Eskimo

Before quite reaching Langton Bay harbor, however, we came upon sled tracks, and at the harbor itself we found Dr. Anderson and our Eskimo safe, comfortably housed and fairly well supplied with food. The main part of the food was whale, the carcass of which had drifted into the beach just before the freeze-up in the fall. This animal had been freshly killed when he drifted ashore, and furnished us, therefore, a supply of food which was not only abundant but also palatable. I found here waiting for me some mail, to get which Dr. Anderson had had to make a thousand-mile trip the previous summer west to the whaling-station at Herschel Island. My most recent letter had been written on the 13th of May, 1910, and it was now the 4th of December.

After resting about two weeks we started back toward Bear Lake, leaving the same four Eskimo behind, although Dr. Anderson accompanied us. Knowing the character of the country, and having plenty of food at Langton Bay, we loaded the sleds with provisions, which, together with the caribou meat we had cached inland, would be equal to about twenty-five days' full rations. Had everything on the homeward road been as it was on the northwestward journey, this would have been ample, for we had come from Bear Lake to the sea in twenty-six days, but we were now a month later in the season; the sun had long ago gone away and we had only twilight at noon, and the snow lay thick and soft in many places in the river where on the way north there was glare ice. Our progress southward was therefore very slow, and by the time we reached that point of Horton River where one begins the portage to Bear Lake we were on short rations again. In our two days' crossing of the Barren Ground we again had a blizzard, but again it happened to be blowing at our backs and rather helped than hindered us, although we could see practically nothing of the country through which we traveled.

On our second day in the Barren Ground we had the last and most striking proof of Johnny's infallibility. We had come to perhaps a dozen trees, and I said to Johnny, “ Well, this is fine; now we are back in your Bear Lake woods again." No, that was not so, he said. There were two ranges of hills on the Barren Ground. One of these was right in the middle of the Barren Ground, and on the southerly slope of this range were a few trees. It was at these trees we now were, and if we left them, it would take us another whole day of travel before we came to the next. He told us, therefore, that unless we wanted to camp without firewood we must camp here. Dr. Anderson and I talked this over, and we agreed that Johnny had never in the past proved right in anything; but still it seemed better to do as he advised, for, after all, this was his own country, and he ought to know something about it. The blizzard was still blowing, and it was intensely cold. If we had pitched camp where there were no trees we should have made a small tent, Eskimo fashion, and it would have taken us only a few moments to do so; but now that we had trees we put up an Indian-style tepee, a difficult thing to do in a storm, and a matter of two hours or so of hard work during which all of us froze our faces several times and suffered other minor inconveniences. My idea had been, on seeing these few trees, that we were now on the edge of the forest, and that a few miles more of travel would bring us into the thick of woods where no wind can stir the snow; and in the morning when we awoke and looked out, sure enough, there was the edge of the forest only a few hundred yards away, with the woods stretching black and unbroken toward Bear Lake. But for the wisdom of Johnny Sanderson we might have camped in its shelter and escaped one of the most disagreeable camp making experiences we ever had.

The next day we had traveled only a few miles before we came upon the tracks of caribou. Our thermometer had broken some time before, and so I speak without the book, but there is little doubt that the temperature was considerably below 50 ° Fahrenheit. There was not a breath of air stirring. While the other three proceeded with the sled I struck out to one side to look for caribou. First I saw a band that had been frightened by our main party. There were only a few clearings in the woods, but wherever the animals were you could discover their presence by the clouds of steam that rose from them high above the tops of the trees.

There are few things one sees in the North so nearly beyond belief as certain of the phenomena of intense cold as I saw and heard them that day. It turned out that the woods were full of caribou, and wherever a band was running you could not only see the steam rising from it and revealing its presence, even on the other side of a fairly high hill, but, more remarkable still, the air was so calm that where an animal ran past rapidly he left behind him a cloud of steam hovering over his trail and marking it out plainly for a mile behind him. When you stopped to listen, you could hear the tramp of marching caribou all around you. On such days as this I have watched caribou bands a full mile away whose walking I could hear distinctly although there was no crust on the snow; and as for them, they could not only hear me walking, but could even tell the difference in the sounds of my footsteps from those of the hundreds of caribou that were walking about at the same time.

