216 Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-18 



the children away to another hut, and she asked me to let her divine by lifting 

 my head. I was lying in my sleeping bag, and Ikpakhuak, the only other person 

 in the hut, closed the door to keep out all visitors. Higilak slipped her belt 

 round my head, and told me to close my eyes. Then they both questioned me, 

 and Higilak lifted my head from time to time for the answers. The whole 

 ceremony lasted perhaps a quarter of an hour. I could understand very few of 

 their questions, partly because my knowledge of the language was imperfect, 

 partly also because, as in most shamanistic performances, they employed a 

 different vocabulary from that in every-day use. Immediately afterwards, 

 however, she told me the reason for the ceremony. The great shaman Ilatsiak 

 had warned them that their son Avranna was threatened with grave danger, 

 and had advised them to obtain help from me. She entreated me, therefore, 

 and Ikpakhuak supported her request, that after I had left their country and was 

 no longer within reach of an ordinary message,- I should send my familiars, 

 tornrait, to their aid whenever they or their kinsmen were in danger or distress. 

 Tusarialutilli, "Hearken to our call," they urged me again and again. I told 

 them that sometimes perhaps I should not be able to hear them, and with a 

 sigh Higilak responded, "Yes, sometimes one can do nothing." 



We have now laid the foundations on which we can build our theory of 

 Copper Eskimo shamanism. Let us consider first the stances, where some 

 familiar spirit is presumed to enter the body of the shaman and to take possession 

 of him, the shaman himself being only the medium. All the utterances are 

 those of the familiar, though they come, as the natives will say themselves, from 

 the lips of the shaman. First it is to be noticed that the man has little or no 

 opportunity for conjuring tricks, seeing that he performs in the open daylight 

 or under the bright light of the lamps in the dance-house; moreover, there are 

 natives all around him so close that they can put out their hands and touch him 

 at any moment. He has to depend therefore on creating the proper "atmos- 

 phere," both in himself and in his audience. The important seances given by 

 shamans of credit like Uloksak and Ilatsiak always evoke in the spectators a 

 feeling of tense emotional excitement. Usually their minds are keyed up before- 

 hand to the proper pitch by singing and dancing, and especially by the booming 

 notes of the deep-toned drum. The shaman himself is in a condition of hysteria, 

 or of something that nearly resembles it, brought on at the commencement of 

 his stance by the straining of every muscle, the rolling of his eyes and the ejacu- 

 lation of cries and strangled gasping sounds. Long practice in self-hypnosis, 

 combined at times perhaps with organic weakness and an inclination towards 

 hallucinations — Ilatsiak had gone through a serious illness when a boy — help 

 to induce the condition more readily. So intense is the strain that the man 

 nearly faints with exhaustion at the close of the performance. The insertion of 

 the teeth of the animal familiar, or the wearing of garments made from its fur, 

 serve, like stage scenery, to increase the illusion. The shaman is not conscious 

 of acting a part; he becomes in his own mind the animal or the shade of the 

 dead man that is deemed to possess him. To his audience, too, this strange 

 figure, with its wild and frenzied appearance, its ventriloquistic cries and its 

 unearthly falsetto gabble, with only a broken word here and there of intelligible 

 speech, is no longer a human being, but the thing it personifies. Their minds 

 become receptive of the wildest imaginings, and they see the strangest and most 

 fantastic happenings. If the shaman ejaculates that he is no longer a man but 

 a bear, forthwith it is a bear that they behold, not a human being; if he says 

 that the dance-house is full of spirits they will see them in every corner. It is in 

 this way, apparently, that most of the tales arise of shamans cutting off their 

 limbs, or flying through the air, or changing to bears and wolves. There may be 

 conscious fraud in the early stages of a shaman's career, in some cases perhaps 

 all through it. Uloksak's stance when he acquitted me of the charge of murder 

 was almost certainly fraudulent from beginning to end; yet even he firmly 



