People of the Deer

by Farley Mowat

  The lesser Tornrait may be encountered quite by accident, though. Thus it happened that when Hana was out hunting one day he met what he believed to be a demon. He describes it as a rather squat animal-thing, with immense hairs on its snout and with a single paw that extended half the length of the body. This apparition attacked Hana, who bravely flung down his bow and grappled with the monstrous being. After an exhausting fight, the Tornrak—for such it was—gave up the struggle, and ever afterwards served as the personal Tornrak of Hana, to the man’s great advantage.

  There is a revealing sidelight, both on the Tornrait and on the minds of the Ihalmiut, in the relationship maintained between the helping spirits and men. If it happens, as it sometimes does, that a Tornrak is incapable of assisting its friend, then the man assumes that the spirit is simply bone-lazy, and with no further nonsense he sends it packing and the fallible spirit goes weeping off into the plains, out of a job.

  It is impossible to talk about the Ihalmiut spirits and devils without also talking about the shamans. These dedicated men are the chief physical defense of the People against evil spirits, and so they must be particularly strong and well armed. As an almost invariable rule they are the most intelligent men of each generation, and so they supply whatever nebulous leadership is present in the Ihalmiut society. They are not sorcerers, as many missionaries would have us believe, for, at least in the Ihalmiut country—Kakumee excepted—they work no evil but concentrate on assisting the People for the People’s own good. And they make few extravagant claims. They do not say they can provide good hunting, for the Ihalmiut believe all animals have the gift of free will, and neither the wishes of men nor those of gods will influence the movements of beasts. Nor do the shamans claim to be able to control the weather, for this is Kaila’s province, and Kaila does not listen patiently to the begging voices of men.

  However, the shamans can, and do, assist men with particular problems. By passing into a trance and conferring with their Tornrait, the shamans can give advice on whether or not a dangerous winter trip should be attempted. They can often relieve a man of a mysterious illness and they can advise on all manner of domestic and practical problems. These things are their strength, for by virtue of their experience and intelligence they can materially assist their People, whether or not they do it by supernatural means. At the same time they are seldom so all-powerful that they come to stand head and shoulders above the rest of the Ihalmiut. A man who is too efficient, or too powerful, is not liked by the Innuit and this applies even to shamans, who exist to serve men, not to control them.

  The shaman’s trance provides the psychological background essential to any religion and is sometimes a formidable thing to behold, even if the onlooker is white and skeptical. There is a minimum of mummery and stage setting. While the People sit in a circle about the floor of a tent, the shaman may take his drum and with half-closed eyes shuffle about, singing a song in the ancient shaman language. The audience carries the chant, as in a drum dance, but much more softly.

  At last there is a break in the drumming and the shaman collapses in a heap on the floor and a palpable silence ensues for some minutes. Then voices may be heard. The voice of the shaman is followed by the voice of his Tornrak—a strange and eerie sound which, so it seems, could not come from the throat of a man.

  The awakening is sometimes exceedingly violent and exciting. The shaman may leap to his feet and be possessed with a quite inexplicable physical strength. Half a dozen men may not be able to hold him at all, and he may break through the wall of the tent and disappear into the darkness, to come back streaming with blood and in the last stages of exhaustion. In the after-grip of the trance, a shaman may do himself bodily harm which would be fatal to an ordinary man. Yet he invariably recovers from such self-inflicted wounds.

  But awakenings are not usually so bloody and violent. In most cases, the shaman returns to this life quietly, and as quietly tells his audience what he has seen and heard. If there has been trouble in the camp, the shaman may say his Tornrak has told him that someone has broken a tabu. Then there ensues a mass confession. All the onlookers confess their sins and so ease their consciences.

  Certain individual shamans are gifted with unusual powers. One of these is a young man, nineteen or twenty years old, who once was of the Ihalmiut, but who now lives near the coast. He is a shaman of note, for he has the hypnotic ability to fill the tent, where a seance is being held, with deer, wolves, bears, and even seagoing beasts such as walrus and seals. On occasion he has conjured up such a menagerie that the audience has been crowded right out. It happens there is an independent trader who lives near this Eskimo camp, and one day this trader made the tactical error of doubting the shaman’s ability when the young man was visiting the post. Quick as a wink, the young Eskimo conjured up the formidable steel prow of the Mission Ship, Stella Polaris, and brought it crashing through the wall of the cabin with such ferocious realism that the trader fled for his life, yelping with fright.

  This tale is told with great gusto and joy by the Dhaeomiut, but unfortunately I didn’t witness it myself. However, I did watch Kakumee at work on one of the other tasks of a shaman, the chasing away of an evil spirit.

  Again it was a summer night when we were visited by an Ino, but this time the incident took place while we were entertaining Kakumee and some other Ihalmiut in our tent out on the Barrens. I never discovered just who saw what, before our quiet evening of gossip was interrupted by a startled rush of all the Eskimos, except Kakumee, for cover under bedrolls, blankets and anything else that could be found in the tent. By then Andy and I had grown moderately used to such erratic behavior, and we could observe what happened without the distraction of being thrown into a flap ourselves.