My first opportunity to shoot came through my hearing the approach of a small band. I stopped still and waited for them. I was not nervous, but rather absent-minded. In other words, my mind was more fully occupied than it should have been with the importance of getting those particular caribou. I always carry the magazine of my rifle full but the chamber empty, and as the animals approached I drew back the bolt to throw a cartridge into the chamber, but when I tried to shove the bolt forward it stuck fast. This is the only time in four years of hard usage that anything has interfered with the perfect working of my Mannlicher-Schoenauer. The caribou were moving past without seeing me, and I became a bit excited. I knew the rifle was strong, and I hammered on the end of the bolt with the palm of my hand, but it would not move. When the caribou were finally out of range and when nothing more could be done, I for the first time took a good look at the rifle to try to discover the trouble, and saw that one side of the bolt had something frozen fast to it. It turned out that when I had drawn the bolt back to load the rifle I had carelessly allowed the palm of my bare hand to rest against the bolt, and a piece of skin about an inch long and a quarter of an inch wide had frozen fast to the bolt and been torn away from my hand without my noticing it. It took but a few moments scraping with my hunting knife to remove the blood from the bolt, and the rifle was in good working order again.

Three days later we reached the house of Melvill and Hornby on Bear Lake, thirty-three days after leaving Langton Bay. After a short visit with them and Mr. Hodgson we proceeded up the Dease River and found Tannaumirk and Pannigabluk well, although getting short of food, for Tannaumirk was not a hunter of much enterprise.

No caribou were just then to be found near our winter quarters, so Dr. Anderson, one of the Eskimo, and myself struck out south to look for them. On the second day we found them near the northeast corner of Bear Lake, but had hard luck that day on account of variable faint airs that continually gave the animals our wind. The next day, however, we got sixteen, and within the next twenty days thereafter fifty -two more, which was plenty of meat for the rest of the winter.

Despite uniformity of culture and language, the various miut displayed minor differences, based upon their adaptation to local resources. While some groups were primarily dependent on seal and polar bear, others focused on caribou and musk oxen. Although people exploited whatever resources happened to be available in their particular region, the pattern of subsistence and social organization was fundamentally the same. At the time of contact the total population of Copper Inuit was probably no more than 800 to 900, scattered over a vast territory of Arctic tundra, probably exceeding 80,000 square miles.

Environment

The environment of the Copper Inuit is mostly treeless Arctic tundra, although some wooded areas can be found in the southernmost reaches of Copper Inuit territory. The climate is severe, with winter temperatures frequently reaching -50 degrees Fahrenheit(-45 degrees C) in some areas. The monthly mean of the coldest month of the year, February, is between -20 and -28 Fahrenheit (-29 degrees C and -33 degrees Celsius) and the monthly mean of the warmest month, July, is in the high forties 7 to 10 C. Precipitation is minimal. Most of this falls as snow and accumulates in high drifts as a result of blowing winds. The amount of sunlight varies dramatically by season. In the Holman reason, for example, the sun drops below the horizon in the third week in November and stays down until January 16th or 17th. During these two months, there is only a brief daily period of twilight at midday which becomes progressively darker and shorter until the winter solstice. In summer, the sun stays above the horizon for an equivalent period, providing, as it circles, long hours of sunlight for people to hunt, fish and travel.

As is true of much of the Canadian Arctic, the tundra ecosystem is characterized by extremely low biological productivity. Significantly less energy is absorbed by the arctic ecosystem, compared with more temperate regions. Almost no energy is absorbed in winter. Even in summer, with the sun above the horizon 24 hours a day, the sun's rays are extremely weak, contributing little radiant energy to either the time or the Marine ecosystem. The net result Arctic operates under a significant energy deficient, with great implications for plant and animals and for the people who depend upon them for survival.

In winter, the straits, sounds, and gulfs in Copper Inuit territory are frozen in a continuous sheet of ice from October or November until July. This is ideal habitat for ring seals, which prefer solid, land fast ice with the early formation in fall and late Break Up In Summer.

