I

People and Spirits

Our ancestors say no one knew anything about spirits and there were no people who used them until after the Second Disaster. Sometime after people learned to use spirits, the aungutguhks wore wooden masks when they danced. They claimed they could drive evil spirits away from people. They believed that evil spirits could come to men and make lots of trouble. The aungutguhks (spirit users) believed they had to use a wooden face to drive off evil spirits or to keep another aungutguhk’s spirits away. They did this for men, women, and even children, as well as for themselves. When someone began to get sick Eskimos used to believe that an evil spirit caused it. They said if they drove the evil spirit away, the person would get better.

The aungutguhks could do many amazing things. They used masks for other ceremonies, too. They would demonstrate their tricks before the people. People enjoyed seeing those demonstrations. Sometimes they would make them afraid, too. The shamish, people with helping spirits, did not make other people afraid. Their spirits were helpful and the shamish could tell his spirits to help out the spirits around other people who did not know how to talk to them. Some people who were not aungutguhks or shamishes had strong spirits around them, but lots of times they did not know it. Sometimes the spirits would be near them and other times they were gone. The shamish could tell by the ceremony called “Keelah.” There were lots of stories about the shamishes and the aungutguhks. Some of them are told here.

II

Aungutguhks and Shamishes of Kauwerak

Before the missionaries came to Alaska, the Eskimo people believed in spirits. There were many different kinds of spirits and they had great power that certain people could use if they could talk to them. One kind of spirit belonged to a dead person. Another kind belonged to the animals and other things in nature. There were lots of each kind of these spirits. After the Second Disaster, when Beeueoak discovered the first spirits from the bones of the man and woman who drowned in the flooding time, many others learned to use the spirits; and more and more spirits were found in the Eskimo lands. People learned that special songs and dances made the spirits happy and they would help people who knew those things. Only certain people could talk to the spirits and bring them to places where they could be used. These people were called by the Kauwerak people aungutguhks and shamishes.

Shamishes were helped by the spirits. What they did was called “kleela.” A shamish always helped people when they had trouble. There were many women shamishes, and men, too.

In the old days, the menfolk were sometimes gone out on the ice a long time hunting seal. Maybe the weather changed and the people at home would be worried if they were coming back. Some of the womenfolk would ask a shamish to help them. The shamish would ask different women to lay down on the floor. Then she would put a strong rawhide rope around the woman’s neck — not too tight. Next, the shamish would put a water willow stick through that rope and try to lift the woman’s head off the floor. If that woman’s head came up easy and it was not heavy, then she or her husband did not have many spirits around helping them. The shamish would try out different women until one of them had a head that felt heavy and did not come up when the stick lifted the rope. Then the shamish would know there were helping spirits around that woman. Now, the shamish could talk with those spirits. Pretty soon a voice would be heard outside the window of the house. Everybody could hear it. The shamish would ask that spirit to help people. She told the spirit they wanted to find out how the hunters were doing and if they had any trouble. Pretty soon everybody would know what they wanted to find out.

The aungutguhks were very powerful and, if they were bad men people were afraid of them. They used the spirits to work for them. The spirits had to do whatever the aungutguhks told them to do. The aungutguhks tried to get more and more spirits to use all the time. The bad aungutguhks tried to kill each other when they let their own spirit fly in the air. That way, they could use the other aungutguhk’s spirits, too. There were not very many women aungutguhks. The Grandfathers did not like to see women aungutguhks. They made too much trouble and used their spirits against people more than to help others. If someone was an aungutguhk and too many people were scared of them, they tried to stay away from that man or woman. Bad aungutguhks mostly lived away from the villages or the places the families used. Aungutguhks who used their spirits to help people sometimes lived in the village. They spent lots of time in the kazghi and people respected them because they needed help from the spirits sometimes.

When an aungutguhk was going to fly to see how things were someplace else he had to do things a certain way. He would lay down on the floor after he finished singing his special songs and doing his drumming. He had on all his clothes. Then his helpers would tie up his legs real tight with a rawhide rope. They left a piece about three feet long hang off the end of his feet. They tied a sharp hatchet to the end of that piece of rope. One of the helpers would put a pair of sealskin pants around the aungutguhk’s neck with the legs hanging down over his arms. Then the helpers would pick up the aungutguhk when he was ready and throw him on the little fire burning there. The fire would go out. The aungutguhk’s body would still be there, but his spirit was going away, flying in the air. People could hear him calling out as he was going away from that place.

