Eskimo

The government is establishing schools in some of the settlements, but, unfortunately, only a small proportion of the Eskimo population lives around the settlements, so these educational facilities are limited in scope. Part-time residential schools should be provided, operating during the good season, so that Eskimo children could be taken out, taught, and returned to their people, thus getting the benefits of education without losing the skills they need to live in the Arctic, as do many Eskimo children nowadays who are taken out to residential schools for several years at a time. When they return North they no longer know how to live. They are neither Eskimos nor white men. Government aircraft, which are flying numberless practice missions over the Arctic anyway, could take the children in and out.

Most of the shamans were simply shrewd men who exploited the natural superstitions of their fellows and used tricks like those employed by any carnival or circus medium in Europe or the United States.

Were any of the shamans, in the past, perhaps, true sorcerers, true diabolists? I am inclined to believe it is possible.

Nipalariuk may have been one of those truly in league with supernatural powers of evil. He was supposed to be able to fly like an angel. He could see things at tremendous distances and read the minds of others. He was expert at healing the sick, but even better at murdering the healthy, particularly when the healthy one possessed a wife Nipalariuk wanted for himself. He granted favors--many of them--but after a while his misdeeds outnumbered his good ones and everyone wanted him out of the way. Three times the Inuit tried to kill him by strangling and stabbing, but on each occasion his wife brought him back to life. Finally, the Inuit realized that theo nly thing to do was to kill both of them together. That did it. Nipalariuk stayed put.

But if he was finished as a human being, his shamanism was not finished with him. His name was passed on to a nephew, and the evil powers went with it. Or so the Eskimos believed.

I knew this Nipalariuk II, and he was a moron and lazy bum if ever one lived on Victoria. His power was said to derive from a miraculous occurrence. When hunting one day, from a canoe, a fellow hunter discharged his shotgun by accident--both barrels. The blast caught Nipalariuk II in the back, piercing his clothes and burning him, but leaving not a mark on the shaman's nephew. Many witnesses agreed that this was fact.

"Is it true?" I once asked Nipalariuk II.

"Oh, yes, most assuredly," he answered. "My power comes from my name, from my predecessor, the one they could not kill."

"Well, boy," I said casually, "if you are really bulletproof, I am curious. Would you let somebody have a try at you with my new rifle, just to see?"

"Oh, no!" he exclaimed hastily. "I'm not that way any more. I lost the spirit."

And he explained that his father had pronounced over him an incantation that had removed the spell, so that he was no longer possessed. It made him feel better.

Another sorcerer, one Komayak, could not only shot himself with impunity, but do other, more fearsome tricks. He would cause a geyser of boiling water to shoot up through the floor of the snowhouse; then, with certain cabalistic gestures, cut off his leg at the knee and toss it negligently into the jet of scalding water. It remained there for a time, suspended by the water; then Komayak muttered another incantation and retrieved it, putting it back onto his body as neatly as you would button your coat. "Eh, now!" he would say, "How's that?" and permit others to feel for themselves.

By the time I reached the Arctic, Komayak was growing old and his powers were waning. He no longer shot himself, and had given up doing the leg trick with the boiling water, but he was still regarded with healthy respect and quite feared. One dark November night, when a furious wind tore madly at the skin tents and the waves berated the rocky shore, two Eskimo girls sought shelter at the mission, and finally told me with trembling lips that Komayak was having a session. "He is making sorcery, Falla," they said, "and right beside the mission, too."

This was something I wanted to see. I went out into the evil night and approached Komayak's tent with some stealth, intending to eavesdrop on his little seance. I had hardly taken up my station in the cold outside the tent when a voice from within boomed: "Krabloonak manitok!"..."An eyebrow is here!"

In the sickly yellow pall of the stone lamp I saw a ring of Eskimos--Catholics, Protestants, pagans--all staring fixedly at the fur bed where there squatted like a Buddha a man I scarcely recognized as Komayak. His eyes glared, his hands ground fragments of bone, his lips moved, and he uttered sounds that made no sense, seemingly addressed to someone absent. Later I learnt that he was "working" a man who had died a few days earlier. 