Seasonal round

Since the environment was marked as it still is by dramatic seasonal fluctuations in temperature, light duration, snowfall, ice conditions, and game availability, copper Inuit families had to display great flexibility and economic and social organization in order to adapt successfully to the demands of each season. One of the most important phases of copper Inuit life was the winter season of breathing hole sealing. this was the coldest and the darkest time of year and it tested the Inuits ability to survive such harsh conditions large snow house communities typically formed out on the sea ice in locations close to good sealing grounds.  movement onto the ice was accomplished as soon as ice conditions became stable enough for travel and camping, ideally by late November or early December. These snow house Villages buried in size from about 50 individuals to as many as 150. Damas (1984:400)  estimates that the mean size range from about 91 to 117. Most of the people who resided in the snow house Villages were related, either closely or distantly, but many non-relatives were included as well. Villages moved when sealing became unproductive, with smaller groups occasionally splitting off.

Camping in Winter

Ruth Nigiyonak. I remember camping in the winter season out on the Frozen sea ice. As a child, during the winter, the people never stayed on land. When winter came, the people moved out on the ice. For the winter, the people would build large snow house with a big work space in the center. From the sides, they would build tunnels. At the end of each tunnel, a family would built their living quarters. The center was a workspace or a place to gather for games, drum dances, and stories. That was repeated each year.

During the winter, an elaborate system of seal-sharing among both kin and nonkin was the dominant form of food distribution. Breathing-hole sealing requires a degree of cooperation among hunters, who dispersed over a wide area to cover as many breathing holes as possible. Since each seal maintains a number of breathing holes, this strategy maximizes the chances that at least one hunter from a group would be successful. Once caught, the seal is divided into 12 to 14 Parts, each part given to a predetermined exchange partner who would reciprocate sometime in the future with the same body part. Names were applied to seal sharing Partners based on the animal part exchanged: flipper companion, liver companion, and so forth. A man's co-sharing partners were usually assigned by parents and other adults at the time of a hunter's first kill. Kinship factors were irrelevant to such partnerships since both kin and nonkin could be included in these networks.

Winter subsistence pursuits also included polar bear hunting and some areas, the importance of which for subsistence varied from year to year depending upon availability. The Copper Inuit who entered between Banks Island and Northwestern Victoria Island relied more heavily upon polar bear than other Copper Inuit groups.

Winter was an important time for Community social festivities, which were included in a large ceremonial snow house or qagli.  Because cold, darkness, and the frequent blizzards limited the amount of time that men could stay out hunting, people would pass their time playing games, drum dancing, and occasionally observing shamanic performances. Given the size of some snow house communities, it was not unusual for the qigli to be bursting with observers and participants. The copper Inuit spent much of the spring, summer, and early fall wandering on the tundra and small family groups, and winter presented the climax of community social life.

With the arrival of warmer weather and longer daylight hours in April and May, the Copper Inuit started hunting for basking seals. This was a more individualistic pursuit, requiring the hunter to walk and crawl great distances to Harpoon seals basking next to a crack or seal hole. Breathing hole ceiling, as well, continued into May, and some copper and you it made excursions to hunt polar bears as their hibernation ended. By Spring, the large snow house communities usually started to break into smaller groups each headed in a different direction. Movement was initially along the coastline, because the tundra would still be wet and unpleasant for travel. Eventually, the ocean ice was abandoned altogether, marking the beginning of the Inland phase of the yearly cycle. The abandonment of snow houses in Spring is understandable. As warmer weather conditions made the interior wet and uncomfortable, modified snow houses were made. He's consisted of the lower half of a snow house with a skin roof over it. As the year progresses, skin test tents replaced those these modified snow houses as people moved up to the land.

Until the first decade of the twentieth century, contact with the Inuit of western Victoria Island and eastern Banks Island was sporadic. McClure, Collinson, Klengenberg, and Mogg offer little detailed information concerning the culture, population, or movements of the people they met. The published works of the noted anthropologist and explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson offer the first detailed information about the Copper Inuit.

Stefansson had been at Herschel Island on his first arctic expedition when Klengenberg returned in 1906 from his trading expedition to Victoria Island. As an anthropologist, Stefansson was most interested in the stories Klengenberg and his crew told about this "new group" of Inuit. Klengenberg reported that the people dressed in parkas with long tails in the back, that they used weapons and tools made out of copper, that most of them had never seen a white man (except for the very oldest, who reported seeing Collinson in the winter of 1851/1852), and that Victoria Island abounded in copper. Since Klengenberg had traded extensively with these Inuit, he was able to show Stefansson and others his collection of Kangiryuarmiut knives hammered out of native copper, finely made bows with sinew backing, quivers full of arrows tipped with copper, and dozens of suits of clothing expertly sewn with copper needles (Stefansson 1906).

