Religion

The greatest scorn is reserved for the Great Eyebrows, the despised Krabloonak. He is less than dirt. Part of this contempt stems from the failure of the whites to recognize the good qualities of the Eskimos, and is justified, but now it is carried to the point of absurdity. "Krabloonak ayortok!" the Eskimo says, summing it up. "The white man is useless. A good for nothing."

Too many times the Inuit have watched the white man starve while they, the Eskimos, were doing nicely. 

Too many times have they seen the Eyebrows, physically softer, not knowing the country, stumble and fall, to die on the trail, while an Inuk would have thought the trip nothing but a pleasant walk.

Too many times have they seen wihte men around them--sailors, Police, traders, missionaries--not even try to hunt, but content themselves with purchases made at the trading store.

Moreover, the Eskimo asks, when the white man travels, can he go alone, as I do? No! He needs a guide! A nurse!

Can the white man build a snowhouse, or harpoon a seal, or speak Eskimo? No.

"Krabloonak ayortok!"...."The White man does not know a thing!"

The wihte man is useless, an incompetent. Then one day the Eskimo sees a prospector looking at rocks or a geologist digging up polygons, and that is the end. The white man is not only useles,s a know nothing. He is crazy.

You say to them, "Now, look here, boy. Who gave you those knives, boats, rifles?"

They will answer, "Well, before that we had our copper knives. Better, maybe. We had our kayaks. You have the material, maybe. But there's a lot we do that you can't do. For you know nothing. You are worthless."

"What about the airplanes? You watch the white man fly in the air, while the Inuit must walk."

"Oh, Falla," they laugh. "We ourselves had medicine men who could fly. This one, and that one. And without wings or engines either."

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.

Amulets, tokens, charms, magic spells, tabus...How much do the Inuit remember from the pool of common knowledge?

Once I was telling them the story of the Flood. An old man became quite excited, and finally interrupted me. Yes, he agreed, in their stories too was the legend of the Great Tide that had swamped the world, drowning all but two or three Eskimos, who had retreated to the peak of a mighty mountain. 

An Eskimo heaven also is mentioned--Kowiasokvik--The Place of Happiness. It is something like the Indians' Happy Hunting Ground, a material paradise, overflowing with game, a haven where there is no hunger, no cold, no misery, where the dogs are always fresh and the snow always the right consistency. You get to Kowiasokvik by doing what the shamans say, wearing your amulets, observing the tabus, and following the Eskimo moral code, which is quite different from ours.

Goodness, according to Eskimo standards, is not a personal but a social matter entirely. An Eskimo may be a sexual monster, a child murderer, a drunkard, a thief, a liar, and a brute. If he is a good hunter, his reputation will be unclouded. After all the Eskimos reason, he was not born for his name to grace the pages of the Alamanach de Gotha, but to kill caribou. If he kills plenty of caribou, he is a good community breadwinner, hence a good fellow, worthy of respect. What he does privately, so far as killing his children or raping his neighbor's daugter is concerned--well, that's nobody's business, really, is it? When he dies he is sure to go to the happy hunting grounds of the Eskimo hereafter. 

There is an interesting parallel here between Eskimo morality and the morality advertised in the Soviet Union, where the greatest crimes are those against the state. A man may be a brute, a contemptible character personally, but if he's thought of as a good communist, a loyal servant of the Soviet state, why, proletarian ethics takes care of it all and he's a hero. If there is a communist Kowiasokvik, he is certain of a reserved seat.

The Eskimo hunter, after death, is always provided with certain necessities, things he will need in that other hunting ground. Beside his body, on some hilltop, will be placed his knife, harpoon, and rifle, and you find these things all over the countryside, mixed with the bones that the foxes have left. Beside the bodies of women they leave stone lamps, needles, and cooking utensils. Her job in Kowiasokvik, it seems, will be the same old round of cooking, sewing, and interminably tending the recalcitrant seal-oil lamp.

One only hopes that a Chief far greater than Atanek, a Chief to whom the Inuit did not pray, may have given his welcome to the weary Eskimo hunters. Surely the Redeemer, Who came for all sinners, will not have refused the poor Inuk, the poor wanderer from the frozen steppes, whose journey certainly has been longer and harder than that endured by most men. 

At Minto the favorite magician is a woman, one Kinakia. She makes fancy amulets and fingers an Anglican prayer book. She is quite disarming when you talk with her, the soul of courtesy, and I must confess that her charms look more like rag dolls than potent idols.

But according to the people at Minto, Kinakia's medicine is powerful. Last spring a young fellow drowned in three feet of water. I was told that he had laughed at Kinakia and that the sorceress had put the "eye" on him. Another Minto Eskimo, an old man, was rash enough to sneer at Kinakia, telling her that witchcraft was strictly out of date--a thing of the past. She fixed him. One day in summer at high noon he was traveling inland when, all of a sudden, the light disappeared. He was left in total darkness and his dogs were terrified, snapping and lunging at mysterious enemies hidden along the trail. "Kinakia, pigmana ila"..."She is after me," he muttered. After a while the sun returned and the nightmare quality of the spell was gone, though the fear of it remained in the old man's memory. "Please do not say that I told you," he whispered to me. "But maybe you can stop her, eh?"

One day another Eskimo, while eating, plucked a bone arrow out of his leg. Was it a warning from Kinakia?

Another Inuk, on the trail, met a caribou with a man's head, and the monster simply laughed at his bullets, bounding away with a frightening grin on his face.

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."