Shamanism 195 



perform at any time and in any place according to their fancy. No sanctity 

 attaches to them, nor are they given special privileges. They resemble doctors 

 rather than priests, doctors who give their services free in any public cause, 

 but are paid for treating individuals. Thus the shaman receives no reward 

 when he placates the spirits that cause the blizzards, or induces Kannakapfaluk 

 to send the Eskimos plenty of seals; but if someone is ill and a shaman is called 

 in he must be paid for his services, whether they are successful or not. Like a 

 doctor, too, the shaman may abuse his powers and employ them against the 

 interests of the community. He then becomes a malefactor like any common 

 murderer, and is liable to the same fate. 



Let us take concrete instances of each of these points. There were eight 

 shamans in Dolphin and Union strait during the winter of 1914. Three of these, 

 Kimaiyok, Higilak and Arnauyuk, were women, the remaining five, Anauyuk, 

 Agluak, Utugaum, Kuniluk and Kamingokj were men. Every one of them 

 gave stances at one time or another and so testified to their possession of 

 shamanistic powers; but for this nothing would have marked them off as different 

 from the other natives. Ikpakhuak and Aiyallik, who were perhaps the two 

 most influential men in the region, were neither of them shamans. In Coro- 

 nation gulf, on the other hand, the two most influential men, Uloksak and 

 Ilatsiak, were both shamans. Stances were held most frequently in winter 

 when the concentration of the families in a single camp gave more intensity 

 and fervor to social and religious life. The nights at this season are long and 

 tedious, and the people seek distraction in the dance-house, where singing, 

 dancing and drum-beating key them up to the proper pitch for religious or 

 magical rites. Their religion is not dropped, however, with the winter, and 

 stances may be given in the open air in broad daylight at any season of the 

 year, and in any place. When we first entered the country our Mackenzie 

 river native, Palaiyak, met the shaman Anauyuk hunting on the tundra. This 

 was the first warning that any of the Copper Eskimos had received of our 

 presence, so Anauyuk immediately went into a "trance," invoking his familiar 

 spirit to find out whether Palaiyak and the white men with him were friendly 

 or not.' The same Anauyuk held a stance during a migration on December 

 19th, 1914, just at the commencement of the sealing seaso^n. It was concerned 

 both with the supply of seals during the coming winter, and with the presence 

 of white men in the country. Kimaiyok held another immediately afterwards, 

 to discover the reason for a certain man's illness. Both of these stances took 

 place in the open beside the sleds, with the natives standing in a ring around 

 their shamans. Higilak held several stances in Victoria island during the 

 spring and summer, some inside the tent, and some outside. In July, 1916, a 

 native Tokalluak gave a performance beside the fishing creek near Cape Krusen- 

 stern. Clearly therefore the shaman is not bound by any restrictions as to 

 time and place. 



It was stated that the shamans are public servants to some extent, com- 

 parable to our doctors. Whenever anything goes wrong — the weather is unusu- 

 ally stormy, or seals are scarce, or a number of people become ill — the shaman 

 are asked or themselves volunteer to discover the cause and remove the evil. 

 I have already mentioned how in Bathurst inlet at the beginning of the sealing 

 season they kill or drive away all the little spirits that live on the ice and would 

 prevent the Eskimos from catching seals. In March 1915 Uloksak, who had 

 just come from Coronation gulf, was asked by the Dolphin and Union strait 

 natives to kill or drive away a certain evil spirit that was threatening to destroy 

 them all; already, they said, one Puivlik and two AkuUiakattak natives had 

 died, and they feared that others might follow them. Uloksak's familiar, a 



'Cf. Stefansson, Anthrop. Papers, A.M.N.H., Vol. XVI, pt. I, p. 252. 

 33335— 13J 



