ance with the ghost; if his power should shew itself, his position is assured as one worthy to be invoked, and to receive offerings, till his cultus gives way before the rising importance of one newly dead, and the sacred place where his shrine once stood and his relics were preserved is the only memorial of him that remains; if no proof of his activity appears, he sinks into oblivion at once. An admirable example of the establishment of the worship of a tindalo in Florida is given in the story of Ganindo, for which I am indebted to Bishop Selwyn. There was a gathering of men at Honggo to go on a head-hunting expedition under the leading of Kulanikama the chief (himself afterwards a ghost of worship), and Ganindo was their great fighting man. They went to attack Gaeta, and Lumba of Gaeta shot Ganindo near the collar-bone with an arrow. Having failed in their purpose they returned to Honggo, and said they, our friend is dead.' But as he still lived they took him over to Nggaombata in Guadalcanar, brought him back again, and put him on the hill Bonipari, where he died and was buried. Then they took his head, wove a basket for it, and built a house for it, and they said he was a tindalo. 'Let us go and take heads,' said they; so they made an expedition. As they went they ceased paddling in a quiet place and waited till they felt their canoe rock under them; then said they, 'Here is a tindalo.' To find out who he was they called the names of tindalos, and when they called the name of Ganindo the canoe shook again. In the same way they learnt what village they were to attack. Returning successful, they threw a spear into the roof of Ganindo's house, blew conches, and danced around it crying, 'Our tindalo is strong to kill.' Then they sacrificed to him, fish and food. Then they built him a new house, and made four images for the four corners, one of Ganindo himself, two of his sisters, and another. Then, when eight men had carried up the ridge covering for the house, eight men translated the relics to the shrine. One carried the bones of Ganindo, another his betel-nuts, another his lime-box, another his shell trumpet. They all went in crouching, as if under a heavy weight, and singing slowly, ‘Ma-i-i, ma-i-i, ka saka tua, hither, hither, let us lift the leg'; the eight legs were lifted together, and again they chanted 'ma-i-i, ma-i-i,' and at the last mai the eight legs went down together. With this solemn procession the relics were set upon a bamboo platform, and sacrifices to the new keramo were begun; by Niŝi first, then by Satani, then by Begoni, the last, at whose death some four years ago the sacrifices ceased, and the shrine fell to ruin before the advance of Christian teaching. To the natives of Florida this Ganindo was a tindalo, a ghost of worship, a keramo, a ghost powerful for war; he would be spoken of now by some Europeans as a god, by others as a devil, and the pigeon-English speaking natives now, who think that 'devil' is the English for tindalo, would use the same word.

47. THE HEATHEN PRIESTS OF EAST GREENLAND1

By W. THALBITZER

It is a notorious fact that Eskimo culture and daily life is pervaded throughout by a spirit of religion. Not only is the greater part of the unwritten Eskimo literature of a mythical and ritualistic character, but we find a religious atmosphere haunting even their profane legends and historical or semi-historical tales. . .

The exponents of the Eskimo's religion are called angakoks (angakut) and are in fact their national priests; they resemble in many respects the shamans of the Siberian tribes. I call them priests, because they are men, who after a long period of training and initiation have acquired a special capacity for entering into communication with the gods of the people and with the whole spiritual world in which this people believes. They are able, in contradistinction to laymen, to see the spirits, obtain answers from them and to bring them to interfere in the life of mankind. Thus in virtue of this natural aptitude and training, they are to be regarded as mediators between common mortals and the supernatural powers of the universe.

The Eskimo religion knows two supreme divinities: the moon, Aningáhk, which is regarded as a man, a hunter, who catches sea-animals, who has his house, his hunting grounds and his implements of the chase in the sky; and the old nameless woman of the sea, whose house lies far away at the bottom of the ocean, and who rules over the marine seals, whales and polar bears. Finally the people of Ammassalik speak of a third power in the sky, an old woman of the name of Asiak, who procures rain by shaking a skin drenched in urine down upon the earth so that a shower of drops is sprinkled upon it.

The angakok, and the angakok alone, is able to communicate with these powers by the aid of his spirits; and it is by no means all angakoks, but only those who are fully trained, and only the greatest among these, who can travel to the gods through the air and "see" them. Their bodies are left for lifeless on the earth, while their soul, freed from the body, roams through the universe.

Part of the angakok's functions is to heal the sick. The angakok effects this by enquiring of his spirits whither the sick man's soul has ,"pages

1

From W. Thalbitzer, "The Heathen Priests of East Greenland," 447-464, of Verhandlungen des XVI Internationalen Amerikanisten-Kongresses, Wien, 1908 (1910).

gone, bidding them to seek for it and fetch it home again. For, according to Eskimo notions, all disease is nothing but loss of a soul; in every part of the human body (particularly in every joint, as for instance, in each finger joint) there resides a little soul, and if a part of the man's body is sick, it is because the little soul has abandoned that part. In most cases the loss of the soul is regarded as due to one of the following causes: Either that evilly disposed persons have driven it out by means of magic, or that higher powers, the moon for instance, have removed it as a punishment for men's sins (some sacrilege, breach of tabu, or other). The sick man's relatives send for the angakok, who passes a night summoning his spirits, finding by their aid the spot on the earth, or in the sky or in the sea, where the lost fragment of the soul is, in order afterwards to have it fetched and returned to its place in the sick man's body, who is thereby healed.

Up to the close of the 19th century the religious life of the EastGreenlanders at Ammassalik pulsated with well-nigh unimpaired vigour. As late as 1894, the year in which the Danish state founded its colony over there, there were twelve angakoks belonging to the place, being about the same number as in 1884 when G. Holm wintered there. The proportion was about 1 angakok to 34 persons. Since the last named date the population has increased from 410 to 470, but the number of angakoks has sunk during this time from 12 to 5, being the number of the trained angakoks who lived there during my stay there from 1905 to 1906. . . .

Every angakok has, as a rule, had several paid teachers and has received instruction in different branches. Mitsuarnianga mentioned Imaalikutjuk as his teacher in the actual angakok craft; but, on his being more closely questioned, it appeared that what he had really learnt during the three days his teaching lasted, was only the first directions as how he should prepare himself "for rubbing the stone," which amounts to the same as initiation in the power of acquiring attendant spirits (genii). At the early age of seven or eight the future angakok begins to receive instruction from an older angakok, who is willing and eager to confide his secret knowledge to him. He teaches him first how he is to go in perfect secrecy and fetch a special kind of sea-weed from the beach when the tide is low, and wash himself with it over his whole body; how then he is to go into the depths of the land among the high mountains to the place where he has selected his grindstone, a large stone with a flat upper surface, often found lying near a lake, a river, a high declivity or a cave. I have seen one lying at the end of an old Eskimo grave. Proceeding according to fixed rules the novice seeks for a little stone to be used for grinding against the flat surface of the large one. Not seldom a little crustacean from the sea or river is laid between the two stones which are rubbed together.

The

There sits the disciple hour after hour rubbing the little stone in a circle against the large one, in anxious expectation of what is to appear. According to the tradition quite a definite event is to take place. bear of the lake will rise up, go towards him and eat him, whereby he "'dies,'' i.e., loses his consciousness. It will spit him out again and then leave him. After the lapse of an hour he returns to consciousness, his skeleton clothes itself in flesh again, and his garments come rushing up to him one by one until at last he emerges fully dressed. Every summer of this and the following years he keeps on rubbing the stone and thereby on different occasions acquires his attendant spirits, who are said to be his very own, and whose names he alone knows, and he alone may use. During the time he is rubbing the stone, he must fast, i.e., he may not eat the entrails of animals. Similarly he may not work in metal or engage in any noisy occupation whatsoever.

