196 Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-18 



dog, drove the hostile spirit into a dance-house where the stance was taking 

 place. One of the spectators — for it was visible to the people — said that it 

 had the form of a human being, but was only about two feet high and had 

 unusually long hair. Uloksak's familiar, though invisible, could be heard 

 yelping inside the shaman's body. A long contest took place between the 

 two spirits, but finally the dog drove the evil one outside the house and killed 

 it in the snow. Thus the community was rid of its pest. 



It was Uloksak who told me of a case where a shaman abused his power 

 and brought disaster on his community. The story is fanciful, of course, but 

 not without its significance, since the natives believed implicitly in its truth. 

 A succession of blizzards one winter had prevented the Akulliakattak Eskimos 

 from sealing, and reduced them to the point of starvation. Finally one of 

 the natives died, and the shamans held a stance concerning the misfortunes 

 that had overtaken them. Now Uloksak's father-in-law, who was one of the 

 principal shamans in the settlement, had a grudge against the other people 

 because they had killed one of his relatives, so with the aid of his familiars 

 he knocked down one of the two poles that were erected by men in the 

 earliest times to hold up the heavens. The sky fell, and many of the Eskimos 

 were killed. The man then left the settlement and went east to Bathurst 

 inlet. After he had departed the Akulliakattak shamans divined that the pole 

 had been knocked down by some shades of the dead, so with the help of their 

 familiars they erected it in place again. 



In the examples just given the shamans' services are employed for the benefit 

 or otherwise of the whole community; but they can be used to serve individuals 

 equally well. Thus when Ikpakhuak had a headache one evening, Higilak 

 divined over him. She borrowed my coat (attigi), rolled it into a bundle, and 

 fastened her belt-cord around it. Then she summoned a shade into the bundle 

 and asked it various questions, judging of the answers by the weight of the coat, 

 "Yes" if it seemed heavy to lift and "No" if it seemed light. After a series of 

 questions and answers she discovered that a dead sister-in-law of Ikpakhuak 

 had bewitched him, so she appeased the wrath of the shade with soothing words 

 until it promised to cease its baneful infiuence. This ceremony took place in 

 Ikpakhuak's tent where there was no one present save himself and his wife. 

 Lying in my sleeping-bag in a tent adjoining I could hear her questioning the 

 bundle, but no one else" was aware that she even intended to hold a performance. 

 It is hard to believe that Ikpakhuak, who had lived with his wife for years, 

 could have been deliberately deceived by her unless she was deceived herself 

 at the same time. 



The same magic powers that the shaman normally employs for the benefit 

 of his fellow-men can equally well be used against them. Two natives carried 

 off the wife of Anauyuk's father and tried to ferry her across the Rae river 

 in their kayaks, which were lashed together to enable the woman to lie across 

 the bows; but by the power of his magic, Anauyuk's father made the kayak 

 capsize and their occupants were drowned. Similarly Uloksak threatened to 

 use his magic power against me because we ejected him from our station one 

 day; he told his fellow natives that the next time I crossed over to their settle- 

 ment at the Liston and Sutton islands he would make me stumble and fall every 

 few yards. In the same way Anauyuk, who was refused admittance to our 

 house because he had robbed one of our caches along the coast, threatened to 

 deprive us of our strength and make us waste away and die. Two shamans 

 who were holding a seance together at the Liston and Sutton islands in December 

 1915, announced that they would cause some of our party to fall over a cliff 

 and perish, in revenge for some offence that we had given them. The women 

 were forbidden to sew on the following day lest they should all perish, and the 

 children were told not to play too long out of doors for fear that an evil spirit 



