The Religion, or rather Superstition, of the Greenlanders.

THE Greenlanders’ ignorance of a Creator would make one believe they were atheists, or rather naturalists. For, when they have been asked from whence they thought that Heaven and Earth had their origin, they have answered nothing, but that it had always been so. But if we consider, that they have some notion of the immortality of souls[36], and that there is another much happier life after this; moreover, as they are addicted to different kinds of superstition, and that they hold there is a Spiritual Being, which they call Torngarsuk, to whom they ascribe a supernatural power, though not the creation or the production of creatures (of whose origin they tell many absurd and ridiculous stories), all this, I say, supposes some sort of worship; although they do not themselves, out of their brutish stupidity, understand or infer so much, or make use of the light of nature and the remaining spark of the image of God in their souls, to consider the invisible being of God by his visible works, which is the creation of the world.—Rom. i. For which reason, instead of attaining the knowledge of God and true religion, they are unhappily fallen into many gross superstitions.

But notwithstanding that all these superstitions are authorized by, and grounded upon the notion they have of him they call Torngarsuk, whom their lying angekuts or prophets hold for their oracle, whom they consult on all occasions, yet the commonalty know little or nothing of him, except the name only: nay even the angekuts themselves are divided in the whimsical ideas they have formed of his being; some saying he is without any form or shape; others giving him that of a bear, others again pretending he has a large body and but one arm; and some make him as little as a finger. There are those who hold he is immortal, and others, that a puff of wind can kill him. They assign him his abode in the lower regions of the Earth, where they tell you there is constantly fine sunshiny weather, good water, deer, and fowls in abundance. They also say he lives in the water; wherefore, when they come to any water, of which they have not drank before, and there be any old man in the company, they make him drink first, in order to take away its Torngarsuk, or the malignant quality of the water, which might make them sick and kill them. They hold furthermore, that a spirit resides in the air, which they name Innertirrirsok, that is, the Moderator or Restrainer, because it is pursuant to his order, that the angekuts command the people to restrain or abstain from certain things or actions, that they may not come into harm’s way. According to their theology, or mythology, there is yet one spirit, harbinger of the air, whom they stile Erloersortok, which signifies a Gutter, because he guts the deceased, and feeds upon their intestines. His countenance, they say, is very ghastly and haggard, hollow eyes and cheeks, like a body that is starved.

Each element has its governor or president, which they call InnuÆ[37]; from whence the angekuts receive their torngak, or familiar spirits. For every angekkok has a torngak, who attends him, after he has ten times conjured in the dark.

Some have their own deceased parents for their torngak, and others get theirs out of some of our nation, who they say discharge their fire arms when they wait before the entry of the place where the angekkok performs his conjuration. Whether Torngak and Torngarsuk be one and the same thing I shall not decide; but certain it is, that one is derived from the other. From Torngarsuk the angekuts pretend they learn the art of conjuring; which they are taught in this method. If one aspires to the office of an angekkok, and has a mind to be initiated into these mysteries, he must retire from the rest of mankind, into some remote place, from all commerce; there he must look for a large stone, near which he must sit down and invoke Torngarsuk, who, without delay, presents himself before him. This presence so terrifies the new candidate of angekutism, that he immediately sicken, swoons away, and dies; and in this condition he lies for three whole days; and then he comes to life again, arises in a newness of life, and betakes himself to his home again. The science of an angekkok consists of three things. 1. That he mutters certain spells over sick people, in order to make them recover their former health. 2. He communes with Torngarsuk, and from him receives instruction, to give people advice what course they are to take in affairs, that they may have success, and prosper therein. 3. He is by the same informed of the time and cause of any body’s death; or for what reason any body comes to an untimely and uncommon end; and if any fatality shall befal a man. And though this lying spirit of the angekuts is oftentimes found out by their gross mistakes, when the events do not answer their false predictions, as commonly happens; yet, for all that, they are in great honour and esteem among this stupid and ignorant nation, insomuch that nobody ever dare refuse the strictest obedience to what they command him in the name of Torngarsuk, fearing, that, in case of disobedience, some great affliction and misfortune may happen to him. Among many other fibs, and most impudent lies, they make also these silly stupid wretches believe, that they can, with hands and feet tied, mount up to Heaven, and see how matters stand there; and likewise descend to Hell, or the lower regions of the Earth, where the fierce Torngarsuk keeps his court. A young angekkok must not undertake this journey but in the fall of the year, by reason, that then the lowermost Heaven, which they take the rainbow to be, is nearest to the Earth.

