continued for at least half an hour. Captain Lyon then observed a couple of
bunches, each consisting of two strips of white deerskin and a long piece of
sinew, attached to the back of his coat. These he had not seen before, and he was
gravely told that they had been sewn on by Tomga while he was below.
During his absence, the angekok professes to visit the dwelling-place of the
particular spirit he has invoked, and he will sometimes astonish his audience
with a description of the nether-world and its inhabitants. For instance, there is a
female spirit called Aywilliayoo, who commands, by means of her right hand, all
the bears, whales, seals, and walruses. Therefore, when a lack of provisions is
experienced, the angekok pays a visit to Aywilliayoo, and attacks her hand. If he
can cut off her nails, the bears are immediately released; the loss of one finger-
joint liberates the small seals; the second joint dismisses the larger seals; the
knuckles place at liberty the whole herds of walruses, while the entire hand
liberates the whale.
Aywilliayoo is tall, with only one eye and one pigtail, but as this pigtail is as
large as a man’s leg, and descends to her knee, she may well be contented with
it. She owns a splendid house, which, however, Toolemak refrained from
entering, because it was guarded by a huge dog, with black hindquarters and no
tail. Her father, in size, might be mistaken for a boy of ten years old; he has but
one arm, which is always encased in a large bear-skin mitten.
Dr. Kane considers it a fact of psychological interest, as it shows that civilised or
savage wonder-workers form a single family, that the angekoks have a firm
belief in their own powers. “I have known,” he says, “several of them
personally, and can speak with confidence on this point. I could not detect them
in any resort to jugglery or natural magic: their deceptions are simply vocal, a
change of voice, and perhaps a limited profession of ventriloquism, made more
imposing by the darkness.” They have, however, like the members of the learned
professions everywhere else, a certain language or jargon of their own, in which
they communicate with each other.
While the angekoks are the dispensers of good, the issintok, or evil men, are the
workers of injurious spells, enchantments, and metamorphoses. Like the witches
of both Englands, the Old and the New, these malignant creatures are rarely
submitted to trial until they have suffered punishment—the old “Jeddart
justice”—castigat auditque. Two of them, in 1818, suffered the penalty of their
crime on the same day, one at Kannonak, the other at Upernavik. The latter was
laudably killed in accordance with the “old custom” ... custom being everywhere