of adventurous wanderers of other 

 days. The Indians perhaps are human, but beyond them are white men, 

 kovlunat, a people whose customs and manners are altogether strange.' After 

 we had been in their country for over a year Higilak announced 'as a great 

 discovery one day that the white men were no different from the Eskimos. 

 Then there are numerous dwarfs, inyuorligat, so short that their bows trail 

 behind them on the ground, yet so strong that many of them can carry the 

 largest caribou on their backs. ' Somewhere far away perhaps there are giants 

 still, for they existed in olden times in the Eskimo land itself. Then there are 

 tornrin, a race that once lived above the ground in the days when Eskimos 

 were few, though afterwards they were driven below by the shamans. The 

 tornrin used to hunt caribou but not seals, and one may still pick up an occa- 

 sional arrow point that they have dropped. It was they, too, who built the 

 stone huts like the one near Locker Point. We saw a large rectangular "sleeping 

 place" behind Cape Lambert; it was made of slabs of dolomite set on edge, 

 and was about 8 feet long by 4 feet wide and from 12 inches to 18 inches high. 

 The Eskimos were quite convinced that it must have been a house of the tornrin.^ 

 Then there is a tribe of Amazons ; another people with four eyes in their heads ; 

 a third "with no eyes at all; and yet another whose mouths are in their chests.' 

 Away at the back of beyond, avalirmi, there is a country where seals grow 

 no longer than a foot, and the hunters put them in their footpads and sling 

 them on their backs. Many other strange and wondrous things the earth 

 contains, and no tale is too marvellous to win belief. 



Birds and animals too have extraordinary faculties and powers. Some of 

 the shamans know their speech and can converse with them. Many animals 

 have changed to human beings before the very eyes of the hunters, and changed 

 as quickly back again. They can be offended by scornful words, and the hunter 

 who mocks the caribou, for example, or the seal, will suddenly find himself 

 stricken down by sickness or affiicted with constant ill-luck. A Tree river 

 Eskimo who served the expedition for a time told us that his brother Annarvik 



'The Siberian belief about the teeth in white women (Joehelson, Jesup N. Pacific Expedition, Vol. 

 VI, pt. I, p. 377) is current also among the Copper Eskimos. 



'Cf. the discussion of the tornit by Thalbitzer, in MeJdelelser cm Gr^nla-d, Vol. XXXIX, p. 6S7 

 et seq. 



=Cf. Stefansson, Anthrop. Papers, A.M.N.H., Vol. XIV, pt. I, p. 302. 