I watched him for several minutes, as the trance progressed, and his glazed eyes became more fearsome. Then I called sharply, "Komayak!"

He was silent, then the spell passed off and his face became normal, his eyes lost their glazed look.

"Falla!" he gasped.

His eyes shifted to his rifle, resting on the skins beside him. I moved toward him slowly, attempting to show unconcern, and sat down. "Are you at it again, Komayak?" I asked, a chiding tone in my voice.

"Well no, Falla," he explained. "I've quit the trade, don't you know. But they," indicating the others, "wanted me to try something. You see, with the bad weather we can't go hunting, and it occurred to us that the dead man might just be hanging around somewhere."

They thought that the dead hunter had produced the storm to annoy them, and that if his spirit could be placated, the weather might improve. 

I smiled. "Tell me, Komayak, if you're so smart, why don't you cure your own bandy legs?"

The others laughed at this, and Komayak got mad. Soon the tent was empty and the witchcraft was over for the night. 

The next Sunday, Komayak came to Mass, quite composed. Naturally, my sermon was on sorcery, and I pulled no punches. Komayak listened, his head bowed, and after church he said to me, "Yes, Falla. I cannot do a thing any more. Not a thing."

In addition to the system of fetishes, there is a multitude of tabus, some general and observed by all, others applying only to particular individuals. Sometimes tabus are handed out as cures for illness, like doctors' prescriptions. (And please don't forget the fee up here either!) Others are peculiar to a class of people. The shamans themselves, for example, are forbidden the best dish on the Eskimo menu--seal liver. Most tabus, though, are thought to apply to the whole Eskimo community, and to the Great Eyebrows too.

"Don't throw rocks down a cliff," they warned me. "This offends the atmosphere, and may cause a storm."

One day, for fun, I rolled some boulders over a cliff and watched the Eskimos as they listened to the great rocks crashing against the foot of the cliff. Nothing happened, no storm, not even a little breeze. There was silence.

"Well, at any rate," one Eskimo observed, "don't kill a crow. That is certain to bring bad weather."

I killed a crow as soon as I could find one. And did I pick the wrong day! Or the wrong crow! A few hours later an Arctic tornado mowed down every tent in the settlement. The Eskimos smiled knowingly at me, saying nothing, but very much amused and quite superior.

Virtue, in the Eskimo's mind, is always rewarded with material success. If a hunter who is usually fortunate returns several times with an empty bag, there is only one conclusion. The scamp has forgotten to wear his amulets, or neglected to observe some tabu. He himself will believe this, and castigate himself, and often become quite frantic in his effort to discover his shortcomings. 

If they are casual in their attitude toward God, they are more direct when dealing with spirits, and here become voluble and explicit. This is because they are on more familiar terms with the spirits, and because the shamans--the medicine men-- find it useful to keep the idea of spirits very much in the ordinary Inuk's mind. 

In the ancient religion they must once have had I have reached the conclusion that God was regarded as primary, but just too remote to be interested in the affairs of lowly mortals. He was happy by himself in His ethereal abode and bothered little with events below, leaving mundane matters entirely in the hands of lesser authorities, secondary gods that the Eskimos think of as spirits. We find the same kind of crude religion in Siberia and Mongolia, and the same assignment of intermediary power to a class of men, the shamans. The word "shaman" itself is Mongolian, and there is no doubt that the Eskimos brought the tradition of shamanism with them when they crossed the Bering Strait. 

Such is the Eskimo religion today--a rather debased and worldly religion that hardly merits being described as such, for there is in its concept nothing to adore or honor, but only spirits to propitiate. Are they angels or devils? According to the Eskimos, they are a little of both, a mixture of good and evil like human beings. "Since they deal with humans," the Inuk reasons, "must they not be like humans?" According to the Eskimo description, the spirits are something like the jinn of the Arabas, strange imps always looking for mischief, hiding behind corners in wait for human beings, like cranky poliemen who find their fun in picking quarrels with peaceful citizens. 