Sometimes that aungutguhk would be gone for a long time. His body laid there like it was dead. Sometimes he would make a little noise. People knew he was fighting with another aungutguhk then. Maybe he would get killed. They used the hatchets to fight each other. They would twist and turn and fly around each other trying to hit the other man with the weapon at the end of the rope. Sometimes the aungutguhk would get killed while he was gone. Other times, when he came back, he was hurt and his helpers would have to carry him to his house and take care of him until he felt good again. Mostly, those aungutguhks would come back without any trouble. They would holler out when they were coming near. People could hear them coming from a long way away. Pretty soon their voice would be right outside the roof. Then they would be inside. After the weapon and the flying pants were taken off, the aungutguhk would tell about what he saw or what happened to him while he was gone.

Aungutguhks did other things, too. Some of them could tell about things that were going to happen and about things in the past. They used Eskimo television to see what was happening in other places. (There are some stories about this later on.) They used masks, too, in lots of ways. One special mask was used for caribou hunting. It told how much meat there would be at the corral.

The aungutguhks of Kauwerak used beachwood to make masks. They painted them with Eskimo paint made of alder bark for red and charcoal from willows for black. Sometimes they put teeth in them carved from ivory or taken from the animals. Sometimes the aungutguhks painted their faces. They did it even if they were going to use a mask. They had different designs. There could be big and little dots or circles of red or black color. They used lines that were straight, curved, or waved and put them from their eyes, along their jaws, or sometimes on their foreheads, chins, or noses.

Some of those masks were pretty big. They could go from the top of the head to the middle of a man’s chest. They were tied with rawhide thongs around the aungutguhk’s head and around his shoulders. Other masks just covered a man’s face and tied around his head. They were usually pretty scary looking things.

The aungutguhk’s had many masks. They believed that those masks could protect them. They used to put one of them by their bed at night while they were sleeping. They believed this would keep evil spirits away from them and protect them from the spirits of other aungutguhks when they were flying around the country.

There are lots of stories about shamishes and aungutguhks. They could make a whole book. Maybe some day someone will write more of them down. There are a few here to bring understanding about the old ways to people who read them now.

III

Aungutguhks

Not so long ago, the Eskimos had aungutguhks. If they were still around today they could be bad for everybody. The aungutguhks could inflict lots of troubles on people. If they were full of hate, they could cause people to be angry and fight. They could cause people to be in pain. They could be so powerful because people were afraid of them. Then they would be the ruler of many people and families. Sometimes people would try to fight against them. The bad aungutguhks would cause sickness to come and long suffering. When the missionaries came, they drove the aungutguhks away. Most people stopped being afraid of them.

The old men and women used to say, “This will not last. Sooner or later the aungutguhks will come back. They will come back all over Alaska.” This has not happened yet.

Most of the old people still alive have seen some of the aungutguhks. Many people say the aungutguhks could not do the things the old people saw. The old people have not forgotten. They do not forget important things. These are some of the things the old people remember.

When an aungutguhk wanted to find out how other villages were doing, he would push out the bottom of a wooden pail or dish and would, then, fill it with water. The aungutguhk would look into the bucket. He could see through the bottom and look at all the villages along the coast from one coast to another. This was Eskimo television. Some of the aungutguhks were flying long before the airplane came to Alaska. They were flying over the earth, and sea, the ocean, all the way over to Siberia. They would fly up North and down to the South.

The aungutguhks knew many places to go. They knew what was going on everywhere, even though they were far fom home and many miles away from anywhere. The spirits they used were very powerful. The aungutguhk’s spirit was hard to find. Their voices could be heard from the air or in the ground. They could hurt or kill any person they did not like. The aungutguhks fought each other only when they were flying. They fought invisibly until they were exhausted. Each aungutguhk wanted to become more powerful than all the others. He wanted to be able to control their spirits and become even more powerful that way.

There was only one way an aungutguhk could tell if another man was a real aungutguhk or a false one. That was by testing the power of the other man’s spirits. The aungutguhk near each other knew who the real ones were. The most powerful aungutguhk told the others around him what they could do. He looked for other spirits to use by flying in the air at night. The aungutguhks flew long distances, even to other countries and the moon. They knew about those other places for a long time before white people came.

The Eskimo aungutguhks traveled through the air long before there were airplanes in Alaska. The aungutguhks did not burn gas. They traveled by spirit power. When they came home from their travels by air, the people could hear them yelling. It would be faint at first and last for only a few seconds. Then the people would hear it get louder and louder until the last yell would be right above a house. Then soon the aungutguhk would be on the floor of the kazghi. No one had seen or heard him come in. He would say, “Put a light in your lamp.” Then the aungutguhk would sit in the middle of the floor. He would tell stories about what he saw on his travels.

