Religious Beliefs 189 



These taboos are rarely, if ever, violated by the natives of Dolphin and Union 

 strait and of west Coronation gulf as long as they are actually living on the sea 

 ice, although they may sometimes disregard them when their huts are built 

 so near the shore, that it is doubtful whether ice or gravel lies under the floor. 



In Bathurst inlet the myth of Kannakapfaluk as told by the shaman Ilatsiak 

 is slightly different.^ There are two women living under the sea, one of whom, 

 Arnakapfaluk, is very big, while the other woman, who may be her daughter — 

 Ilatsiak had forgotten her name — is much smaller. Two men live with them, 

 Ikparyuak and Hitkoktak, and all the seals are gathered in their hut where 

 the smaller of the two women keeps guard over them. The women would like 

 to keep them away from the Eskimos altogether, and are therefore perpetually 

 quarrelling with the men, who are friendly towards the Eskimos and would let 

 them kill all the seals they need. Arnakapfaluk, whose hair streams above and 

 behind her whenever a blizzard is raging, is especially wroth if the Eskimo 

 women sew too much during the time that the sun is absent. When seals are 

 scarce the shamans hold a stance in the dance-house, and after singing the incan- 

 tation given above they haul Arnakapfaluk up to the surface, when the small 

 woman down below immediately throws out some of the seals for the Eskimo 

 hunters to kill later. 



It is worth noting that among these Bathurst inlet natives there is no 

 rigid prohibition against sewing new deerskin clothing during the dark days 

 of winter;;, the women are allowed to sew provided they keep within reasonable 

 limits. The reason given by the local natives was that the sea ice is much 

 more solid in their region than it is farther west, where strong currents open 

 up huge cracks even in mid-winter. It is possible that we have here an example 

 of a taboo, based on or upheld by fear, dropping out as soon as that fear is 

 removed. 



Sila, the being who lives in the sky and makes the sun go down when he 

 walks along, also holds a high place in the Eskimo cosmology. Sila is often 

 hostile to human beings and carries one off; but sometimes he is gracious and will 

 cure a sick man by imparting to him some of his own vitality. More important, 

 because more dangerous, is Nigsillik, another spirit who lives in the sky; the 

 Eskimos are very much afraid of him, for he carries a great hook, nigsik, which 

 he stabs into his enemies. Like Kannakapfaluk, he too is wroth if the women 

 sew new deerskin clothes during the dark days, and will break up the ice and 

 drown the natives. On one occasion, they told nfe, he broke up the passage 

 leading to a dance-house. The inmates said, "There is someone outside;" 

 but one of them was skeptical and said there was no one. Nigsillik immediately 

 entered the hut and drove his long hook under their armpits, killing them all. 

 Now and again the Eskimos hear him break up the passage of a hut ; then they 

 frighten him away by driving a knife through the snow wall at the edge of 

 the window, or by pouring water through a hole in the wall or throwing it out 

 into the passage. They must keep perfectly silent, otherwise Nigsillik will 

 enter and kill them, as he did the people in the dance-house. 



According to Ilatsiak there are two spirits living in the sky both of whom 

 are called Nigsillik; one of them carries a great club, the other an immense 

 antler. A shaman named Arluna, he said, was once holding a stance in a crowded 

 dance-house when these two spirits came down and began to batter on the wall; 

 but Arluna drove his knife through it and frightened them away before they 

 could reach the people within. 



The Eskimos were terrified one night because my half-breed interpreter 

 Patsy scratched on the ice window of one of the huts. They earnestly entreated 

 him to stop, lest a spirit called Poalleritillik, "The one with the snow shovel," 



iCt. Boas, Bulletin A.M.N.H., Vol. XV, p. 492. For other versions of the Sedna myth see Miss 

 Wardle in Am. Anthropologist, N.S., Vol. II, 1900, pp. 568-580. 



