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.
CHAP. XIX.
_The Greenlanders’ Astronomy, or their Thoughts concerning the Sun,
Moon, Stars, and Planets._
The notions the Greenlanders have of the origin of heavenly lights, as
Sun, Moon, and Stars, are very nonsensical; in that they pretend that
they have formerly been so many of their ancestors, who on different
accounts were lifted up to Heaven and became such glorious celestial
bodies.
Their silly stories concerning this matter have been related in the
continuation to the Greenland Memoirs, or relations, but as this book
very likely may not come to the hands of every body, I shall shortly
remember some of them here. The Moon, as they will have it, has been a
young man, called Anningait, or Anningasina; whose sister was the Sun,
named Malina, or Ajut (by which latter name they call any handsome
woman, for whom they have a value, Ajuna.) The reason (why these two
were taken up into Heaven) they give, is this: there were once a number
of young men and women assembled to play together in a house made of
snow (according to their custom in the winter season), when the Moon or
Anningait, who was deeply in love with his sister, who assisted at this
assembly, was used every night to put out the light, that he might
caress her undiscovered; but she not liking these stolen caresses, once
blackened her hands with soot, that she might mark the hands, face, and
clothes of her unknown lover, who in the dark made addresses to her, and
by that discover who he was: hence, they say, come the spots that are
observed in the moon; for as he wore a coat of a fine white rein deer
skin, it was all over besmeared with soot; hereupon Malina, or the Sun,
went out to light a bit of moss; Anningait, or the Moon, did the same,
but the flame of his moss was extinguished; this makes the Moon look
like a fiery coal, and not shine so bright as the Sun. The Moon then run
after the Sun round about the house to catch her; but she, to get rid of
him, flew up into the air, and the Moon pursuing her, did likewise; and
thus they still continue to pursue one another, though the Sun’s career
is much above that of the Moon[42].
They also tell us, that the Moon is yet obliged to seek for his
livelihood upon the earth and sea, in catching of seals, as a food he
formerly was used to; which they pretend he is doing, when he appears
not in the air: nay, they do not stick to say, that she now and then
comes down to give their wives a visit, and caress them; for which
reason no woman dare sleep lying upon her back, without she first spits
upon her fingers and rubs her belly with it.
For the same reason the young maids are afraid to stare long at the
moon, imagining they may get a child by the bargain. During the eclipse
of the sun no man dare stir out of the house; and likewise when the moon
is eclipsed, no woman goes abroad, because they fancy that both hate the
sex of the other. The sun for joy puts on her pendants, or ear-bobs; the
reason of which they take to be the hatred she bears against her
brother, which also reaches to his sex. As on the contrary, the
Greenland women wear their pendants at the birth of a boy, because so
useful a creature is come into the world. Their notion about the stars
is, that some of them have been men, and other different sorts of
animals and fishes. The faint light of some stars they attribute to
their eating the kidney; and brightness of others to their feeding upon
liver. They give also names to many stars and constellations, _viz._ the
three stars in the belt of Orion, they name Siektut, that is separated;
because these three, they say, before their metempsychosis, or rather
metamorphosis, were three honest Greenlanders, who being out at sea, a
seal catching, were bewildered, and not being able to find the shore
again, were taken up into Heaven.
Ursa Major, the great bear star, is styled by those that dwell in 64°,
Tugto, or rein deer; while they that live in the bay of Disco at 69°,
call it Asselluit, the name of a tree, to which they tie their line when
they shoot seals. Taurus, the second sign in the Zodiac, is named
Kellukturset, or kennel of hounds, who seem to have a bear among them;
by this constellation they reckon their hours by night. Iversuk, that
is, two persons that contend with songs or verses in taunting one
another, as is customary among the Greenlanders. These two stars are in
the constellation Taurus, of which heretofore, Aldebaran or Nennerroak,
that is, a light which lights the two singers. Canis Major is called
Nelleraglek, which is the name of a man amongst them; this they say has
got on a coat of rein deer’s skin. Gemini, Auriga, and Capella, are
named Killaub Kuttuk, that is, the breast bone of Heaven.
When two stars seem to meet together, they say, that they are visiting
one another; others will have it to be two women, who being rivals, take
one another by the hair.
Concerning thunder and lightning, they say that two old women live
together in one house in the air, who now and then fall out and quarrel
about a thick and stiff outstretched seal skin (because such a skin, if
beaten as a drum, has some likeness to the noise of thunder); while they
are thus by the ears together, down comes the house with great bouncing
and cracking, and the lamps are broken, the fires and broken pieces fly
about in the air, and this, in their philosophy, is thunder and
lightning.
In their astronomical system, the heaven turn about upon the point of a
huge rock. The snow, according to their fancy, is the blood of the dead,
on account that it turns reddish if you keep it in the mouth. The rain
comes from a ditch or wear above in Heaven; when it overflows there, it
rains here below.
