204 



Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-18 



a moment's gasping excited talk in a falsetto tone, more gasps, a glance at the 

 roof and a sharp cry of pain as his soul returned to his body (or his familiar left 

 him), and the performance was over. Anauyuk, who held a stance immediately 

 afterwards, was much more normal in his actions. He spoke in his natural 

 voice, though a little abruptly once or twice, and told the Eskimos that the 

 shade, tarrak,*oi a dead man had stolen the soul, nappan, of Wikkiak, a native 

 who had been ailing for some days. Wikkiak would now recover, however, for 

 my dog Jumbo had brought his soul back again. 



A young man named Agluak held a seance on December 20 of the same 

 year, to discover why seals were so scarce and to bring them back to the Eskimos' 

 hunting ground. After the usual dance he took his place in the centre of the ring 

 and delivered a short preliminary oration, in which he confessed that he was 

 not very expert in shamanistic matters. The audience encouraged him to 

 proceed nevertheless, so he began a second and more elaborate harangue, this 

 time about the absence of seals. Suddenly he stopped — -he was invoking his 

 familiar spirit. His breathing became hard and loud, his eyes wild and staring, 

 and his features grim and distorted. Turning this way and that he gesticulated 

 with his hands, and nodded whenever one of his audience guessed the proper 

 interpretation. The women, we learned, had been making new deerskin 

 clothes, and boiling caribou meat, both of which were tabooed at this season. 

 A sudden inspiration struck him on seeing me standing outside the ring with 

 my pipe in my mouth, and he told us by gestures that the seals refused to rise 



Fig. 58. A Tree river native harnessing his dog in preparation for the day's sealing 



to the surface because of the taint of my tobacco. For all these reasons the 

 Eskimos had experienced no success in their sealing. Once he pointed at me 

 and waved his arm to the west, but no one could understand what he meant. 

 A few minutes afterwards he made similar gestures in reference to Uloksak, 

 who simply shook his head and turned away with studied indifference, remark- 

 ing that he could not understand. Agluak then told us in pantomime how many 

 seals various people in the ring would capture. He would point to a man, go 

 through the motions of spearing a seal in its hole, then hold up one or more fingers 

 to indicate the number killed. He seemed to be rather sleepy, however, for 



