188 Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-18 



shouted, and Haugak and I — one on either side of her pretending to hold her 

 back — echoed her cry. We all had to laugh immoderately, to mock, it would 

 seem, the shades or spirits that were responsible for the fog. Finally, with the 

 cry mammienaksilekpakpok "Its a confounded nuisance", she flung her fox-trap 

 down on the ground, making it spring off and thereby intimidate the hostile 

 powers. 



The greatest of all the spirits, tornrait, is Kannakapfaluk, who lives in a 

 snow hut just like the Eskimos, with a lamp and sleeping-platform and all the 

 usual household paraphernalia. But Kannakapfaluk's hut is at the bottom 

 of the sea, and her dogs are two bears, one brown and one white. There is a 

 dwarf who lives with her, a man about three feet high whom the Eskimos 

 call Unga because of the cry he utters when the shamans drag him up to the 

 surface. If the Eskimo women sew too much on the ice, or break any of the 

 taboos in reference to either sewing or cooking, Unga gathers all the seals inside 

 the hut, and the Eskimos in consequence have no success in their sealing. The 

 shamans then hold a seance in the dance-house and lower a long rope through 

 the floor with a noose at one end of it. All the people gather round the rope 

 and sing this incantation, which is known from one end of the Copper Eskimo 

 country to the other :— 



The woman down there she wants to go away. 



Some of the young sea-gulls I can't lay my hands on.' 



That man^ he can't right matters by himself. 



That man he can't mend matters by himself. 



Over there where no people dwell I go myself and right matters. 



He can't right matters by himself. 



Over there where no people dwell, thither I go and right matters 

 myself.^ 

 As soon as the song is ended the shamans are supposed to slip, a noose over 

 Kannakapfaluk's wrists and haul her up until her head is just below the level of 

 the floor. They must not draw her any higher because she would be very angry 

 if the people in the dance-house saw her. The shamans talk to her, telling her 

 that the people are starving for want of seals and asking her to release them 

 again; Unga in the meantime remains below guarding the seals. Kannakapfaluk 

 is now lowered again, and at once orders Unga to release some of the seals. 

 Then the Eskimo hunters are successful again and the community prospers. 



Another method is said to be adopted occasionally by the shamans. One 

 of them will dive down through the water and enter Kannakapfaluk's hut. Unga, 

 the guardian of the seals, tries to escape, but the shaman tucks him under his 

 coat and carries him up to the dance-house, holding him carefully concealed 

 so that the people may not see him, though they hear his cries. Unga is then 

 told to let out the seals and sent back to report to Kannakapfaluk. 



Kannakapfaluk has other powers besides this one of hoarding the seals. 

 She can send bad weather in winter, and so keep the Eskimos indoors till they 

 starve; or she can break up the ice and drown them. Long ago she used to 

 put people inside the breast of her coat and crush them to death. There were 

 many taboos that the Eskimos of olden times had to observe, the natives say, 

 but the majority of them have now been quietly dropped. Occasionally, how- 

 ever, in stormy weather the shamans will revive one or two for a short period. 

 The two that should never be violated are the prohibitions against sewing new 

 deerskin clothing on the ice during the weeks when the sun never rises, and cook- 

 ing on the ice deer-meat that was obtained in the preceding summer and fall. 



'One native said that when Kannakapfaluk cannot shut up the seals she shuts up searguUs instead. 

 More probably "sea/-gulls" in ahamani'a[tio utterances means "seals." 



^"That man" refers to the shaman in the dance-house, but whether another shaman is supposed to 

 be speaking or not is uncertain. 



'1 he chant is then repeated from the third line. 



