Page:The Netsilik Eskimos (1931).djvu/280

became a spirit, the sea spirit, and she became the mother of the sea beasts, because the seals had formed out of her fingers that were cut off. And she also became mistress of everything else alive, the land beasts too, that mankind had to hunt.

In that way she obtained great power over mankind, who had despised her and thrown her into the sea. She became the most feared of all spirits, the most powerful, and the one who more than any other controls the destinies of men. For that reason almost all taboo is directed against her, though only in the dark period while the sun is low, and it is cold and windy on earth; for then life is most dangerous to live.

Nuliajuk lives in a house on the bed of the sea. At the bottom of the sea there are lands just as on the earth above the sea, and Nuliajuk lives in a house that is arranged in the same manner as those that humans live in.

In her house Nuliajuk lives remote from all, hasty in her anger and terrible in her might when she wishes to punish mankind. She notices every little breach of taboo, for she knows everything. Whenever people have been indifferent towards her by not observing taboo. she hides all the animals; the seals she shuts up in her iɳ·aut: a drip-basin that she has under her lamp. As long as they are inside it, there are no animals to hunt in the sea, and mankind has to starve; the shamans then have to summon their helping spirits and conjure her to be kind again. Some shamans are content to let their helping spirits work for mankind, they themselves remaining in their houses summoning and conjuring in a trance, whereas others rush down to her themselves to fight her, to overcome her and appease her. But there are also some who draw Nuliajuk herself up to the surface of the land. They do it in this way: they make a hook fast to the end of a long seal thong and throw it out of the entrance passage: the spirits set the hook fast in her, and the shaman hauls her up into the passage. There everybody can hear her speaking. But the entrance from the passage into the living room must be closed with a block of snow, and this block, uᵛkuᴀq, Nuliajuk keeps on trying to break into pieces in order to get into the house to frighten everybody to death. And there is great fear in the house. But the shaman watches the uᵛkuᴀq, and so Nuliajuk never gets into the house. Only when she has promised the shaman to release all the seals into the sea again does he take her off the hook and allow her to go down into the depths again.

In that way a shaman, who is only a human being, can subdue Nuliajuk and save people from hunger and misery by means of his words and his helping spirits.