Sometimes a person might wake up from sleep one morning, after having some trouble with an aungutguhk. That person did not feel right. He knew that he had to go to another better or stronger aungutguhk than the one he had trouble with. The second aungutguhk would maybe cure the person or maybe not. The first aungutguhk had started a slow death. The second aungutguhk would try to fight it off with his spirits and to drive away the evil spirits the other aungutguhk tried to give the person.

The second aungutguhk had to be paid for his trouble. That was what aungutguhks were after. They would get paid and did not have to hunt or store up food for the wintertime. There were no other kinds of doctors to go to. If someone did not pay the aungutguhk to fight off troubles with another aungutguhk, they would be out of luck and soon die. If the aungutguhks come back, it will be like that again.

IV

Two Brothers

Two brothers went to visit Point Barrow from Tigaruk (Point Hope). They took a five-dog team. Nobody knows how many days they traveled between those two places. When they came close to Barrow, the younger brother left his right hand mitten on the trail. He did this because he knew what was going to happen.

Sometime that evening they got to the village at Point Barrow. They knew lots of aungutguhks lived there. They stopped at the edge of the village. They went to the home of a family they knew. While they were eating, someone climbed up to the window and called in, “Point Barrow people want you two brothers to come to the kazghi as soon as you are ready.”

The owner of the house called back, “They will go as soon as they eat.”

After they ate, they all went to the kazghi. When they came in, there were lots of people inside. There were places for three people on the sitting shelf. The two brothers and the man from the house climbed up.

One man took up a drum sitting in the middle of the floor. He was an aungutguhk. He soon said, “There is something I see at the trail.” It was quiet for awhile. Then he said, “It is a mitten. I will find out who it belongs to and bring it here.” The aungutguhk tried. One by one his spirits tried.

The older brother of the two visiting men had spirits, too. He watched the Point Barrow man very closely. Every time that man tried something, the older brother touched his wolverine hood. Then the other aungutguhk could not do anything. His spirits lost their power. Different aungutguhks tried to do the same thing. Each time, the older brother just pulled his hood a little. The tried, but they failed the answer.

There was a real old man laying on the shelf seat. Finally, he said, “Maybe those two brothers from Tigaruk have spirits. I will ask if they can demonstrate something to us.”

The older brother said, “Maybe my younger brother will do it.”

The younger man stepped down to the floor. “I am not too big of a shamish. I will demonstrate and let you see it. First, I want two young fellows to get me one seal flipper bone and one oogruk flipper bone. Meantime, I am going to find me mukluk string holders from sixteen mukluks. No matter who they belong to, I have to cut them off from your mukluks.”

The young man pulled his knife out and walked all along the seat shelf. He looked at the mukluk string holders. He clipped out about sixteen of them. Pretty soon the two young men returned with the bones.

The young brother laid the string holders straight out side by side, lining them up two by two. Then he put two bones on the floor behind the mukluk string holders. He stood up the small bone right close to the other bone. Then he blew on those things. All of the sudden the holders and bones became a long string of eighteen dogs, and a sled, and a man standing on the sled howling to his dogs. They were very little in size. The eighteen dogs ran faster and faster. Everytime the man hollered, the two lead dogs turned. On the fourth turn, the brother bent down and blew on the dogs and man. There was nothing on the floor to see.

Then the brother turned around and said to the people in the kazghi, “This is the way your new generation will travel after some years pass.”

The men asked the one brother where their mukluk string holders were that he had cut off. He told them, “Look at your feet.” They sure were surprised to see the string holders were all back in the right places on their mukluks.

Then the one brother told those men, “Your grandchildren will travel in the air and over the land. They will travel so fast they will be at their destination in a few hours and back home on the same day. What I have just shown you people is what will come to our country in just a few years.” Then the younger brother went back to his seat.

The older brother got down from the sitting place and went to the middle of the floor. He sat down. He told someone to take the light out of the room. They did and it was dark.

Soon a light formed in the older brother’s hand. He held the light in his hand and it was round like the moon. Soon the people could see many little things on the floor. Then the man said, “Look at my brother.” He pointed with the light he held in his hand. When the people looked, the younger brother had disappeared. When they looked back, the older brother had disappeared from sight, too.

Soon the older brother appeared on the floor again. His younger brother was there, too. He said, “We can hide from all danger. This light can work for anybody.” He showed them how. He made different people disappear and appear in the kazghi. Then he said, “If someone tries to harm us, this light is our hiding place. It protects us. We brothers have many ways to work with our spirits without drumming or using songs.” Then he nodded the light, and the younger brother appeared back on the seating shelf.

