Eskimo (Inuit) Magic

The Eskimos live in small areas along the coasts of Greenland, Canada, Alaska and
north-eastern Siberia. The name Eskimo comes from an Algonquin Indian term for
‘raw meat eaters’ which has been inaccurately applied to them. They prefer the name
Inuit (Yuit in Siberian and some Alaskan speech) which means ‘the people’. Inuit
myths mirror the experiences of those whose horizons are bounded by frozen oceans
and snowy wastes of the long winter. The Eskimo world is controlled by the Innua or
spirit powers. Every natural form including the animals and the sea itself has an
innua. Such forces sometimes assume the role of Torngak, becoming guardians of
individual Eskimos. Bears possess especially strong innua and if the spirit of a bear
becomes an Eskimo’s Torngak or guardian spirit, the Eskimo may be eaten by a bear
to be reincarnated as a shaman.
The Shaman
The shaman or Angakok is the magical man and to some extent law-interpreter of the
community. Eskimo shamanism bears strong similarities to that in Central Asia and
Siberia.
Angakoks have many powerful Torngaks as their familiar spirits. For example, it is
believed that in a previous life a shaman might have been swallowed by whale. The
processes of being dismembered by a bear, a whale or other fierce creature and then
being reassembled are relived psychically and ritually during a shaman’s initiation.
The name Torngak comes from Torngasak, the spirit who is called the Good Being by
Eskimos. Torngasak himself is often seen as a bear. But unlike other cultures, the
Inuit mythology has no single creator being nor a pantheon of deities.

Inuit Deities
The World of the Sea
Because of the importance of the sea as the source of most food, the most powerful
spirit in the Inuit cosmology was a very ancient fertility mother, the Old Woman who
lived under the Sea. She is given different names throughout the Arctic: Nerivik in
Alaska and Arnarquagssag in Greenland. The most common name is Sedna, Sea-
Mother, divinity of the sea and all sea animals.
There are different versions of her origin but all regard her as the source of the
creation of marine life. In the most common myth, Sedna was a beautiful Inuit girl
who turned away all suitors but was captivated by a handsome hunter who let his
kayak sway on the waves while he sang to her in her hut. He offered her necklaces of
ivory in the land of birds and a tent covered with the finest furs.
Sedna was lured into the canoe but her suitor was not mortal, rather a bird spirit with
the power to assume human form. She was heartbroken when she discovered the
truth. Her father, Angusta, who was searching the oceans for her, heard Sedna
weeping and rescued her in his canoe. But Kokksaut, the bird phantom, pursued them
and when Angusta refused to hand back his daughter, changed once more into a bird
and created a terrible storm.
The waves demanded the sacrifice of Sedna. Angusta become afraid that he had so
offended the sea and spirits of the air that he would be killed and he cast Sedna into
the waves.
When Sedna tried to cling to the boat, her father seized an ivory axe and cut off her
fingers. The girl sank into the water and her fingers became seals. Three times she
tried to reach the kayak but her father hacked at her wounded hands until she was
lost beneath the waters. Her knuckles became walruses and whales.
Sedna’s father returned to his tupik (tent) and fell asleep. Sedna’s dog was tied to the
ridge pole. During a high tide, the sea swallowed the tupik and both man and dog
were drowned. They have since reigned over a subterranean realm called Adliden
where the souls of the dead are imprisoned to atone for sins committed during their
lifetime, a punishment that may be temporary or last forever.
The Inuit believe that Sedna controls storms at seas and can either provide or
withhold sea creatures for the hunt. When the Eskimos do not catch seals or other
sea creatures, the shaman dives in astral or soul form to the bottom of the sea to
entreat Sedna to set the sea animals loose. He passes first through the kingdom of
the dead, then through an abyss with a wheel of ice and a boiling cauldron of seals.
The shaman finally enters a tent under the sea, furnished with the skins of the finest
sea animals. There the dark, gigantic Sedna listens to magical chants of the shaman
and tells him either that the tribe must move to another place to seek the sea
creatures or that she will send shoals to the current hunting grounds.
The World of the Sky
The Eskimo cosmology includes a celestial world above and an underworld below.
When a shaman travels to the sky realm, the joyous abode of the good dead, he asks
for assistance from the ancestors in removing sickness from an individual or sorrow
from the community.
Although the Inuit did not believe in a single supreme spirit, some tribes believed
there was one ancestral spirit who was especially responsible for each family. In the
Sky World, the seasons were reversed so that winter on Earth was summer in the
Sky. The Sun and Moon were sister and brother, Seqinek and Aningan or Akycha and
Igaluk. Their path around the heavens was seen as a perpetual race in which the
Moon, at first close to his sister the Sun, lost ground until she finally overtook him at
the end of his cycle, which explains why the Moon can be seen during the day.
The Sun is pictured as a beautiful girl who carries her torch through the sky. The
Moon Man is a great hunter who can be seen standing in front of his igloo. He has a
sledge loaded with seal skins and his team of spotted dogs occasionally chases their
prey down to Earth where they are seen as shooting stars. The Moon Man lives with
his demon cousin Irdlirvirisissong, a female trickster figure who tries to bring laughter
to travellers on the road to the heavens or those who see her on Earth. If anyone
does laugh, however, the clown woman will dry them up and devour their intestines.
The Inuit in north-west Greenland say that the constellation called the Great Bear, or
Nanook once lived on earth but was chased into the sky by a fine pack of dogs. The
dogs ran so fast that they flew up to the sky and became the Pleiades.
Across the sky, almost directly opposite the Great Bear is Casseiopia which the
Eskimo see as stones supporting a giant oil lamp. Orion is seen as three huge snow
steps, leading from Earth to Heaven. As the Aurorea Borealis or Northern Lights
dancing in the sky are seen as deceased family members as they dancing round their
fires at celestial festivals.
The movement of the stars provided information essential for a life centred on
hunting and fishing. The position of the stars indicated the time of the annual
migration of the caribous or the first appearance of the fish shoals and the coming of
the big freeze of the thaw of spring, the summer hunting of walrus and whale on the
inlets of the open sea inlets.

