His face is

places on the platform along the back wall of the house. turned towards the covered entrance, i.e., towards the sea. His heels rest on the lowest corner of one of the hanging skins which is turned up in such a way that he can set the skins in motion with his feet and produce a noisy rattling with them. His drum lies on a flat stone on the floor to his right. His arms are tightly bound behind his back, being lashed from the hands to the elbows with a long thong which is tied in knots. It is a part of his art to free his hands in the dark and afterwards, before the lamps are lit, to stick them back again in the still fastened thongs. The angakok is supposed to fly through the air (towards the interior of the country) in his doubled-up posture with the hands bound behind him. It has not yet been mentioned that the angakok brings with him a little characteristic instrument, the so-called makkortaa; it consists of a round, flat piece of black skin, from five to five and a half centimetres in diameter, which is held tightly in the hollow of the hand, while it is struck or rapped-on with a carved wooden stick with the other hand. By the aid of this little instrument the angakok produces a loud rhythmic knocking as a preliminary to his meeting with the spirits below the ground. When the lamps in the hut have been extinguished, this knocking goes on unintermittingly, while the angakok's voice, keeping time to the knocking, is heard plaintively babbling; aata-aata-aata aahtaah; at the same time the skins rattle and the drum begins to move and to drone faintly. The noise and the movements get gradually wilder and wilder. The drum, they say, rocks or dances standing erect on the floor, and now and then it springs up on the angakok's forehead or the crown of his head, drumming frantically in restless agitation. These are the signs that the angakok's inner vision is "dawning," or, in other words, that his soul is about to pass over into the "other world." When this feeling comes over him, he sinks down into the depths of the earth, crying in mingled despair and ecstacy: aatjiwitjiwitjiwit ho-hooi-ho-hooi! and at the same moment his drum begins to move in another time.

Teemiartissaq, who furnished me with a great part of this information, had the notion that the angakok at this moment rises and sinks like a man about to drown: "he comes up a third time, before he goes down for good." Ajukudooq called my attention to the fact that only the angakok's soul, not his body, sinks below the ground. This takes place gradually, and his spirit (taartaa) rises up and enters into him through his It makes its exit afterwards by the same way. His body is thus like a house which changes tenants.

anus.

While these mysteries are in progress, the angakok's soul rises several times up from the depths and enters the body turn by turn with his taartaat (this word itself seems to mean "successors''); there can only be one soul at a time in it. But at the moments when the angakok's own

consciousness is in it, his spirit monsters, or the manlike animals belonging to the sacred ritual, come-one at a time-stalking into the hut and filling the inmates with religious awe and shuddering. These animals, each of which has his own special name and voice, are called qimarhrat, "they that cause to flee." One of them, Amooq ("he that tugs or pulls at something'') cries in a sustained and protracted roar "amoo, amoo!'' while, invisible in the dark, it tramps along the platform, passing behind those that sit there; at last it disappears through the passage-way. Another monster cries "ongaa, ongaa!" ("avaunt, avaunt!''), a third "I will warm my fingers" as it tries to touch those present and warm itself on their naked bodies. There are several similar creatures; most of them seem to be common to all angakoks in contradistinction to their personal attendants, the taartaat, which are identical with the spirits called by other Eskimo tornat (or torngat) and which the angakok has acquired by rubbing the stone during his novitiate.

These attendant spirits have peculiar names and shadows, houses and hunting implements. They are originally nature spirits, often souls of animals that have been formed into men and women. But they all belong to the "other world" (asia), which is only visible to the angakoks. Otherwise they have their being in the same visible world as men-the Eskimo do not see anything self-contradictory in this and they belong to three kinds of people; each of which have their own special dwelling places and peculiarities: Timerseet, who live in the interior of the country, Eajuätsaat (=Taarajuätsaat) "semi-men" who live under the ground close to men's huts, and Innertiwin, "the fire-people," who live on the beach under the rocks of the coast, where the water is shallow. The latter are said to have houses with windows and they can, as distinct from the others, make long journeys in umiaks over to the west coast of Greenland where they buy metal and European clothes. Timerseet follow the course of the rivers out to sea when they want to hunt seal. All these beings have the language of men but speak it more or less awry, for instance with distorted mouths, or lispingly, or merely indistinctly on account of obsolete or foreign words.

This last feature applies also to the beings which come from the sea to serve the angakok during the sacred rites. One of these is called Aperqit, "the consulted one, the oracle," which sits down by the edge of the sea below the hut and helps the angakok who has been summoned to cure the disease, by answering questions as to the nature of the disease, i.e., as to which souls have deserted the sick man, and as to the place in the sea or on the land where they are now to be found. When the answer has been given, it is for the attendant spirits to search out and fetch back the lost soul.

The other spiritual helper which the angakok has in the sea is Toornartik, the Toornarsuk of the West Greenlanders. As the people of Ammassalik believe, toornartik is an animal-like creature in the sea, and, it appears, that there are at least two of them. It was described to me as 3 yards. long, 1 yard broad across the chest, with the upper part like a man, with arms and legs, but the lower parts looking like a seal.

