Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/797

Rh Only those who have been good and brave on the earth escape Sedna, and lead happy lives in the upper-land of Kudliwun. This land is full of reindeer; it is never cold there, and snow and ice never visit it. Those, also, who have died a violent death may go into the fields of the blessed. But whoever has been with Sedna must always stay in the land of Adliwun, and hunt whales and walruses. With all the other evil spirits, Sedna now lingers in the fall among the Innuit. But, while the others fill the air and the water, she rises from under the ground.

It is then a busy season for the wizards. In every hut we may hear singing and praying, and conjuring of the spirits is going on in every house. The lamps burn low. The wizard sits in a mystic gloom in the back part of the hut. He has thrown off his outer coat and drawn the hood of his inner garment over his head. Muttering undistinguishable words, he throws his arms feverishly around his body. He utters sounds which it is hard to ascribe to a human voice. At last the guardian spirit responds to the invocation. The Angeko lies in a trance, and when he comes to himself he promises, in incoherent phrases, the help of the good spirit against the Tupilak, and informs the credulous, affrighted Innuit how they can escape the dreaded evil.

The hardest task, that of driving away Sedna, is reserved for the most powerful wizards. A rope is coiled on the floor of a large hut, in such a manner as to leave a small opening at the top, which represents the breathing-hole of a seal. Two wizards stand by the side of it, one of them holding the seal-spear in his hand as if he were watching at the seal-hole in the winter, the other holding the harpoon-rope. Another Angeko sits in the back of the hut, whose office it is to lure Sedna up with magic song. At last Sedna comes up through the hard earth, and the Angeko hears her heavy breathing; now she emerges from the ground, and meets the wizards waiting at the hole. She is harpooned, and sinks away in angry haste, drawing after her the harpoon, to which the two men hold with all their strength. Only by a desperate effort does she tear herself away from it and return to her dwelling in Adliwun. Nothing is left with the two men but the blood-sprinkled harpoon, which they proudly show to the Innuit.

Sedna and the other evil spirits are at last driven away, and a great festival for young and old is celebrated on the next day in honor of the event. But they must still be careful, for the wounded Sedna is greatly enraged, and will seize any one whom she can find out of his hut. So, on this day, they all wear protecting amulets en the tops of their hoods.

The men assemble early in the morning in the middle of the settlements. As soon as they have all got together, they run screaming and jumping around the houses, following the course of the sun. A few, dressed in women's jackets, run in the opposite direction. They are those who were born in abnormal positions. The circuit made, they