Eskimo Rituals of the Hunt

The sea is of greater importance as a source of food than the land to the Eskimo and
winter is the longest season. These physical factors influence the nature and timing of
the rituals. Caribou or reindeer hunting, for example, takes place chiefly in the
autumn. Tekkeitserktok, God of the Earth, is offered sacrifices at this time since he
owns all caribou.
Each form of hunting had different gods to be propitiated. For example, Nootaikok,
the sprit of icebergs, will send seals if he is called. The spirit within a living bear could
be charmed so that he might be caught and killed but such killing must only be for
need
Eskimos must appease the spirits of the animal they kill for food or there will be a bad
hunting period.. When the tribes of Hudson Bay slay a bear, they paint the head with
bright colours and sing sacred songs around it. Usually the hunter’s wife would
perform the rituals to avoid bringing down the anger of the spirit of the dead
creature. No work could be followed for three days after bearded seals were hunted
down and any discarded parts were taken back to the place the creature was caught
so that it might be reborn.
There are taboos against hunting land and sea animals at the same time. For
example, fish and meat may not be eaten on the same day. Before seal hunting,
weapons are cleansed by holding them in the smoke of burning seaweed to remove
the taint of the land.
Amulet belts of bird skulls, teeth and talons were often worn to invoke the protection
of Koodjanuk, an important spirit who was seen as a very large bird with a black
head, hooked beak and white body. He could offer protection and healing, especially
in connection with the hunting of birds whom he created.
Similar amulet belts could be created for different creatures and their guiding spirits,
such as Aumanil who guides whales to the hunting grounds. The shaman acts as
intermediary of the unseen and because he understands the secret language of
animals, can travel either to the depths of the sea or to the sky realms when a
hunting taboo has been violated.

Eskimo Festivals
Because the intense cold and darkness makes hunting almost impossible during the
harshest winter, December and January are especially favoured for festivals. On the
longest night of the year a ceremony is carried out by two shaman who go from hut
to hut, extinguishing all the lights and rekindling them from a new flame, chanting:
‘From the new sun comes light.’ The festival symbolises the return of the sun and the
promise of good hunting weather in the spring.
The Eskimo year is divided into 13 months, beginning with the winter solstice. From
this date the Moons are counted until the Moon can no longer be seen in the bright
summer nights. The Central Eskimos have a sunless month that every few years is
lost so that the solar and lunar years coincide.
Whaling festivals are important: some are elaborate, but others, like the Hudson Bay
festival, are quite simple. After the first kill of the season, the hunters and old women
representing Sedna the Old Woman of the Sea, sit within a circle of stones to eat the
first whale meat and make offerings to Sedna from whom the bounty of the seas
comes.
Other ceremonies mark the return of other animals. As the ice melts to allow the
hunting of sea animals once more, the tribal shaman will enter a trance and travel
psychically to the bottom of the sea to harpoon the Old Woman of the Sea to
persuade her to release the animals of the sea once more. This journey forms the
focus of a major festival.
In Alaska, masks play an important role in such festivals. By wearing masks of
creatures in tribal dance, representing for example the soul of the salmon, hunters
believed they would attract the souls of the salmon and thereby their physical forms
into the waiting nets.
Many magical gatherings among the Inuit were inspired by the ecstatic trances of the
shaman as he was suddenly possessed by the spirits of nature or the souls of the
dead. At such times, he would utter prophecies in the magical languages understood
by the older members of the tribe, foretelling the coming of whales, seal or caribou to
a certain area.
Although the shaman played a central role in tribal divination, other members of the
tribe also followed their own personal premonitions and divinatory practices.
Information was given in the dreams of non-shamans. Experienced hunters could
also, they believed, understand the language of the animals and birds and so know
where the best hunting was to be found.
Drum festivals are considered an especially powerful form of magic and often take
place not only in the home village but also around the hunting localities where special
festival houses of snow are built. Eskimo shamanism is a drum religion, where a
shaman drums until the spirits come in and speak through him, the drum calling the
spirits to the earth. Dancing of the tribe echoes the drum beat, usually a tambour
with a handle beaten with a drumstick and sometimes rattles made of puffin beaks.