It should be observed, that it is not the disciple himself who announces himself as a candidate for discipleship; it is the older angakok who exhorts the young one, a boy, whom he thinks well adapted for initiation in the religious mysteries, to receive training, in order that a knowledge of the highest powers in existence may be preserved for the coming generation.

Mitsuarnianga was so young when he underwent his first training that he had nothing to pay his first teacher with. On the other hand he paid all his later teachers, partly with bear and seal skins, partly with implements. One of them received from him a sledge and a dog. When the angakok Takiwnalikitseq had taught him iliseetsoq lore (iliseenilisaat), i.e., such magic means by the aid of which the attempts of the enemy can be warded off; or even pain or disaster brought upon them as a vengeance, he gave him in payment a large fine bear-skin, a sealing bladder and a skin thong in return for the wisdom imparted to him.

In order to summon a spirit or soul it behooves one merely to know its name and to utter it. Thus it is clear that the angakok novice cannot summon the spirits that are to be his attendant genii, on the first occasion; they come of their own accord, or else he lights upon them unexpectedly when he is out rambling alone. But when he has once spoken with them and learnt their names he will henceforward be able to summon them again.

As for the sacred or mystic language in which the angakok holds converse with his spirits, Mitsuarnianga declared that no special teaching was required in order to learn it. As, however, it is identically for all angakoks and even, as it seems, more or less the same for angakoks from all quarters, it must be a really stereotyped language preserved through many centuries. Presumably every angakok learns a great part of it by attending the angakok's colloquies with their spirits, when they conjure them up in their huts; those that are training to become angakoks

impress these words on their memory with particular care. The words are not sheer abracadabra, but obsolete or metaphorically used Eskimo words, a kind of inherited art language, which contributes in a high degree to the solemn and mystical character of the spiritual gathering. The religious forms or expressions themselves are made no secret of: only the way in which the disciple receives his training is wrapped in mystery. During the whole course of his discipleship the angakok novice carefully conceals the fact, that he is receiving instruction, rubbing the stone and having meetings with his spirits. But when-after a novitiate of from five to ten years-he finally grows into a fullfledged angakok, his house-mates begin to have an inkling about it and to pass their comments on the fact. One fine evening he at last goes and proclaims himself to the world: angakittuppoa, "I am an angakok," and admonishes the others to extinguish the lamps, in order that he may for the first time give them a proof of his prowess.

There is only one circumstance, which can compel a novice to divulge his secret, before his time has come, and that is if he falls mortally ill. For by divulging that he is an angakok he will be able to save his life, though indeed at the sacrifice of his career as angakok. . . .

The secret novitiate lasts in no case more than twelve years, if the disciple ever intends to make use of his powers as an angakok.

There are four main occasions in which the services of an angakok at Ammassalik will be called in request, and when he must summon his spirits to a meeting under the floor of the huts: dearth of sea animals in the sea; snow-masses blocking the ways to the hunting-places (on the land or on the fjord-ice); a man's loss of soul (illness); a married woman's barrenness. Any one of these circumstances is sufficient reason for him to summon a meeting of the spirits, when the inhabitants of the place or even people from a distance so demand. Let us now see how a meeting of this kind proceeds in the hut.

The other men in the house fetch out the angakok's skins (atwtaat) from his seat on the platform, two dry hairless skins, which they hang like a double covering or curtain in front of the inner end of the underground passage-way (kattak, the inner door-opening; doors are unknown).

Here, in the front of the wall itself, stand two massive high stones as door-posts framing in the door-way; the latter appears like a dark hole leading downwards and forwards towards the exit, which lies about half a yard or a yard lower than the floor of the hut. Besides the skins, which hang by straps and thongs in front of this aperture, another skin is spread on the floor just in front of it; this is the angakok's place when he is holding a spiritual meeting (torniwoq). When he sits there on the floor, with his legs stretched out at the same height as his seat, he has his back turned to all of the audience, who, according to their custom, sit in their