In his book My Life with the Eskimo (1913), Stefansson writes of having arrived at a small island near the south shore of Prince Albert Sound:

From the top of the island the next morning I could with the glasses see a native village on the ice ten or fifteen miles to the northwest, approximately in the middle of Prince Albert Sound. When we approached it we saw this to be the largest village of our whole experience. It turned out that there were twenty-seven dwelling houses in it. We had, of course, seen the ruined trading village at Cape Bexley [on the southern shore of Dolphin and Union Strait], which had over fifty dwellings, bu these had been the houses of traders from half a dozen or more different tribes, while this turned out to be the one tribe of the Kanghirgyuargmiut, and they were not all at home either, for later on we visited another village of three houses of the same people, and a third village of four houses we never saw at all (Stefansson 1913: 278).

Stefansson and Natkusiak approached the village and were met several miles south of it by a group of three hunters who had been seal hunting on the ice. The three hunters seemed a little timid at first, but indicated that Stefansson and Natkusiak had come from the southeast, a country inhabited by their neighbors, the Puivlirmiut, "who were now and then in the habit of arriving by the same route as ours, and at this season of the year, for purposes of trade" (Stefansson 1913:279). Stefansson and Natkusiak assured them that they had originated from the southwest but were arriving from the southeast simply because they had been visiting the Haneragmiut to the south. Stefansson added that they belonged to the same group of people who had visited several years before in a large schooner--the Olga. The three hunters remembered the Olga and had liked its crew. 

First White Men

Willam Kuptana. The first encounter with white men was at Kangiqyuak[Prince Albert Sound]... That was the first time they ever saw white people. The white people were Billy Banksland[Natkusiak--actually an Inuk from Alaska] and his partner. That was also the first time the rifle was introduced to the Inuit. He advised the Inuit that the gun was dangerous. He told the Inuit not the handle the rifles.

Incidentally, the herd of caribou were crossing from Banks Island to Victoria Island near the settlement where the Inuit were camped. Billy Banksland's partner ran forward to intercept the herd. He then abruptly aimed and fired the rifle and struck down one caribou. At that instance, the Inuit immediately rushed to the caribou that was shot down. In no time at all, the fresh killed carcass was devoured by the Inuit. 

The white man started in disbelief at the way the carcass disappeared so swiftly. The reason the Inuit devoured the caribou so quickly was because it was a change in diet. Their main staple food all winter was seal meat. 

Ursus americanus Pallas. Black Bear. 

The Black Bear is very common along the Athabaska River, and we saw eight Bears in less than four hours of drifting on the river below the Grand Rapids, May 14th , 1908. This part of the Atha baska has the reputation of being the best place for Black Bears in North America. They are seen most abundantly just after the ice goes out in the spring and they come down to the edge of the river to look for dead fish which have been pushed up by the ice . In the fall the tangled brushy slopes along the Athabaska are said to be much frequented by Black Bears which feed largely on blueberries at that season . It is, however, more difficult to see the Bears in autumn on account of the thickness of the underbrush . Black Bears are said by the Indians to be fairly common around Great Bear Lake and occasionally north to the Mackenzie delta . 

Ursus richardsoni Swainson . Barren Ground Bear. Ak'lak (Es kimo name for Brown Bear from Bering Sea to Coronation Gulf). 

Brown Bears, or Grizzlies, are found sparingly throughout the Arctic mainland from western Alaska to Coronation Gulf. There are undoubtedly two or three races or species in this region , but, owing to lack of specimens from important localities and lack of time for critical examination of the material at hand, I am obliged to nominally refer to the Arctic Brown Bears under the above heading. In northern Alaska they do not appear to be very common on the north side of the Endicott Mountains, and seldom, if ever, come out on the coastal plains. The inland Eskimo occasionally kill specimens and often use the skin for a tent door. I saw the skins of two which were killed on the Hula-hula River, in October, 1908, by a Colville River Eskimo named Auktel'lik. Auktel'lik told me he had killed forty four Aklak in his time, and that only two of the lot came towards him and tried to attack him. From what I could learn he had not hunted very far west of the Colville or at all east of the Mackenzie. Most Eskimo, however, speak with much greater respect of the pugnacity of Aklak than of Nannuk (the Polar Bear) and are much more cautious about attacking him. On July 3d, 1912, Mr. Frederick Lambart, Engineer on the Alaska - Yukon Boundary Survey, shot a Brown Bear on the Arctic slope of the mountains on the 141st meridian, about forty - five miles from the Arctic Ocean at Demarcation Point. From three photos of the dead Bear, it appeared to be of the long -nosed type, with a pronounced hump on the shoulders. Mr. Lambart informs me that this bear has been examined by Dr. C. Hart Merriam and declared to be a new species hitherto undescribed . In the Mackenzie delta tracks of Brown Bears are occasionally seen, but the bears are seldom killed, owing to the impracticability of hunting them through the dense underbrush on the islands in summer. 