The farce or imposture is thus acted: a number of spectators assemble in the evening at one of their houses, where, after it is grown dark, every one being seated, the angekkok causes himself to be tied, his head between his legs and his hands behind his back, and a drum is laid at his side; thereupon, after the windows are shut and the light put out, the assembly sings a ditty, which, they say, is the composition of their ancestors; when they have done singing the angekkok begins with conjuring, muttering, and brawling; invokes Torngarsuk, who instantly presents himself, and converses with him (here the masterly juggler knows how to play his trick, in changing the tone of his voice, and counterfeiting one different from his own, which makes the too credulous hearers believe, that this counterfeited voice is that of Torngarsuk, who converses with the angekkok.) In the mean while he works himself loose, and, as they believe, mounts up into Heaven through the roof of the house, and passes through the air till he arrives into the highest of heavens, where the souls of angekkut poglit, that is, the chief angekkuts, reside, by whom he gets information of all he wants to know. And all this is done in the twinkling of an eye.

Concerning the angekkut poglit, whom we just now mentioned, as they pass for the heads of the clergy, and are reckoned the most eminent and wisest of all, they also must pass through the inferior orders, and several hard trials, before they can attain to this high degree of pre-eminency; for none is deemed worthy of such a dignity, but he that has made his noviciateship in the lower rank, as an ordinary angekkok. The trial he must undergo, is this: they tie his hands and feet, as aforesaid, and after the light is put out, and they are all left in darkness (that nobody may see how the trick is played, and their imposture be discovered), then they pretend that a white bear enters the room, takes hold of his great toe with his teeth, and dragging him along to the sea shore, jumps with him into the sea, where a morse is ready, and takes hold of him by his privy parts, devouring him, together with the white bear. A little while after all his bones are thrown in upon the floor, one after another, not one missing; and then his soul rises up off the ground, which gathers the bones, and animates the whole body again, and up starts the man, a hale and entire as ever he was; and thus he is made an angekkok poglik.

The angekkuts, as before observed, are kept in great honour and esteem, and beloved and cherished as a wise and useful set of men; they are also well rewarded for their service, when it is wanted. But, on the contrary, there is another sort of conjurers or sorcerers, especially some decrepid old women, which they call illiseersut, or witches, who persuade themselves and others, that, by the virtue of their spells and witchcraft they can hurt people in their life and goods. These are not upon the same footing with the angekkuts; for as soon as any one incurs only the suspicion of such demeanor, he or she is hated and detested by every body, and at last made away with, without mercy, as a plague to mankind, and not deemed worthy to live.

Moreover the angekkuts abuse the people’s credulity, making them believe, that they can cure all sorts of diseases; though they apply such remedies as have no virtue in them to cure, such as muttering of spells, and blowing upon the sick bodies; wherein they resemble to a hair those conjurers of which the prophet Isaiah speaks, chapter viii, verse 19.

And if by chance any one, who has been under these jugglers’ hands, recovers, they do not fail to ascribe it to the virtue of their juggling tricks. At times they use this way of curing the sick; they lay him upon his back, and tie a ribbon, or a string, round his head, having a stick fastened to the other end of the string, with which they lift up the sick person’s head from the ground, and let it down again; and at every lift he communes with his Torgak, or familiar spirit, about the state of the patient, whether he shall recover or not; now, if his head is heavy in lifting it, it is with them a sign of death; if light, of recovery[38]. Notwithstanding all this, I am loth to believe, that, in these spells and conjurings, there is any real commerce with the devil; for to me it clearly appears, that there is nothing in it but mere fibs, juggling tricks, and impostures, made use of by these crafty fellows for the sake of filthy lucre, for they are well paid for their pains. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied, but that the evil spirit has a hand in all this, and is the chief actor upon this stage, to keep these poor wretches in their chains, and hinder them from coming to the true knowledge of God.

