Shamanism " 199 



as though they concerned someone else. On one occasion, his kinsmen told 

 me, he and three other shamans gave a stance together. The four men held 

 their hands behind their backs and stretched out their necks, holding their 

 mouths wide open. Gradually their teeth changed to polar bears' teeth, then 

 as gradually changed back again. On another occasion when two Netsilik 

 shamans were terrifying the people by driving their knives through their stomachs 

 so that the points protruded from their backs, Ilatsiak went into an empty hut 

 alongside, changed himself into a polar bear, and, going back into the dance- 

 house, so frightened the two Netsilik men that they fled from the settlement. 

 On still another occasion Ilatsiak had sunk down through the floor of his hut 

 into the sea below without making even a hole in the ice. Another Bathurst 

 inlet shaman had once remained five days and five nights under the water, 

 wetting only his ankles and a small spot on his back. 



Uloksak, having lost his seal-spear one day in a seal-hole, went home and 

 summoned his familiars; the latter immediately made the spear come up through 

 the floor of his hut. A still more remarkable story is told of Ilatsiak's younger 

 brother. His wife lost her knife in the fall of the year, and in the following 

 spring her husband resolved to find it. Going inside his hut he disappeared 

 into the ground, and while the people were searching all about for him a large 

 flat boulder suddenly came up through the floor, bracked in two, and ejected 

 the knife on one side, and the shaman on the other. The man was rather dazed 

 from his experience, but the shamans soon made him right again. Reminiscent 

 of a well-known conjuring trick was a feat of Ilatsiak's, who drove a knife into 

 the back wall of his hut, then stood out in the middle of the floor, removed Jiis 

 coat and picked up his knife from the ground at his feet. Another shaman took 

 it and threw it out into the passage, making it come in again through the window. 

 All these events took place in Bathurst inlet, where the shamans are reputed 

 to have much more skill than those farther west. It was in the same 

 region that some people threw their knives into the water through a hole in the 

 ice, and the shamans made them float on the surface. Then they threw in their 

 ice-chiselS) and the shamans brought them to the top also.' The Hudson bay 

 native Kaksavik was overheard telling Uloksak how he once laid some matches 

 on the ice and told them to fly to a settlement where the people were in need 

 of them. His familiars then carried them away, and the natives found them 

 hear their huts. 



Some natives were once mocking a Bathurst inlet shaman named Pannaktok, 

 saying that he had no real power. He took off one of his mittens and laid it on 

 the floor; presently it stood up on end and changed to a tiny man, who 

 turned around and gazed on all the audience. Pannaktok stooped down and 

 picked it up, and it changed to a mitten again. Then he laid both his mittens 

 on the palms of his hands and held them out toward the spectators. First they 

 changed to polar bear's claws, then two tiny bears jumped down and began to 

 scratch on the floor; again they changed to mittens when he picked them up. 



This same Pannaktok, according to native accounts, told a man to stand 

 upright against the wall of the dance-house, then drove his seal-spear right 

 through his chest and threw the weapon to the back of the hut. The natives 

 had to hold the man up to keep him from falling. The shaman then made the 

 spear return through his chest, leaving the man whole and unharmed. On the 

 last day of 1915 three shamans, Koeha, Agluak and Anauyuk, held a stance in 

 Dolphin and Union strait to dispel the baneful influence of some malicious 

 shades. Agluak breathed on his hand and struck three of the spectators on the 

 chests. They fell to the ground dead, but he took them by the hands and they 

 came to life again. I did not witness this performance myself, but heard about 

 it the following day. 



'C£. Stefansson, Anthrop. Papers, A.M.H.N., Vol. XIV, pt. I, p. 293, and My Life with the Eskimo, 

 p. 180. 



