198 Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-18 



In May, 1916, two of our western Eskimos, both Christianized, witnessed 

 a stance that was held by a woman at Tree river. Invoking her familiar, they 

 said, she began to converse with it; feeble sounds issued in reply from the 

 woman's stomach in which the spirit was lodged. After a few minutes some 

 of the natives told our two Eskimos to look out over the land. There, protrud- 

 ing above the ground, they saw two heads, a man's and a woman's, which 

 appeared and disappeared several times, then finally disappeared altogether. 

 , Our Eskimos went over to examine the spot and found that the ground was all 

 overturned. They fully agreed with the Copper Eskimos that it was the shaman 

 who had caused the phenomenon. 



Innumerable stories are current of the wonderful powers that the shamans 

 possess, and no native entertains the slightest doubt as to the literal truth of 

 every incident. I shall narrate a few of them as they were told to me by eye- 

 witnesses, since they throw considerable light on the mentality of the people. 



Not many years ago, it was said, a certain shaman used often to fly through 

 the air. He would hang his bow on his left shoulder and fly off like a ptarmigan. 

 After a few yards he would settle and walk along the ground for a short distance, 

 then rise in the air again. The people had often witnessed this. Ilatsiak was 

 frequently credited with the same power, but he denied it himself, saying that 

 he was not a bird. It is curious that I never saw or heard among these Eskimos 

 of the so-called spirit flights, in which the shaman, after being lashed from 

 head to foot, sets free his soul and travels through the air, finally returning to 

 his body and releasing it from its bonds.' 



Ilatsiak was dangerously ill while he was yet a boy, and all the professional 

 attentions of the shamans failed to cure him. At last they told him to go outside 

 and die, but instead of dying he recovered. Clearly the spirits favoured him, 

 so he became a shaman, the most celebrated one in the country. While he was 

 still but a youth he summoned some white men, who made their appearance in 

 the dance-house before the astonished eyes of all the Eskimos. Maffa, a Tree 

 river native who served us for a year, told us how Ilatsiak once threw a line 

 out into the passage leading into the dance-house and roped in a number of 

 spirits, tornrait. Maffa peered down through the door and saw them all in 

 the passage. Ilatsiak spoke to them, but his language was strange, and all 

 that Maffa could understand was that he was telling them to protect the people 

 and to banish all sickness from their midst. 



Ilatsiak's powers were derided by his cousin, who was also a shaman, so 

 Ilatsiak clapped his hands and fire shot up from the floor. His cousin, nothing 

 daunted, went outside and disappeared down a squirrel hole, re-emerging again 

 from the ground a long way off. In the same way, the natives said, Ilatsiak 

 himself once sank down through the snow floor of the dance-house, growing 

 smaller and smaller till he vanished from sight altogether. A few minutes 

 later he came up through the floor of another hut right beside some men who 

 were sitting on the sleeping platform. Uloksak could remember when he was 

 a boy how white men had appeared in the dance-house at Ilatsiak's command. 

 The people sent Uloksak outside, and when he went back again he was amazed 

 to see that Ilatsiak had cut off a leg and an arm and thrown them to the back 

 of the hut. He was sent out once more, and when he re-entered Ilatsiak was 

 whole again. Uloksak even claimed to have done the same thing himself at 

 one of his stances. 



Ilatsiak was a prudent old man and never boasted of his miracles. He 

 asserted that he was totally unconscious of his actions when inspired, and only 

 learned of them afterwards from the spectators; hence he was not able himself 

 to guarantee the truth of everything that was said about him. We noticed 

 that he always listened with an air of detachment to the tales of all his miracles 



'See Boas, BuUetin A.M.N.H., Vol. XV, p. 491; and Bur. of Ethnol, Vol. 6, p. 594. 



