190 Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-18 



should come down from the sky and kill them all. Higilak then told us that 

 a man was once talking to her uncle in a hut, and declaring that no such spirit 

 as Poalleritillik existed, when suddenly they heard the scraping of his shovel 

 on the window as though he were trying to make his way into the hut. Higilak's 

 uncle, however, was a shaman, and through the power of his magic he was 

 able to drive the spirit away. 



Not many years ago what seems to have been an epidemic of some kind 

 carried off a great many Eskimos in and around Bathurst inlet. Ilatsiak 

 told me that close to the shore there was a large rock set up by men long ago 

 among a number of smaller ones. Round this rock he fastened a line, attaching 

 the other end to his belt. Then he spoke to the stone, saying that he did not 

 wish to die, and asking it to preserve his life. When the prayer was ended 

 he gathered six pairs of mittens — two for himself, two for his wife, and two 

 for his adopted son — and with these in his hands he approached the rock and 

 tied them round it as an offering. In consequence he and his family were 

 preserved when others perished. I omitted to ask him whether the rock was 

 the home of a tornrak, but almost certainly it was. 



The religious doctrines of the Copper Eskimos, then, bring them httle 

 or no comfort. Life would be hard enough if they had none but natural forces 

 to contend with, forces that they could see and estimate. But mysterious 

 and hostile powers, invisible and incalculable, and therefore potentially all 

 the more dangerous, hem them in, as they believe, on every side, so that they 

 never know from day to day whether a fatal sickness will not strike them down 

 or a sudden misfortune overwhelm them and their families — from no apparent 

 cause, it may be, and for no conceivable reason, save the ill-will of these unseen 

 foes. Young and old, the good and the bad, all alike are involved in the same 

 dangers, and all alike share the sanie fate. Death rolls back the gate, not of a 

 happy hunting ground, or of a heaven of peace and happiness where friends 

 and lovers may unite once more, but of some vague and gloomy realm where, 

 even if want and misery are not found (and of this they are not certain), joy 

 and gladness at least must surely be unknown. It is little wonder therefore 

 if the mind of the average Eskimo is deeply tinged with fatahsm. Life would 

 be unbearable indeed with this religion did he not pdssess a superabundant 

 stock of natural gaiety and derive a joy from the mere fact of living itself. The 

 future holds out no golden promise, not even the hope of a life as cheerful as 

 the present one; so the native banishes as far as possible all thoughts of a distant 

 to-morrow, and drains the pleasures of each fleeting hour before they pass 

 away for ever. 