The angekkuts can also persuade whom they please, that they have no souls, especially if they are in a bad state of health, pretending they have the power to create new souls in them, provided they pay them well for it, which the ignorant fools are very willing to do. They prescribe to all rules of conduct and behaviour in different cases, which rules none dare refuse to live up to with the greatest exactness imaginable; as for example, if any dies in a house, those of the house cannot, for a set time, do all sorts of work; especially the relations of the deceased are obliged to abstain, not only from certain works, but likewise from certain victuals.

If a patient be under the hands of an angekkok, he must live by rule, which they are accustomed to observe so exactly, that even when we have assisted many of them with our medicaments, they have always demanded what sort of diet they were to keep. Women in childbed are to abstain from working, and from certain victuals, viz. flesh meat, which their own husbands have not taken, or that of a deer, whose entrails are not sound, but damaged. The first week after the delivery they eat nothing but fish, afterwards they are allowed meat. The bones they pick in this state must not be carried out of doors. After the first childbed, a woman is not allowed to eat of the head or liver. They must not eat in the open air. During their lying-in they have their water pails for themselves alone; if any unwittingly should drink of this water, the rest must be thrown away. Their husbands must forbear working for some weeks, neither must they drive any trade during that time: likewise if any body be sick, they do not care to meddle with any trade. They are not allowed to eat or drink bareheaded. They pull off one of their boots, and lay it under the bowl which they eat out of, to the end (as they imagine) that the infant, being a male, may become a good seal catcher. During the infancy of the child, they dare not boil any thing over the lamp, nor let any strangers light a fire with them; and many more fooleries to be observed[39]. It is customary among them for married women to wash and cleanse themselves after their months, that their husbands may not catch a distemper and die. Likewise, if they have happened to touch a dead corpse, they immediately cast away the clothes they have then on; and for this reason they always put on their old clothes when they go to a burying, in which they agree with the Jews, as in many other usages and ceremonies; for example, to bewail the loss of their virginity; to mark themselves upon their skin; to cut their hairs round the head, which the Lord forbids the Jews to do, Levit. xix. When I consider this and many other of their customs, which seem to be of a Jewish extraction, I am not far from acceding to the opinion of a certain famous writer, concerning the Americans; among whom as he found sundry Jewish rites and ceremonies, he took them to descend from Jews, or rather from some of the ten tribes of Israel, who were led into the Assyrian captivity, and afterwards dispersed into unknown countries.—See hereon Espars, 1. iv.

A superstition very common among them is, to load themselves with amulets or pomanders dangling about their necks and arms, which consist of some pieces of old wood, stones or bones, bills and claws of birds, or any thing else, which their fancy suggests to them; which amulets, according to their silly opinion, have a wonderful virtue to preserve those that wear them from diseases and other misfortunes, and gives them luck to good captures. To render barren women fertile or teeming, they take old pieces of the soles of our shoes to hang about them; for, as they take our nation to be more fertile, and of a stronger disposition of body than theirs, they fancy the virtue of our body communicates itself to our clothing.

Concerning the creation and origin of all things, they have little to say, but they think all has been as it ever will be. Nevertheless they abound in fables in regard to these matters. Their tale of the origin of mankind runs thus: at the beginning one man, viz. a Greenlander, sprung out of the ground, who got a wife out of a little hillock[40]. From these are descended lineally the Greenlanders; which may pass for a remnant, though an adulteration from the true tradition of the origin of man. But as to us foreigners, whom they stile KablunÆt (that is, of a strange extraction), they tell a most ridiculous story, importing our pedigree from a race of dogs; they say, that a Greenland woman once being in labour, brought forth at the same time both children and whelps: these last she put into an old shoe, and committed them to the mercy of the waves, with these words; Get ye gone from hence and grow up to be KablunÆts. This, they say, is the reason, why the KablunÆts always live upon the sea; and the ships, they say, have the very same shape as their shoes, being round before and behind.