“Some of you aungutguhks could see and tell about my brother’s mitten, but you could not bring it into this place.” The older man nodded the light toward the trail. Then he pulled out the right hand mitten belonging to his brother from the air. He showed it to the room.

Next, the man asked if there was anybody sick in Point Barrow. Someone said there was a woman that had been sick for a long time. Then he asked, “How come some aungutguhk has not cured her?” Nobody answered. Then he said, “Brother, you better cure her, and make it a real good one. If she is skinny, make her normal and younger.”

The younger man came to the middle of the floor. He said to his brother, “I will need the lamp while I demonstrate for the woman.” The older man answered him. “You might as well let her be here so everyone can see what you have done to her.”

The older brother sat on the floor. He said, “All you people look at me.” When they looked at him, his face and mouth were all out of shape. When he began to talk it was in the dialect of the Shishmaref people. He said, “I came up from down the line and I left my kayak below and walked here because I ran out of smoking leaf tobacco. If anyone has any tobacco from the whalers, please give it to me so I can smoke before I can do for the sick woman.”

Someone gave him some tobacco. He took out his pipe. Then he smoked, but he never blew it out. All he did was inhale it. After that he laid his pipe into his bag. Then he motioned toward the door. A woman came in. It was that sick woman, but she was not sick anymore. She was fat, and her health was real good.

The men who were sitting in the middle of the floor had disappeared. They were sitting back on the seating shelf. The woman looked at the older man. She smiled and said, “I want you to come to my home now with your brother.” The two men went to her house and stayed with her for their visiting time.

V

The Aungutguhks of Tuksuk

One wintertime, the Kauwerak people went down to Tuksuk for tomcodding. They could not catch anything. People were getting hungry. There were lots of tomcod holes in the ice, but nothing was in them. Always before, even when they could not catch fish anyplace else, they could get them in Tuksuk.

On the cliff along the channel, there was a place that had a big black rock up on the hillside. This was where some of the aungutguhks went when they died.*

One of the men said, “Maybe those fellows up there are the ones that cause us not to get any fish. I better go up there and visit them. I’ll ask them if they can give us some fish so we can have something to eat while we are down here.” That man was an aungutguhk, himself. One of the older men said, “Alright, then you go up there and ask them.”

That man climbed up and went through the rock. He disappeared right in that rock. He stayed there quite a while. When he came out he held his parka like he was carrying something with him. When he got back down the hill to the place those people had their holes, sure enough, he had some tomcod and smelts bunched up in his parka. He dumped those fish in a fishing hole.

He said to the others, “Now you fellows try!”

The old people say they yanked out a lot of fish after that. They began to believe that the shamans in there had done that for some reason, to help them.

VI

Punginguhk and the Whales

There was a skin boat full of Eskimos going to the ship of some whalers to trade some fur for other things. In those days, it seemed the white men knew some Eskimos as well as some white men know other white men. When he saw the skin boat coming, the captain told the men there was a “witch doctor” in that skin boat. When the men climbed on the ship, one of the sailors asked the captain, “Which of the Eskimos is the witch doctor?” The captain pointed to Punginguhk. The sailor said, “He don’t look like no doctor to me!”

The captain told that sailor, “You better not make fun of him. Some of those magicians are real bad medicine and powerful.” The sailor just laughed and said, “Pooh, maybe this one is not much of a witch doctor.”

Then the captain said, “Take it easy. I hear they can understand some English, too.”

Punginguhk was walking around and looking. It seemed they were doing a good business trading. The sailor kept following him around. He laughed at him. He said, “How can an Eskimo be a true doctor? I bet he can’t even defend himself from ordinary troubles.”

Meantime, there was one Eskimo man that could understand English. He heard this sailor making fun of Punginguhk. One of the other sailors was very friendly to Punginguhk. He smiled and gave him a skinning knife. Punginguhk gave him a pair of mukluks. Pretty soon the Eskimo man that understood and talked a little English, Punginguhk, and the friendly sailor were all talking to each other. The Eskimo told Punginguhk about the sailor that was making fun of him. He asked if the shaman could do anything to the sailor for laughing at him. Punginguhk said, “We can take our interpreter and ask him if he can find out if this sailor can do any ‘witching’ himself. If he says he can, we will ask him to demonstrate it so I can see him when he does it.”