  Kakumee stood his ground in the middle of the tent and stared at the doorway, mumbling like an old dog that catches the scent of a wolf. The others trembled visibly—at least the parts of them which were exposed trembled visibly—and so we assumed another ghost was in the vicinity.

  The first shock wore off almost at once, and the fugitives crawled out from cover looking both sheepish and scared. Kakumee now sat them in a circle about him, and he went from one to the other holding out his outstretched hand. Each man gave the shaman some small object—a pinch of tobacco, an empty brass shell case, or a match. We contributed a pinch of sugar and a .22 bullet.

  Kakumee now squatted on his hams and spread the gifts out under his parka skirts, then stood up to reveal that the objects had vanished. It was simple conjuring, and not very effective, but it was obviously only part of a ritual which must be undergone before the shaman could get down to serious work.

  Kakumee’s next step was to borrow a rifle from me and make a great show of loading it with an empty shell. Then he closed the breech, stepped to the door, pointed the gun into the darkness and pressed the trigger. The Eskimos knew what was coming, but we didn’t, and the blast of a very live shell caused us to leap several inches into the air, to the great satisfaction of Kakumee and the other Ihalmiut.

  This ended the preparatory part of the show. Kakumee now drew his knife—a long ugly weapon—and stepped outside.

  He was gone for a good half-hour. Occasionally we could hear him muttering in an incomprehensible jargon. At last he returned and calmly announced that he had met two Inua—not just one—and had done them to death, killing one with the knife and strangling the other. There was great jubilation, but somehow the whole affair didn’t seem to ring true. It was a good enough show, but it lacked telling effect. Some weeks later Ohoto admitted it was all a put-up job to satisfy the curiosity of the white men! As Ohoto told me, it would not do to fool about with a real visitation simply for our amusement, so the Eskimos had thoughtfully provided a synthetic example of ghost-hunting which would show us the ropes but involve no one in danger.

  The tools of the shaman are simple almost to the point of nonexistence. He has a staff, a short
clublike length of wood with a tapek tied to its middle; and he has something that is known to native races all over the world. Scientists call it a “bull-roarer” and the Ihalmiut call it a memeo. It is an oval blade of thin wood with notched edges and a cord tied to one end. Whirled rapidly over one’s head, it gives off a deep-throated, mumbling roar which has the quality of ventriloquism about it, for from a few yards away it is impossible to locate the source of the sound. It is used primarily in connection with the driving out of evil from the body of a man who is afflicted with illness, or who has broken a serious tabu and feels himself in danger.

  Amongst the many Ihalmiut tabus are the laws which prohibit the making of skin clothing when there is no snow on the ground; a prohibition against working with iron after a thunderstorm; the law which says no food may be eaten for twenty-four hours after a ghost has been seen, and numerous tabus covering the activities of a pregnant woman and governing the conduct in the camps when a death has occurred. A surprising number of these apparently senseless restrictions have a sensible basis in reality, and are not simply the rituals of the supernatural.

  One particularly valuable possession of the Ihalmiut is a stock of potent spirit songs called Irinjelo. These are passed down from parent to child and their ownership is jealously guarded, though they may be used to aid any man in the camps. Most of them are specifics to aid in the cure of certain ailments believed to be caused by ghosts of evil intent toward man.

  On one of my trips with Ootek out into the Barrens, I developed severe cramps in my stomach and became deathly sick. I was afraid of appendicitis, but there was nothing I could do to help myself except lie quietly in my tent and try not to groan with pain. Ootek was concerned. He brought me hot tea every few minutes and constantly inquired how I was feeling. Yet he seemed preoccupied and shy. It was only after some hours of indecision that Ootek could finally bring himself to speak of the point which was bothering him. Then, very tentatively, he asked me if he could try the effect of his own personal Irinjelo for stomach ailments on me. He had hesitated because he was afraid I would scorn his offer—being a white man and therefore a master of superior charms. Actually I had no faith in his charm, but I did not wish to repulse his kindness, and so I told him that I would be grateful.

  He took a tin cup filled with fresh water and, holding it carefully in front of him, began to walk slowly around the outside of the tent where I lay. As he walked he sang his Irinjelo, a monotonous dirge in a minor key. At intervals he ceased singing and addressed himself to the cup of water, urging the evil to leave me and the good to come in. All this was continued for perhaps five or ten minutes. Then Ootek returned to the tent, gave me the water, and told me to swallow it down.

  Though I was sick, I could see that he was almost abjectly afraid that I would laugh or toss the water away. He wanted very greatly to help me, but he was also deeply afraid that he was exposing both himself and his beliefs to my ridicule.

  Well, I took the water, with all proper solemnity, drank it, and was at once seized with a violent urge to urinate. I barely got out of the tent in time and the urine was so hot and painful I was almost convinced Ootek had added some irritant to the water. Still, I had not seen him do it, and anyway I could not understand how any irritant could have functioned so quickly.

  While I was engrossed in this problem, and with the burning in my loins, it suddenly dawned on me that my belly pains had vanished. Ootek was standing, watching me from the door, with a strained smile on his face. I gave him an answering grin, and he promptly beamed like an idiot and rushed off to cook me some supper.