This shamanism is the only religion we have found among the Eskimos, and a certain body of tradition and formalism surrounds it. There are elements of animism in the Eskimo's vague beliefs. To him each object, be it rock, animal, or ice, is endowed with life. Even ideas, notions, the weather, sickness are thought either to be spirits or to be inhabited by spirits. A caribou is killed, for example. His flesh may be eaten, but his breath, his "soul," is just waiting around, perhaps nearby, and certain conventions are observed that the Eskimo believes will keep the caribou's spirit friendly. They will never, for instance, boil caribou meat, or sew the animal's skin during the months of darkness when the sun is gone. To do so would offend the caribou's "Anernek"--his "breath," "spirit", or "soul." A similar reasoning prompts them, when a relative dies, to give his name quickly to a dog, so that the spirit will have a place to rest until a child is born to inherit it. The Anernek is a fletting thing, easily lost, and every artifice must be brought to bear to prevent its prowling and creating trouble.

You may write it off as superstition, and of course in a way it is just that. Wasn't it Montaigne who observed that "since man has never been able to create a worm, he makes divinities every other day?" We have superstitions among our western peoples. Some otherwise rational and sensible humans in Paris, London, or New York are afraid to begin any venture on the thirteenth day of the month, especially if the thirteenth falls on a Friday. Others refuse to accept the third light from a match, even though the perfectly practical wartime origin of this custom has been explained to them. Some touch wood or cross their fingers, others carry favorite pennies. 

We must be indulgent toward Eskimo superstition, but we shouldn't forget that superstitions are signs of clouding faith, and that the spirits the Eskimos believe in are the last faint glimmers of an extinguished religion.

I once asked an Eskimo friend: "Tell me, now, you have so many evil spirits; aren't there any good ones?"

The old man grinned, considering this, then answered, "Well, Falla, of course there must be some good ones too, but we don't bother thinking about them. If they are good, they won't do us harm, eh? Whereas with the evil ones it is quite a different matter. They are always after us. Trouble? It's their middle name. So we have to coax them all the time, don't you see?"

Children's arithmetic? Maybe. But to the Eskimo it's just diplomacy.

In his serious dealing with the spirits the Eskimo never acts independently or makes a direct approach. He seeks a shaman whose function it is to act as intermediary, to intercede for him. The shaman is always a powerful fellow who is reported to have demonstrated his power in some dramatic fashion.

"Why, that medicine man," Ayaligak told me, "was so powerful he could thrust a harpoon into his chest and draw it out without leaving a scar!"

"Did you see it happen?" I asked.

"Well, no," Ayaligak confessed, "not exactly. But I heard about it. Everybody knows it's true."

One is reminded of the Soviet diplomatists who will describe the most atrocious falsehood as "that well-known fact." "It is a well-known fact," the Communist blandly announces, "that millions of people in the Unites States die each year from starvation." Loud applause from the gallery; perfect belief from the poor sheep. It must be true, you know. Isn't it a "well-known fact"?

So the power of the "Augatko"--the shaman--must be believed if only because it s well-known. Hitler must have had the Inuit in mind when he pronounced the doctrine of the Big Lie. For an Inuk will believe anything if it is stated boldly enough. And usually the Augatko backs up his claims to supernatural power with an act of hypnotism, autosuggestion, or sleight-of-hand. Once he has established himself he is absolutely secure and doesn't have to trouble much about window-dressing for his magic. He can take a piece of filthy caribou skin, roll it up, announce that it's a dog, and send it forth into the night to haunt the client's enemy. The poor Inuk is so completly impressed that he soon believes he is haunted himself and begins to see that awful dog lurking near his igloo.