The interpreter went up to the sailor and asked him. That man said he could do “witch doctoring.” Then he told the interpreter to take him to his “witch doctor.” He told him to tell Punginguhk he didn’t believe him. He said, “I do not think you are an aungutguhk at all. Lots of white men can witch doctor and can do a lot of things many ways.” He pointed at Punginguhk, “How can an Eskimo like you be a doctor?” Then he laughed at him. That made Punginguhk mad, but he did not say anything. For a while, the interpreter and Punginguhk talked together. Meantime, the sailors were talking together and laughing and pointing at him.

Pretty soon the interpreter went to the captain. He told him about this man that was making fun of them. He told the captain that Punginguhk wanted to do a demonstration and show his power to everybody if the captain wanted him to do it.

The captain sent out the word. “Everybody in the ship should come and see the Eskimo (witch doctor) demonstrate.”

Everybody came. All the Eskimos came around. All the sailors came out on deck to see what was happening. Punginguhk talked using the interpreter. He said, “I want that man who made fun of me to cut off my head. After he cuts off my head, then he will have to let me cut his off.” He pointed to the sailor that laughed at him. “That is the man I mean.”

The sailors brought a big heavy knife. That sailor that started the trouble was not laughing any more. He said, “I don’t want to cut off that Eskimo man’s head, and he is not going to cut off mine, either.”

So, the aungutguhk told some other man to cut off his head. First he took off his parka. Underneath it, his body was naked. Now he was ready. He laid his neck on one of the covers over the holes in the deck that stood up like a table. A man cut off Punginguhk’s head from his body using the big knife. The aungutguhk reached out his hands and picked up his own head. The headless body stood there holding the head. The eyes were moving and looking at all those people who were watching him. Everybody saw it all. He was standing still and holding his head. Soon he walked over to the side of the ship. When he got to the side, he threw his head out to sea.

Then the body turned around and walked toward all the people. It seemed it was looking for the man that made fun of him. There was no sight of that man. Then the body without a head went over to his parka. A man was holding it. He gave it to the body. The aungutguhk put his arms in the sleeves, then he put the parka over his headless body. He pulled it down. When he turned around to the people, his hood was full, but the ruff was down and they could not see a face. Then the aungutguhk pulled his hood off. There he stood. His head was on and he was smiling at them. He said he wanted that sailor that laughed at him to do the same thing, but that man had disappeared.

The captain wrote about that great demonstration in the log of the whaling ship.

VII

Punginguhk on the Cutter Bear

Between 1800 and 1900 the ships of strangers began to come to Port Clarence behind Point Spencer. They came there for shelter and the ships waited until the ice began to clear out from the Bering Straits. Then they would move out for whaling.

In those days, the aungutguhks would demonstrate to show the white man their powers. There was one man called Punginguhk. He was not afraid of anything. He knew what was going on because he could tell what other people were thinking about him. He also knew what people were saying about him. Therefore, he was not afraid of anybody.

Soon the Coast Guard heard about him. They heard he was a “witch doctor.” The Captain was called Ieuksictoyuhk. The Captain said, “We have to put him in jail so he can quit this witch doctoring.” So they came and took him to a cutter named Bear.

Before they came for him with the boat, Punginguhk talked to his wife. He told her, “The cutter Bear will come. They will take me to the ship. They will take me to other white men and they will try to tell about me. They want to put me in the white man’s jail. It is like being put into a fish trap when it is outside the water.”

The next day the men came to the shore. They took him out to the ship. Before he left, Punginguhk told the people, “I will come back the very next day. Do not worry about me. I will be safe.”

The men from the ship told him they were taking him for a “trial.” Punginguhk told them, “I will do whatever you want me to.” The men had no trouble at all taking him to the cutter.

When they came up on board the Bear many sailors were standing with guns in their hands. They were ready to shoot him. The Captain put handcuffs on Punginguhk, and on one side, a leg snare with a hook on it. They took him into a little room. It had no chair or bed. In about half an hour, they brought him a meal.

A little later, about noon, about half a dozen sailors came in with guns to take him to the Captain’s place for a trial.

On that cutter was an interpreter from Cape Prince of Wales. He was an Eskimo, but he knew how to talk English. The Captain talked to Punginguhk, using his words.

The Captain asked Punginguhk if he would let go of the evil spirits of a witch doctor. The man told him “No.” Then the Captain said, “We want to find every witch doctor. We will take them away from Alaska and put them in prison for all of their life time. If they do not quit this witch doctoring, we will take everyone of them with us. You are the first one to go because you are the worst. Now, what do you think about letting your evil spirits go?”

Punginguhk answered, “No.”