It is not related to the woman of the sea and has nothing to do with her. Nor is it counted among the angakok's taartaat tornat; it is an independent creature which lives in the sea and can be used by the angakok for different purposes. It serves as his guide, when he flies off to the sea-woman's house with his spiritual retinue, and it hastens the speed of the journey by speeding along in the front.

Last but not least, it is from this being that the angakok receives replies to his questions. Aperqit is only an intermediary, a messenger between Toornartik and the heathen priest. From the hut the angakok addresses his questions to Aperquit, the attendant spirit who listens at the water's edge and thence passes on the questions out to the sea.

I received from the now living angakoks an accurate description of the way the angakok takes to the woman of the sea, and of that which he takes to the moon; and moreover of the obstacles which he and his spirits meet with on their way. These journeys are attended with great toil, hardships and perils, and the angakok will only be instigated to such exertions when it is a question of life or death for a whole settlement or for a single individual whose life is valued so much that his relations are ready to pay the price the angakok demands for the exercise of his double function of doctor and priest.

But, even without such weighty grounds, the angakok frequently summons one or more of his spirits to a meeting in the hut. There are lazy angakoks and diligent angakoks. "A diligent angakok," so the saying goes, "torniwoqs almost every night the whole winter through.” "No singing is so lovely as the singing of the spirits; the singing of mortals is nothing to it," said one of the angakoks to me.

48. THE RELIGION OF THE AMAZULU OF SOUTH AFRICA AS TOLD BY THEMSELVES1

By CANON CALLAWAY

DIVINERS

The condition of a man who is about to be an inyanga is this: At first he is apparently robust; but in process of time he begins to be delicate, not having any real disease, but being very delicate. He begins to be particular about food, and abstains from some kinds, and requests his friends not to give him that food, because it makes him ill. He habitually avoids certain kinds of food, choosing what he likes, and he does not eat much of that; and he is continually complaining of pains in different parts of his body. And he tells them that he has dreamt that he was being carried away by a river. He dreams of many things, and his body is muddled and he becomes a house of dreams. And he dreams constantly of many things, and on awaking says to his friends, "My body is muddled to-day; I dreamt many men were killing me; I escaped I know not how. And on waking one part of my body felt different from other parts; it was no longer alike all over. At last the man is very ill, and they go to the diviners to enquire.

The diviners do not at once see that he is about to have a soft head.3 It is difficult for them to see the truth; they continually talk nonsense, and make false statements, until all the man's cattle are devoured at their command, they saying that the spirit of his people demands cattle, that it may eat food.

So the people readily assent to the diviners' word thinking that they know. At length all the man's property is expended, he being still ill; and they no longer know what to do, for he has no more cattle, and his friends help him in such things as he needs.

At length an inyanga comes and says that all the others are wrong. He says, "I know that you come here to me because you have been

1 Selected from pages 259-330 of the Rev. Canon H. Callaway, "The Religious System of the Amazulu," 1870, reissued as Publications of the Folk-Lore Society, volume 15, London, 1884. Only the English translation is given here: the original has the Zulu text as well.

Diviner, physician, or shaman.

A soft head, that is, impressible. Diviners are said to have soft heads.

They have not eaten Why have they been part, I tell you the

unable to do any thing for the man, and have no longer the heart to believe that any inyanga can help you. But, my friends, I see that my friends, the other izinyanga, have gone astray. impepo. They were not initiated in a proper way. mistaken, when the disease is evident? For my izinyanga have troubled you. The disease does not require to be treated with blood. As for the man, I see nothing else but that he is possessed by the Itongo. There is nothing else. He is possessed by an Itongo. Your people move in him. They are divided into two parties; some say, 'No, we do not wish that our child should be injured. We do not wish it.' It is for that reason and no other that he does not get well. If you bar the way against the Itongo, you will be killing him. For he will not be an inyanga; neither will he ever be a man again; he will be what he is now. If he is not ill, he will be delicate, and become a fool, and be unable to understand any thing. I tell you you will kill him by using medicines. Just leave him alone, and look to the end to which the disease points. Do you not see that on the day he has not taken medicine, he just takes a mouthful of food? Do not give him any more medicines. He will not die of the sickness, for he will have what is good given to him."

So the man may be ill two years without getting better; perhaps even longer than that. He may leave the house for a few days, and the people begin to think he will get well. But no, he is confined to the house again. This continues until his hair falls off. And his body is dry and scurfy; and he does not like to anoint himself. People wonder at the progress of the disease. But his head begins to give signs of what is about to happen. He shows that he is about to be a diviner by yawning again and again, and by sneezing again and again. And men say, "No! Truly it seems as though this man was about to be possessed by a spirit." This is also apparent from his being very fond of snuff; not allowing any long time to pass without taking some. And people begin to see that he has had what is good given to him.

After that he is ill; he has slight convulsions, and has water poured on him, and they cease for a time. He habitually sheds tears, at first slight, and at last he weeps aloud, and in the middle of the night, when the people are asleep, he is heard making a noise, and wakes the people by singing; he has composed a song, and men and women awake and go to sing in concert with him.

In this state of things they daily expect his death; he is now but skin and bones, and they think that to-morrow's sun will not leave him alive.

'Plural of inyanga.

5 Your people move in him, that is, the Amatongo, a class of spirits.