  I suppose it was just a happy coincidence—for it was certainly not faith that cured me... not mine, at any rate. When I thanked Ootek for his aid, I also asked him what had happened, and he replied with beautiful simplicity that the good had come in with the water, and the bad had gone out with the water!

  Later that day he again showed the half-furtive attitude which had preceded my cure. This time I asked him what was the trouble, and he sheepishly told me I must on no account shoot a deer for five days, or I would myself experience the same agony as a deer that had been shot in the belly. Fortunately, no need to kill a deer arose during the next five days, and I did not feel much like putting Ootek’s injunction needlessly to the test.

  Now in this chapter I have hardly begun to delve into the spiritual beliefs of the Ihalmiut. There is a great deal more, and the whole forms a closely knit pattern which is intricately entwined with the everyday life of the People. What I have told you—seen out of the context by the eyes of strangers, and skeptical ones—may understandably have given the impression that the beliefs of the Barrens People form an incubus that overshadows their lives.

  But at no time did I feel they were haunted by devils and spirits, the products of their primitive minds. The closer I came to understanding and to a unity with the People, the more idiotic such rational conclusions would have become. It must always be remembered that the People are of their world and know nothing of us and ours, and so what seems like gross unreality to us can remain unassailably real to them. Their beliefs are a product of long centuries, and they fit the needs of their life and the shape of the land they live in.

  They believe! That is the point. And it is a point we seldom consider when we decide to force our religions upon native peoples.

  I knew an old white trapper who once lived on Southampton Island in the heart of the arctic. He is dead now, and probably rotting in hell, but I recall a remark of his when the question of converting the Eskimos to our religion was being discussed.

  “God damn it!” he cried with quite unconscious blasphemy. “What the hell good do these sky pilots do anyhow? First they smash up the Huskies’ religion, then they feed ’em a damn great Book we’ve been arguing and fighting over for about two thousand years. And what’s the result? Why the poor buggers wind up hanging on to the worst of their heathen beliefs mixed up with the worst part of ours, and the outcome is they don’t believe nothing at all, and understand less!”

  Perhaps my foul-mouthed old friend has no right to be heard on a matter of religion. But I think the Eskimos themselves have that right.

  Here is what a coast Eskimo said of our religion after he had spent a week under the ardent tutelage of a missionary. The remarks were made in an honest, if puzzled, spirit to the local trader, an intelligent man in sympathy with the natives.

  “What a life you must lead! The iqalua—the priest—has spoken to me for hours of the things you believe, your God, these devils with wings, these ghosts and spirits who live in the sky and under the ground. Truly I am amazed, and afraid. It must be only because you are a white man and gifted with great strength and wealth, that you can survive all the terrors your beliefs put upon you! These laws of your gods take no heed of the hearts of their people; these devils and spirits who watch each thing you do and judge you by the terrible standards of death; these things make me shudder with horror! Yet, though I am afraid of these things, I can be sorry for you who must live under such shadows, for you also are the sons of the Woman, and the brothers of the Innuit. I wish you well in your struggles to escape from the place you call hell!”

  The trader remembered that conversation in detail. He was not particularly pleased to find himself pitied by a heathen.

  If you feel that neither the pagan Eskimo nor the heretical trapper has any right to be heard, then you can at least listen to the words of a missionary who represents a very great faith and who spent fifty-two years of his life in the midst of an Indian people who were pagan when he first arrived.

  I came to know him well, to respect him and to feel a great fondness for him, since he was, above all things, an upright man and an honest man, and he worked as I have never seen any man work for the glory of God and of his Church.

  When I knew him, his life was near its end and he died a few months after I left his little settlement. He had labored ha
rd, with love, with belief and with severity, to accomplish his task. Now the task was done. All the Indians in his area came regularly to the Church and called themselves Christians. But in the fifty-odd years when he was the real power in the land, the old man watched a virile tribe of nearly three thousand people shrink to a passionless remnant of less than two thousand. Those who remained were lazy, shiftless, mentally and physically disabled men and women who lived in squalor and died in filth.

  His task was done. On a midnight just before the celebration of Christmas, I was sitting in his little log home. Our talk had come to an end. The old man stared past me out the dark windows, and down his cheeks that had been tortured by frost and wizened by sun over the long painful years of his labors, tears fell slowly.

  The silence was a palpable thing and I was desperately uncomfortable. Earlier that evening I had come to his house with a bitter anger against him in my heart, having spent that day in a hogpen of the people of the place, and having heard some tales that I do not care to repeat.

  I had spoken bluntly and cruelly to the old man, and I had been both unfair and thoughtless. Yet he had not reproached me. He had not flung texts in my face and sent me away. He had listened quietly to my angry words of condemnation and when I was done he had talked, ramblingly and without evident purpose, of his life in the land. He had spoken, using an old man’s disconnected words, of the memories of his long life. Then he had ceased talking, and now he wept.

  I wanted to leave, for I felt sick with shame at what I thought I had done by my violent attack on the work of his years, but before I could go, his voice came stealthily back into the room. It was soft, yet older than any voice I have heard.