Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 9, 2025
All the voices sounded much like the Angakok's, and they all said what a great medicine man the Angakok was, and how every one in the village must be sure to do what he told them to! At last the Angakok himself spoke, in his own voice. "I will tell you how I make these strange journeys," he said. "My body is now lying on the floor at your feet. Now I begin to rise. You cannot see me.
"Take the stomach, by all means, then," said Kesshoo, politely. Koolee and Monnie looked very much disappointed. They wanted the stomach dreadfully. But the Angakok answered, "Since you urge me, I will take the stomach. I had a dream last night, and in the dream I was told by my Tornak that today I should feed upon a reindeer's stomach, given me by one of my grateful children.
While all this was going on down on the beach, the men took their salmon spears and went up the river, and Koko and the twins went with them. The wives of the Angakok went to find moss to feed the fire. They brought back great armfuls of it, and put it beside the fireplace. Koolee was the cook. She stayed on the beach and looked after the babies and the dogs, and the fire.
Then you will see what you owe to the skill and faithfulness of your Angakok!" All the people looked very solemn, and nodded their heads. The Angakok went on. "You must know that in the depths of the underworld, far beyond the beautiful abode of the Spirits of the Dead, lives the Old Woman of the Sea! "There she sits forever and forever beside a monstrous lamp.
"At the time of my journey she had kept all the creatures for so long a time in her saucer that you and many others were nearly dead for lack of food." "It was then that I prepared myself for the perils of this journey to the underworld. I called my Tornak, or guiding spirit, to lead my steps. Without his Tornak an Angakok can do nothing. The Tornak came at once in answer to my call.
This, then, was the cause of their trouble. For the women to work with any part of the reindeer while the men were hunting seals was one of the greatest affronts that could be offered the Great Spirit. Torngak had been insulted and angered. He must be appeased and mollified at any cost. Tuavituk, the Angakok, it was decided, must do some conjuring.
This relieved the anxiety he felt for her, and he crawled into his sleeping bag and went to sleep, thinking that after all the judgment of the Angakok was a mere form, not to be executed literally. After some hours Bob awoke. The wind was blowing a gale outside. He could hear it quite distinctly.
One of the Eskimos, Tuavituk by name, was an Angakok, or conjurer, and claimed to possess special powers which permitted him to communicate with Torngak, the Great Spirit who ruled their fortunes just as the Manitou rules the fortunes of the Indians.
They saw the Sun, overclouded and nigh to death in winter, come to its birth again each year; they saw the Vegetation shoot forth anew in spring the revival of the spirit of the Earth; the endless breeding of the Animals, the strange transformations of Worms and Insects; the obviously new life taken on by boys and girls at puberty; the same at a later age when the novice was transformed into the medicine-man the choupan into the angakok among the Esquimaux, the Dacotah youth into the wakan among the Red Indians; and they felt in their sub-conscious way the same everlasting forces of rebirth and transformation working within themselves.
Soon a heavy body was heard to strike the floor with a dull thud, and a strange voice said, "Who calls me?" Another voice said, "You are called, mighty spirits, to tell these children of the labors of their Angakok." Then began all sorts of strange noises, as of different persons speaking.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking