Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 10 (North American).djvu/45

Rh images reflecting the intimate habits of a people whose every member is a butcher—blubber and entrails and warm blood, bones and the foulness of parasites and decay: these replace the tenderer images suggested to the minds of peoples who dwell in flowered and verdured lands.

For the Eskimo, as for all savage people, the world is upheld by invisible powers. Everything in nature has its Inua, its "owner" or "indweller"; stones and animals have their Inue, the air has an Inua, there is even an Inua of the strength or the appetite; the dead man is the Inua of his grave, the soul is the Inua of the lifeless body. Inue are separable from the objects of which they are the "owners"; normally they are invisible, but at times they appear in the form of a light or a fire—an ill-seen thing, foretokening death.

The "owners" of objects may become the helpers or guardians of men and then they are known as Tornait. Especially potent are the Inue of stones and bears; if a bear "owner" becomes the Tornak of a man, the man may be eaten by the bear and vomited up again; he then becomes an Angakok, or shaman, with the bear for his helper. Men or women with many or powerful Tornait are of the class of Angakut, endowed with magical and healing power and with eyes that see hidden things.

The Greenlanders had a vague belief in a being, Tornarsuk, the Great Tornak, or ruler of the Tornait, through whom the Angakut obtained their control over their helpers; but a like belief seems not to have been prevalent on the continent. In the spiritual economy of the Eskimo, the chief place is held by a woman-being, the Old Woman of the Sea,—Nerrivik, the "Food Dish," the north Greenlanders call her,—while Sedna is a mainland name for her. Once she was a mortal woman; a petrel wooed her with entrancing song and carried