World Views Information

During difficult times, people turned for assistance to the angakoqs to help cure the sick, control the weather, or improve the hunting. Angakoqs were both men and women. One could not, however, just choose to be a shaman; this was a role to which you were born.
 
Kaj Birket-Smith writes that “an Eskimo almost never becomes a shaman of his own free will; it is sila [or nature and the spiritual universe] or the spirits themselves who, through dreams or some other manner, appoint the chosen one” (Mitchell 1996:36).

Under the guidance of an angakoq trainer, the initiate learned how to communicate with the spirit world.

Not Always for Free

Angakoqs provided help both to individuals and to the group. If someone were sick, the angakoqs would make them well; if a wife had trouble conceiving, they would appeal to the spirits to bring her a child. Angakoqs would also look out for the group as a whole, performing rituals to ensure good weather or a successful hunt. The main difference between the two services related to payment. For services rendered to individuals, the angakoq might expect to receive food or a knife. If the work was done for the benefit of the community to ensure a good hunt, for instance, it was performed for free. It seems reasonable to speculate that a good hunt was as much in the interest of the shaman as it was in the interests of the group (p. 37).

Visionary Powers

Angakoqs also possessed visionary powers. Pauta Saila of Cape Dorset once spoke of a prediction song performed by Atsiluaq, a shaman who lived several generations before the arrival of the qallunaat (white people). In 1997 he said, “At a huge gathering in a qaggiq [a large ceremonial igloo], Atsiluaq took the drum and began to sway back and forth, beating the circular instrument with a thick, rounded baton ... he began his new song:

Atsiluaq, this man
He would be called a great shaman
"Hooo ... Hoooo ... Hoooo ... Hoooo ...
There, over there
The high mountain
In the front, over there you will see
A lovely cloth
A lovely red shade
Atsiluaq, this man
He would be called a great shaman
Hoooo ... Hooo ... Hoooo ... Hoooo..."

Saila continues: “Atsiluaq was one of the last well-known shamans who saw into the future. He saw this lovely red cloth fluttering in the wind. He was telling his people that the qallunaat (white people) were coming and they will fly a flag that contains red shades. The Hudson’s Bay Company flag and the Canadian flag both contain red colours. Atsiluaq was right” (Hanson 1998:68-9).