192 Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-18 



eating of this fish gave him magical power. The spirit accompanied him back 

 to his camp, conversing with him, and giving him various injunctions; thus he 

 was forbidden to eat the intestines of any aninial, only the meat and the fat. 

 The spirit disappeared as soon as they reached the camp. 



Higilak gained her power in very much the same way. Her father had 

 been a shaman and had two familiar spirits. After his death these came to 

 her one day when she was all alone in the camp. In appearance they resembled 

 two men, and they told her that as they had attended her father in his life-time 

 so now they would attend on her. She too was forbidden to eat of certain foods, 

 in her case the stomach and the skin of the salmon, on pain of losing her magical 

 power. The spirits then disappeared, and when the other Eskimos returned 

 to camp Higilak was already holding her first seance. 



As a rule the shaman's spirits are nameless, though the two that came to 

 Higilak were called Kitafoa and Kingmitok. As their attachment to their 

 owners is voluntary, so they can desert them at will. If the shaman for example 

 should break the food prohibitions his familiars have enjoined on him they 

 will leave him immediately. Such a fate befel a man in Coronation gulf quite 

 recently, the natives said, when the people were feasting on the meat of a caribou 

 tl:at some one had shot. Two shamans, a man and a woman, began to hold a 

 stance, but in the midst of it they drank a little of the blood of the deer, although 

 this had been prohibited to them. The man's familiar immediately left him, 

 and he lost all his shamanistic powers. The woman, whose name was Mittik, 

 walked away towards the sun up the side of a ridge. Suddenly she disappeared 

 into the ground, and a moment afterwards a dog sprang out from the same spot; 

 then the dog disappeared and the woman took its place again. This occurred 

 three or four times in the sight of all the people, then finally Mittik walked back 

 to the camp in her human form, but with her faculties impaired. Other shamans 

 laid hands on her, and with the aid of their familiars restored her to her senses. > 



How and where the familiars live, and what becomes of them after the death 

 of their owners, the Eskimos never trouble to consider. They still continue to 

 exist, for Higilak could inherit her father's familiars. Obviously it would 

 redound to the credit and influence of an Eskimo if he could say that he had 

 control over the same spirits as some famous shaman of earlier days, even though 

 he himself never acquired the same reputed skill and power. The shaman's 

 power, in fact, depends rather on his own personality than on the familiars he 

 controls. A man of weak character who models his life on those around him 

 and is easily swayed by public opinion never attains to any great repute as a 

 shaman. On the other hand a shrewd, strong-minded man, capable and success- 

 ful in all the ordinary affairs of life, a leader of public opinion rather than its 

 servant, may easily attain to the greatest influence and be credited with the 

 most extraordinary shamanistic powers. 



Shamans always, or almost always, have more than one familiar. Uloksak 

 claimed to have many, including a white man, a polar bear, a wolf and a dog. 

 I never heard of any bird familiars; they do exist perhaps, but not often, for 

 birds are unimportant in the economy of the Copper Eskimos and therefore 

 attract but little attention. One of Higilak's familiars was the shade of a dead 

 relative, but she had besides this a polar bear and a wolf. Some shamans assign 

 different functions to different familiars, using one, for example, in cases of sick- 

 ness, and another for producing an abundance of seals. In this way one might 

 be ranked as more important than the rest: for instance the famihar that was 

 used for seals might be regarded as of more service than the one used to drive 

 put a disease. But this speciaUzation of functions is neither necessary nor usual. 

 Every shaman probably has a preference for some particular familiar, and 



iKaksavik, the Pallik (Hudson bay) shaman who visited our headquarters, was prohibited from 

 eating the liver, the lungs and the pancreas of the seal. 



