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"I suppose not," returned Rooney, with a feeling of doubt, which, however, he took care to hide. "What like is this great wise man very big, I suppose?" "No, he is not big, but he is not small. He is middling, and very strong, like the bear; very active and supple, like the seal or the white fox; and very swift, like the deer and very different from other angekoks."
When, for example, some spell was to be tried on a sick relative, and any of those who had been taught something of Christianity opposed it, they were reproached with hating the invalid, and wishing him dead. Another source of seduction to the half-informed heathen, was the use which the Angekoks made of the little knowledge of Christianity which they had obtained.
They assert that, on Torngarsuk appearing in answer to their earnest petition, they shriek aloud, and die from fear. At the end of three days they come to life again, and receive a torngak, who takes them forthwith on a journey to heaven and hell, after which they return home full-fledged angekoks, prepared to bless their fellows, and guide them with their counsels.
The same authority also informs us that angekoks "speak in a metaphorical style sometimes, in order to exhibit their assumed superiority in learning and penetration." It will not be expected, therefore, that our translation should convey more than a general idea of the combat. Ujarak's first act, after bounding into the ring and drumming, was to glare at his adversary.
This malevolent woman was supposed to live in a great house under the ocean, in which by the power of her spells she enthralled and imprisoned many of the sea monsters and birds, thus causing scarcity of food among the Eskimos. The angekoks claimed to have the power of remedying this state of things by paying a visit to the abode of the Fury.
With much affectation of confidence, the wizard replied that there were two kinds of men who were fit to be angekoks men with weak minds and warm hearts, or men with strong minds and cold hearts. "And have you the strong mind?" asked Ippegoo. "Yes, of course, very strong and also the cold heart," replied Ujarak.
Before they left the ship Drachart reminded them of what he had taught them, and recommended to them every morning when they rose, and every evening before they went to sleep, to think on the Saviour and his sufferings; and exhorted them, when any wicked thoughts should arise in their minds theft, adultery, or murder, or any other bad thing they had heard from their youth up from the Angekoks their teachers that they should pray to him that he would take them away, adding, "if you thus turn to Jesus and diligently seek to him, then you will no more belong to the heathen, but to the Saviour, who will receive you as his own, and write your names among the faithful."
"Oh! he is one of your wise men, is he?" returned Rooney, with an involuntary shrug of his shoulders, for he had heard and seen enough during his residence at the settlements to convince him that the angekoks, or sorcerers, or wise men of the Eskimos, were mostly a set of clever charlatans, like the medicine-men of the North American Indians, who practised on the credulity and superstition of their fellow-men in order to gain their own ends.
They rose immediately, and left the hut. "Now," said Okiok, "Angut may speak. There are none but safe tongues here. My boys are good, but their tongues wag too freely." "Yes, they wag too freely," echoed Mrs Okiok, with a nod. Thus freed from the danger of being misreported, Angut turned to the seaman, and said "I deny that I am an angekok, because angekoks are deceivers.
But the Angekoks had assumed a secular power, which they did not possess in Greenland, and exercised at once the office of priest and a chief, of a sorcerer, a thief, and a murderer. Of this several examples will be found in the subsequent narrative, as well as instances of their ridiculous incantations: the females, in some cases, showed the authority and influence of their husbands.
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