The Captain turned to the sailors with the guns. “Okay, take him to the cell. Be sure to watch him all the time.”

They took him back to the little room with no chair or bed. The sailors looked at the handcuffs to see they were still locked. They hooked the leg snare on an iron ball that weighed about fifty pounds. When they went out two sailors stayed by the door outside the room. Two more sailors stayed all the time outside the Captain’s door, too.

The two guards at Punginguhk’s door kept watching him through a hole in the door. Pretty soon they got tired. They put their guns aside and made cigarettes. They lighted them. When they looked in again, Punginguhk was gone. They could see the handcuffs there and the ball. They heard him laugh, but he was invisible. They called the other guards and told them what had happened.

One of those guards went to the Captain. He told him, “The Eskimo man in the cell is gone.” The Captain ordered the sailors to look for him. He told them, “If he acts funny, shoot him.”

Soon a sailor ran out from a hallway. As he came out he was shouting. “I saw that Eskimo man in here, but he went through the door without opening it. He went through the wall!”

The Captain talked back to him. He said, “How can a man go through boards without hurting himself? You go nuts! Go find him!”

Sailors ran in all directions trying to find Punginguhk. Finally, one came and told the Captain the Eskimo man was back in the cell now.

They unlocked the door. They put the handcuffs on once more. The Captain came. He said, “If you do that again someone will shoot you. If you do that someone will kill you. You will die!”

Punginguhk just smiled at the Captain. He did not seem to be even a little bit afraid.

The Captain went out to the bridge and walked back and forth. He was thinking about the man in the cell. The Captain had a big long knife hanging at his side. Pretty soon the knife came out of his belt by itself. There was no one to hold it, but it still went away from him like someone was holding it up in the air. Pretty soon his knife came back toward him and stayed in the air. The Captain was getting afraid. He called to the mate to come out. He saw it, too. He told the Captain to go away, and they both ran into a room. The knife came in through the door and followed up to them. Then it went into the wall. Both men had big eyes when they looked at each other. They were wondering. Then they heard someone laugh somewhere in the room.

The Captain ran out to find out what was happening on the ship. When he got to the cell the guards were gone. They were running after that Eskimo man all over the ship, but they could not get him. They could see him but he was going through walls and doors. They could not do anything. As soon as they got near him, he would disappear. Then some other sailor would say, “Here he is! He is over here!”

The Captain talked to the sailors. “We better kill every witch doctor we find. That is an order. That Eskimo man is back in his cell again. First thing in the morning we will kill him.”

Early in the morning the Captain shouted to the sailors to bring the witch doctor. He asked twelve men with rifles to stand ready to shoot. They took Punginguhk right to the end of the ship. When he stood face to face with the sailors, Punginguhk took his parka off and stood up straight and smiled at them. Then he began to laugh.

The Captain ordered every sailor to be ready to shoot. Then he said, “Fire!”

They all shot, but the Eskimo man was still standing there. There was not even a wound in his breast. He stood there and waited, but he did not move. Then he began to disappear. No one could see him. All at once he was laughing from on top of the mast. He was up there looking down at them all.

The Captain ordered the men to shoot again. They aimed, pulled the triggers, but nothing came out from the guns. They reloaded them. Once more they aimed and pulled the triggers. The same thing happened. Nothing came out. Punginguhk laughed again. Now he was invisible once more. Everyone looked around. They could not see him.

One of the sailors shouted. “Captain, your knife!” There was the big knife standing straight up in the air. It seemed like someone was holding it. The knife pointed to the captain. It came slowly toward him. The Captain got so scared he ran to his cabin. Every sailor ran in different directions.

The knife came in through the wall again. The Captain ran into another room. The knife was laying on a drawer table in that place.

The Eskimo man was back in his cell again. This time they did not bother him. The Captain went to the cell with the interpreter to talk to Punginguhk. He told him, “If you will let me take you outside of Alaska, I promise I will let you go around the ship and not keep you in this cell. If you will leave us alone and not bother the sailors, I can take you outside. I will bring you back to here next spring.”

Punginguhk smiled at him. He said, “You try!”

The Captain gave the order to pull up anchor and start out. They did start, but a big wind was coming up. The old cutter could not make any headway. No matter what way she turned, the wind always was coming hard against her. The Captain gave another order: “Turn back.” As soon as the ship turned back, the wind was gone.

The men got Punginguhk. They put him in a small boat and took him back to Point Spencer to his people. They brought many useful things, things for entertainment, and different foods before they went away from the shore. When Punginguhk left the cutter, the Captain shook hands with him. He said “I will come back next spring again. Be good. Take care of yourself until the coming next spring.”

That winter Punginguhk’s wife made a parka and mukluks for the captain. She also made him warm mittens and seal skin pants. Sure enough, the next spring the cutter came back.

When the Captain came close to the beach in a wooden boat he saw lots of people sitting down on the ground. Only one man stood talking to the people. The men from the cutter went ashore. They went up to where the people were sitting. There was a man talking to the people. He had a big picture of Jesus and he was talking about it. He was so busy talking to the people he did not see the sailors coming. After he came to the end, he sure was surprised to see those men from the ship. The Captain was surprised to see the man talking was the Eskimo man, Punginguhk.

Punginguhk motioned to the Captain to kneel down and pray with him. When they finished their prayer they smiled at each other and shook hands.

The Captain broke the silence. An Eskimo interpreter was with him. He said, “It is very, very good to see you again, with your repenting from evil spirits. Now you can have peace.”

Punginguhk said, “Yes, I gave myself to your God. I do no more witch doctoring. It is a good thing the Eskimo people do not have aungutguhks with us anymore. White people would have no chance to bother us because it would be easy for us to do crimes with our false spirits. There would be no way to stop it. They are mighty and powerful with the evil spirits that they have. Someday, maybe, they will come back. I had a chance last summer to wipe out all you people in that ship, but I changed my mind. My spirits wanted to kill all of you. I said ‘No.’ I made up my mind to spare all of your lives.”

The Captain said, “I thank you lots. I know God will give you a reward for that. If not here on earth, He will reward you in a heavenly home.”

Then the Captain departed with a clean light heart.

VII

Eskimo Television

There was a shamish around Seward Peninsula who could show what it was like in other villages, other places, and far away. Many people saw his demonstrations. He would push the bottom out of a poohgoutuk (shallow wooden pail). Pretty soon he would tell people to look through the pail sitting on the floor. This one did not have water in it. It was like looking at a television set, except you had to look down and it was always a sharp picture. It was never out of focus.

When people looked through the pail it was like they were sailing in the air above the earth. They could recognize first one village and then another. Soon, they would be past the villages they knew. Then they came to new countries. They were still sailing along the coast. Then they came to big villages one after the other. Pretty soon the night began to come. It was getting dusk. Still the people watched. When the night came and it got dark they could see bright lights.

All of a sudden they came to a big town along the coast. There were countless lights and many big ships. Some had masts and some without masts. They saw the same kinds of boats that used to come to Nome and on north many years later.

After they passed the first big town, they saw another and another and another. Then the shamish said, “We saw a lot of villages and towns. We might as well come back to our place.” Then there would be no more to see in the bottomless pail but the floor underneath it. It seemed that poohgoutuk let people travel by seeing places all along the coast of Alaska clear to Seattle. Nobody knows how much farther they saw, but there were many big towns along the coast.

X

The Aungutguhk and the Doctor

A government doctor was located at a place between the end of Nook and Brevig Mission on the right end of a high bank across from Teller Mission. The spit started from there on to Nook.

The government doctor had a house with all kinds of medicine. He had lots of it. He took care of people. It did not matter if they were Eskimos or White people. People said the doctor came there to study about Eskimos. He was only put there to study for one summer.

In those days lots of Eskimos came all over for summer camping at Nook. People say the doctor was appointed by Pastor T. L. Brevig. That was why Pastor Brevig set up the location for his house between the Mission and Nook. It was, therefore, right to spend his time with the Eskimo people. Many times the oldfolk have told the story about those two doctors, one, the government man, and the other, the Eskimo aungutguhk.

That white man’s doctor did lots of work among the Eskimos. He did wonderful things. Yet, he did not believe the Eskimo doctor could do any healing. When people talked about the aungutguhk, the government doctor would say, “There is no truth in it. That Eskimo man is a false doctor.”

Many people came to see the government man because T.L. Brevig told them, “Go see this doctor. He can examine you and give you medicine to help you.”

When they came to his house, the doctor would say, “You see all those medicines? I have them all on shelves. I know I am the only one who knows what to give each one of you in order to get well. Your Eskimo doctor cannot do that. Your Eskimo doctor, no matter who he is, is nothing. He is a false doctor. He just makes believe to people. No, no, I am a doctor, not your witch doctor.”

That government doctor did not know that the aungutguhk was among the people. That aungutguhk did not like what the white doctor was saying. Every word he had said was translated and explained to them by an Eskimo interpreter.

The aungutguhk asked the other, “What do you men think about the government doctor?”

One of them said, “This man, he thinks our Eskimo aungutguhk are false doctors.”

The aungutguhk turned to the interpreter. He said, “Tell him this. ‘I will demonstrate my power to you. I will show how we Eskimo aungutguhks can cure a wound without all this medicine. I do not have medicine. I am the medicine. Me!’” The aungutguhk patted himself. “Your medicine is nothing.”

The white man said, “All right, you show me what power you have. Prove it to me how you can heal a wound. Prove to me how you can heal a sick one.”

The aungutguhk answered, “I know where is one woman sick for a long time. She is not cured yet. You gave her medicine but she is getting worse. She will die if I do not help her.”

Then the aungutguhk turned to the Eskimo people. “Now, I want two of you young fellows to get my seal-gut rain parka and one of anybody’s oogruk harpoon.” Two men went away and pretty soon they came back with the seal-gut parka and an oogruk harpoon.

The government doctor grabbed up the harpoon. It sure looked like a wicked spear to him. The aungutguhk took off his parka. He stood naked to his waist. He said, “Now, doctor, you watch every move I make. After I am done, I will spear you too, just like this man here is going to do to me.

The aungutguhk handed the harpoon to one of the young men. He stood up straight and said, “You can spear me any place, just so you miss the bladder. It is time!”

The man with the harpoon threw it right in the side of the aungutguhk and pulled the wood handle from the harpoon head. The spear point was in the flesh of the aungutguhk. He was walking back and forth. The blood was dropping out on the floor of the doctor’s house from the wound.

After the government doctor had seen it for a good look, the aungutguhk pulled the harpoon point out of his body. The blood ran out more. Then the aungutguhk wet his hand from his mouth. Next he touched his wound. He rubbed it and healed his wound with no trouble at all. Then the aungutguhk turned to the interpreter. “Tell the government doctor his time has come. Tell him to do what I did and heal his wound the way I did mine.”

Without a word, the government doctor went into another room.

While the white man’s doctor was gone, the aungutguhk cured the woman. He did it without going to her. Pretty soon she came to the government doctor’s house. She told him that this aungutguhk had cured her. The white man’s doctor did not seem very happy to hear the news.

Author’s Notes:

Some of the aungutguhks and shamishes these stories tell about, I have seen. I have seen some of the demonstrations myself. When I was a boy my grandma and grandpa used to tell these stories to me. They told of the things they had seen or heard about from the early 1800’s to the 1870’s before I was born. When I was growing up, the strangers started coming to our lands. After I was a man, I lived in Imuruk Basin. My uncle was a shamish. My grandfather was a drummer (dance master or ceremonial leader). He was a boy in the kazghi of Kauwerak. I was a boy in the kazghi of Mary’s Igloo. We saw and learned many things because we were there.

If people care to look for them, lots of ships’ logs tell about some of the things that happened when the aungutguhks demonstrated for the white men.

The aungutguhks saved lots of people, even if they got help from evil spirits.

I hope the aungutguhks never come back. They bring lots of death and trouble to people. When they once hate someone, they work on anyone. They do not stop for anything. No one can tell why troubles come to them or who caused the bad things to happen. Our grandparents used to say all the aungutguhks will be coming back with their spirits. There will be many aungutguhks and shamishes in our lands once more.

After the Second Disaster, many people carved or saved dolls or charms made out of ivory. They were shaped into many kinds of animals or birds. They sometimes dried weasel nose and put a string on it so they could put it on their head. They also dried other animal noses or used the claws of animals to wear. They believed those things would save them from many troubles. Once men, women and even children found it useful to have these charms. They believed many evil spirits would be terrified of those things.

In those days they believed many evil spirits surrounded them. They thought if they called on the spirits of the dolls or charms they would protect them from the evil spirits. They kept these things with them always. It seemed they believed anyone that had them were safe. It seemed they thought those evil spirits could command people or force troubles on them.

Around sixty or seventy years ago the aungutguhks with their masks and charms began to fade away from the people. The words of the missionaries changed those people. They began to believe in the Christian God and not the evil spirits, anymore. It is good to weaken the fear of evil spirits in many people. Now there are not many left who believe in them.

The old people used to say, “Eskimos will adopt the ways of their ancestors again before too long.” Those I knew said the aungutguhks will disappear, but they will be back. The evil spirits will reflect on many people because of hate. Many people will be disappointed with the new ways and have a heavy burden and sad heart. This will mean lots of troubles will arise between people. Fear will grow among many people because there may be aungutguhks appearing again in their lands, unless the Eskimos and the other people in Alaska stay put together.