The reason why men die, they tell us, is, that a woman of their nation once uttered these words; Tokkolarlutik okko pillit, sillarsoak rettulisavet, Let them die one after another; for else the world cannot hold them. Others relate it in this manner: two of the first men contended with one another, one said, Kaut sarlune unnuinnarluna, innuit tokkosarlutik; that is, Let there be day, and let there be night, and let not men die. The second said, Unnuinnarlune, kausunane, innuit tokkosinnatik; that is, Let there be nothing but night, and no day, and let men live; and after a long contention the first saying got the day. Of the origin of fishes and other sea animals they tell a ridiculous story, viz. an old man was once cutting chips off of a piece of wood; with these chips he rubbed himself between the thighs, and threw them into the sea, whereupon they immediately became fishes. But of a certain fish called hay, they derive his production from this accident, that a woman washing her hairs in her own water, a blast of wind came and carried away the clout with which she dried her hairs, and out of that clout was produced a hay fish; and for this reason they say, the flesh of this fish has got the smell of urine.

They have got no notion of any different state of souls after death; but they fancy that all the deceased go into the land of the souls, as they term it. Nevertheless they assign two retreats for departed souls, viz. some go to Heaven, others to the centre of the Earth; but this lower retirement is in their opinion the pleasantest, inasmuch as they enjoy themselves in a delicious country, where the sun shines continually, with an inexhaustible stock of all sorts of choice provision. But this is only the receptacle of such women as die in labour, and of those that, going a whale fishing, perish at sea; this being their reward, to compensate the hardships they have undergone in this life; all the rest flock to Heaven.

In the centre of the Earth, which they reckon the best place of all, they have fixed the residence of Torngarsuk and his grandame, or (as others will have it) his lady daughter, a true termagant and ghastly woman, to whose description, though already made in my continuation of the relations of Greenland, some time ago published, I shall yet allow a place in this treatise, and is as follows. She is said to dwell in the lower parts of the earth under the seas, and has the empire over all fishes and sea-animals, as unicorns, morses, seals, and the like. The bason placed under her lamp, into which the train oil of the lamp drips down, swarms with all kinds of sea fowls, swimming in and hovering about it. At the entry of her abode is a corps de garde of sea dogs, who mount the guard, and stand sentinels at her gates to keep out the crown of petitioners[41]. None can get admittance there but angekuts, provided they are accompanied by their Torngak, or familiar spirits, and not otherwise. In their journey thither they first pass through the mansions of all the souls of the deceased, which look as well, if not better, than ever they did in this world, and want for nothing. After they have passed through this region, they come to a very long, broad, and deep whirlpool, which they are to cross over, there being nothing to pass upon but a great wheel like ice, which turns about with a surprising rapidity, and by the means of this wheel the spirit helps his angekkok to get over. This difficulty being surmounted, the next thing they encounter is a large kettle, in which live seals are put to be boiled; and at last they arrive, with much ado, at the residence of the devil’s grandame, where the familiar spirit takes the angekkok by the hand through the strong guard of sea dogs. The entry is large enough, the road that leads is as narrow as a small rope, and on both sides nothing to lay hold on, or to support one; besides that, there is underneath a most frightful abyss or bottomless pit. Within this is the apartment of the infernal goddess, who offended at this unexpected visit, shows a most ghastly and wrathful countenance, pulling the hair off her head: she thereupon seizes a wet wing of a fowl, which she lights in the fire, and claps to their noses, which makes them very faint and sick, and they become her prisoners. But the enchanter or angekkok (being beforehand instructed by his Torngak, how to act his part in this dismal expedition) takes hold of her by the hair, and drubs and bangs her so long, till she loses her strength and yields; and in this combat his familiar spirit does not stand idle, but lays about her with might and main. Round the infernal goddess’s face hangs the aglerrutit (the signification of which is to be found in my son’s journals) which the angekkok endeavours to rob her of. For this is the charm, by which she draws all fishes and sea animals to her dominion, which no sooner is she deprived of, but instantly the sea animals in shoals forsake her, and resort with all speed to their wonted shelves, where the Greenlanders catch them in great plenty. When this great business is done, the angekkok with his Torngak proud of success make the best of their way home again, where they find the road smooth, and easy to what it was before.

As to the souls of the dead, in their travel to this happy country, they meet with a sharp pointed stone, upon which the angekkuts tell them they must slide or glide down upon their breech, as there is no other passage to get through, and this stone is besmeared with blood; perhaps, by this mystical or hieroglyphical image, they thereby signify the adversities and tribulations those have to struggle with, who desire to attain to happiness.