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Updated: June 19, 2025
He was then called upon to say, as he affirmed that Torngak was there, how he could be mistaken. With an ingenuity that would have done credit to a Jesuit, he answered, "There is one present that keeps us back, he cannot go with us." Every person in the company being mentioned, he pointed out Jans Haven.
Okiok's further elucidation of this point was so complex that we prefer to give the reader our own explanation. Before assuming the office of an angekok or diviner, an Eskimo must procure one of the spirits of the elements for his own particular familiar spirit or torngak.
My torngak had told me to go out on the ice, far over the sea in a certain direction where I should find a great berg with many white peaks mounting up to the very sky. There, he said, I should find what I was to do. It was blowing hard at the time; also snowing and freezing. I did not wish to go, but an angekok must go forward and fear nothing when his torngak points the way. Therefore I went."
He must get into immediate communication with Torngak and learn the spirit's wishes and demands and what must be done to dispel the evil charm that Chealuk had worked by her thoughtlessness. Tauvituk was quite willing indeed anxious to do this, but he demanded to be well paid for it, and every man had to contribute some valuable pelt or article of clothing.
An old man began to cry, "Torngak moves me to say that he will tell us the cause of this storm, and the breaking of the ice, and the loss of the whale." "Let us hear," said they. "O! the sinews! O! the sinews!" replied he. Rein-deer sinews are what, according to the superstition of the country, dare not be brought near a whale.
The wizard looked at him in surprise. "What do you mean?" he asked sharply. "I mean that if the torngak you were going to get for me is no better than your own, he is a fool, and I would rather not have him." This unexpected rebellion of the worm which he had so often twisted round his finger was too much for Ujarak in his then irascible condition.
All the lights were now extinguished, for no one is allowed to witness the interview of the unfinished angekok with the torngak, nor to move a finger for fear of disturbing him. The room being now in the state which is described as darkness just visible, Ippegoo began to sing a song, in which all joined.
The Eskimo religion, like that of the Indian, is one of fear. It is only through the medium of the Angakok, or conjurer, that the people can learn what to do to keep Torngak and the lesser spirits of evil, with their varying moods, in good humor. Stewart has led some of the Eskimos to at least outwardly renounce their heathenism and profess Christianity.
He addressed them to the following effect: "That already, many years ago, many excellent people in the country beyond the great ocean, had thought of them with much love, and felt desirous that the inhabitants of the Ungava country also might hear the comfortable word of God, and be instructed in it: for they had heard that the Esquimaux here were heathen, who, through ignorance, served the Torngak, or evil spirit, and were led by him into the commission of all manner of sin, that they might hereafter be lost, and go to the place of eternal darkness and misery.
"O why won't you come to me, torngak?" demanded the poor youth, with a pitiful whine. "Because you are wise enough already," said a low voice, which startled the audience very much, and sent a thrill of alarm, not unmingled with surprise, to the hearts of Ippegoo and his master. The voice seemed to come from the outside of the hut.
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