They have no calendar or almanacks, nor do they compute or measure the
time by weeks or years, but only by months; beginning their computation
from the Sun’s first rising above their horizon in the winter; from
whence they tell the month, to know exactly the season, in which every
sort of fishes, sea animals, or birds seek the land; according to which
they order their business.
As nonsensical now as these notions of the Greenlanders are (as they in
reality are), yet they come short of the Egyptian King Ptolemy’s
infatuation, who by the loathsome flattery of his astronomers was
persuaded that his Queen Berenice’s head of hair was translated into
Heaven and astrified, if I may say so; which constellation to this day
goes by the name of Coma Berenices, or Berenice’s hair; and what
travellers relate of China and the East Indies, where some are of
opinion, that the Sun’s eclipse is nothing but that a certain devil or
sprite sometimes swallows up the Sun, and then again spews it out.
CHAP. XX.
_The Capacity of the Greenlanders, and their Inclination towards
the Knowledge of God, and the Christian Religion; and by what Means
this may easily be brought about._
As the Greenlanders are naturally very stupid and indolent; so are they
likewise very little disposed to comprehend and consider the divine
truths which we expound to them; and notwithstanding people in years
seem to approve of the Christian doctrine, yet it is with a surprising
indifference and coldness. For they can neither comprehend the miserable
condition they are in; nor do they rightly understand and value the
exceeding great mercy and loving kindness God has shown towards mankind
in his dear Son Christ Jesus, so as to move them to any desire and
longing after it; some few excepted. This is to me an undeniable
evidence that the carnally-minded man cannot comprehend the things that
belong to God; for to him they seem to be foolish, and he cannot know
them, as the Apostle speaks, 1 Cor. ii. But as they in general are so
credulous, that one can make them believe any thing, so they are
likewise in this grand affair. They never question what they are taught
of God and Christ; but at the same time it never takes any rooting in
their mind, because it passes without any consideration and feeling. For
which reason they do not contradict or dispute with us the matters
proposed; and very few have offered any objections, or desired any
difficulty to be explained. And as their behaviour is silly and
childish, so we have used the same method in teaching them, as we do to
instruct little children; inculcating the Christian truths into their
mind by frequent repetitions, and making use of simple and obvious
comparisons, which, I thank God Almighty, has not wanted his blessing.
For I have perceived in some the working of his grace in a serious
amendment of their lives; and their endeavours have been to advance in
the way to perfection, though all as yet is but a beginning and infancy,
as we have mentioned in the last year’s Memoirs or Relations of
Greenland.
It is a matter which cannot be questioned, that if you will make a
Christian out of a mere savage and wild man, you must first make him a
reasonable man, and the next step will be easier. This is authorised and
confirmed by our Saviour’s own method. He makes a beginning from the
earthly things; he proposes the mysteries of the kingdom of God in
parables and similitudes. The first care taken in the conversion of
Heathens is to remove out of the way all obstacles which may hinder
their conversion, and render them unfit to receive the Christian
doctrine, before any thing successfully can be undertaken in their
behalf.
It would contribute a great deal to forward their conversion, if they
could by degrees be brought into a settled way of life, and to abandon
this sauntering and wandering about from place to place to seek their
livelihood. But this cannot be hoped until a Christian nation comes to
be settled among them (I mean in such places where the ground is fit for
tillage and pasturage) to teach them, and by little and little accustom
them to a quiet and more useful way of life, than that which they now
follow.
They should also be kept under some discipline, and restrained from
their foolish superstitions, and from the silly tricks and wicked
impostures of their angekkuts, which ought to be altogether prohibited
and punished. Yet my meaning is, not that they, by force and constraint,
should be compelled to embrace our religion, but to use gentle methods.
Is it not allowed in the church of Christ to make use of Christian
discipline at times and seasons, with prudence and due moderation; which
is a powerful means to advance the growth of piety and devotion? How
much more is it necessary to apply the same means here to grub up an
untilled ground, where a new church is to be planted? Else it would be
the same imprudence as to throw good seed into thorns and briars, which
would choak the seed.
But as the chief fruit of our labours and teaching is to be expected
from the growing youth, so if some good regulations and small
foundations were laid for the bringing up a number of children in the
Christian faith and piety, no doubt God would prosper it; inasmuch as
these poor children and growing youth are very tractable and teachable,
and good natured; showing no inclination or propensity to vice. Neither
do they want capacity; for I have found they will take any thing as soon
as any of our own children. Now if these gifts or natural talents were
forwarded by the gifts of grace, who would question their growth and
advancement in the Christian faith and virtues, which would ripen to the
full harvest of eternal happiness? Good God! how easy a thing would it
be to help these poor wretches out of their misery, if those that God
has blessed with wealth were heavenly minded, and would be sensible of
the wretched condition of their fellow creatures, and contribute out of
their abundance to the founding of a school in these parts, and the
providing of other most necessary things!