I have been warned many times by natives against shooting at a Barren Ground Bear unless from above — as a wounded bear has greater difficulty in charging uphill. So far as our experience goes, however, the Barren Ground Bear is an inoffensive and wary brute, preferring to put as much ground as possible between himself and human society. I saw but one unwounded bear come towards me, but as he did not have my scent his advance was perhaps more from mere curiosity than from hostility. As the bear was on the uninhabited coast between Cape Lyon and Dolphin and Union Straits, and he had probably never seen human beings before, this inference seems plausible . Wounded bears are another story, of course, and it is generally admitted that the Barren Ground Bears are tougher or more tenacious of life than the Polar Bears. 

We found the center of greatest abundance of the Barren Ground Bears in the country around Langton Bay and on Horton River, not more than thirty or forty miles south from Langton Bay. One was killed at Cape Lyon, and another on Dease River east of Great Bear Lake. In this region our party killed about twenty specimens, most of which were obtained on our dog-packing expeditions in early fall. The Bears here showed two very distinct types, which for convenience we designate as the long -snouted and short- snouted types. The skulls are readily separated on this basis. It is rather hard to distin guish them by color, as late summer skins are usually much bleached out. In general the long-snouted Bears were inclined to a reddish brown cast of color ( sometimes almost bay color) , while the others were often very dark —dusky brown, with tips of hairs on dorsal surface light grayish brown on fulvous, sometimes with tips a faint golden yellowish tint. The Barren Ground Bears go into hibernation about the first week of October and come out early in April while the weather is still very cold . 

While ascending the Horton River we saw at intervals the nearly fresh tracks of three Barren Ground Bears on December 29th, 1910, and January 1st, 1911, going along the river and over the shortest portages, at least forty miles in approximately a straight line. Neither the Eskimo or the Slavey Indian who were with us had ever before seen evidences of Brown Bears out of their holes in midwinter. They seem to be nearly as fat on their first emergence from their long sleep as in the fall, but speedily lose weight, and early summer specimens are invariably poor. This is natural from the nature of their food , which is to a large extent vegetable. Although the Bear's native heath is often conspicuously furrowed in many places by the unearthed burrows of Arctic spermophiles (Citellus parryi or C. p. kennicotti) I believe that the Bear's search is more for the little mammal's store of roots than for the little animal itself. The Bear's stomach is much more apt to contain masu roots (Polygonum sp. ) than flesh . A bear must needs be very active to catch enough spermophiles above ground in spring and early summer, and if carcasses are not to be found, the Bears evidently suffer most from hunger at this season, when they can neither dig roots for themselves in the frozen ground nor dig out the spermophiles and their caches. One specimen was killed by an Eskimo of our party on Dease River, east of Great Bear Lake, after the Bear had gorged himself on a cache of Caribou meat, having more than fifty pounds of fresh meat in his stomach. A few Bears were met with in the Coppermine country, but throughout the Coronation Gulf region they are apparently rare. The Eskimo say that the Aklak is not found on Victoria Island. The fact that the Barren Ground Bears seem to always have at least two cubs at a birth, that old bears are often seen followed by two young cubs and one yearling cub, and that we never saw more than one yearling cub accompanying its mother, is evidence that there must be considerable mortality among the cubs in the first year, probably during the second spring. The new -born cubs, of course , are nursing in the spring, while the older cubs presumably have to depend upon their own foraging. Otherwise these Bears have practically no enemies besides man. As there is little market for their skins, neither Eskimo nor Indians make any special effort to hunt them, the specimens obtained being in general upon summer Caribou hunts. 

Thalarctos maritimus ( Phipps) . Polar Bear. Nan'nuk (all Eskimo dialects) . 

The Polar Bear or White Bear is a circumpolar cosmopolitan, although seldom found very far from the sea ice. In winter these bears are apt to appear anywhere along the coast, but in summer their occurrence depends largely upon the proximity of pack ice. Along the Arctic coast of Alaska, east of Point Barrow , the species is not very abundant, and the same may be said of the coast east and west of the Mackenzie delta. Numbers are annually killed near Cape Bathurst. The Polar Bears seem to be most abundant around Cape Parry and the southern end of Banks Island, very rarely passing through Dolphin and Union Straits, into Coronation Gulf. Around Cape Parry, in August, 1911 , we saw fourteen Bears within two days roaming about the small rocky islands, evidently marooned when the ice left the beach. They are often seen swimming far out at While whaling about twenty miles off Cape Bathurst ( the nearest land) and about five miles from the nearest ice mass, we saw a Polar Bear which paddled along quite unconcernedly until he winded the ship, then veered away, heading out toward the ice pack . Shortly before Christmas an officer from the schooner Rosie H., with a party of Eskimo, killed a female and two newly born cubs in a hole in the snow near the mouth of Shaviovik River, west of Flaxman Island. It was said to be unusual for a Polar Bear to have cubs so early in the winter.

As with many other Inuit groups, Copper Inuit religion was more concerned with the here and now than with an afterlife. Most important was the relationship between humans and the spirits of the animals upon which humans depended for food. It was essential that the proper rituals be followed, so as not to offend these spirits, who are perceived as being much like humans. An animal spirit that had been offended through the violation of a taboo or the omission of an important ritual might decide to take revenge upon the group as a whole. Illness, starvation, or some other disaster could result. Copper Inuit observed a number of taboos which were believed to be important to maintaining good relations with the spirit world. A number of observances were related to the separation of land animals and sea animals. Copper Inuit were prohibited for cooking products of the land and sea in the same pot. Nor could they place seal meat next to caribou meat on the sleeping platform of the snow house.  Most pronounced was the prohibition against sewing caribou skin clothing during the early winter. All winter clothing had to be prepared in the fall, at the gathering places, and completed before the move to the sealing grounds on the sea ice.

In addition to believing in the spirits of animals and the shades of deceased humans, the Copper Inuit subscribe to a world inhabited by wondrous and often dangerous creatures dwarfs, giants, and Caribou people. They believed in a sea goddess (known as Sedna in other regions) who control the animals of the Seas. Arnapkapfaaluk, or 'big bad woman,' was not a benevolent goddess looking out for human beings: when offended by the violation of a taboo or some indiscriminate action, she would withhold the seals upon which people depended for survival.

Animal spirits

William Kuptana: The custom of the Eskimos is that when they take part in a hunt and make a kill, all who hunted the animal must participate in the cutting and sharing of the carcass. Those who do not follow that custom embarrass the animal spirit; therefore, it is believed that the non-participant will be hunted himself.

Death was not accompanied by elaborate ceremony. In Winter, the body was usually left behind and it's no house, while in summer, the body was wrapped in skins and left on the time go. The concept of an afterlife was not well developed. Jenness reported that it was definitely not viewed as a land of joy and plenty, but a "big and gloomy realm where, even if want and misery are not found (and of this they are not certain), joy and gladness at least must surely be unknown." (Jenness 1922: 190)

Shamans (angatkut) Served as important intermediaries between humans in the spirit world. Shamans provided a number of essential functions. They could act as healers, in the event of an illness, or could determine what taboos were violated When Animals became scarce. They were also believed to have powers for controlling the weather and warding off evil spirits. The shaman, acting as an intermediary, could communicate with animal spirits, often doing so with the aid of a spirit helper or familiar. Most angatkut claimed to have more than one helper. Jenness met one Copper Inuit shaman, Uloksak, who claimed to have a white man, a polar bear, a wolf, and a dog as helping Spirits. Shamans could be either male or female, but no matter what their gender they were expected to have some kind of visionary experience whereby a spirit helper revealed itself to the future angatkut. In their shamanistic performances, shamans may have relied upon ventriloquism and other dramatic acts to impress their audiences and demonstrate their powers. Shamans by definition are neither good nor bad. Some angatkut developed reputations for kindness and generosity;  others were greatly feared and used their powers to gain advantage over others.