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 SOCIOLOGY OF
EXORCISM IN
LATE MODERNITY

Giuseppe Giordan and

Adam Possamai
Sociology of Exorcism in Late Modernity
 Giuseppe Giordan • Adam Possamai

Sociology of Exorcism
in Late Modernity
Giuseppe Giordan Adam Possamai
Dipartimento di Filosofia, Sociologia School of Social Sciences
Pedagogia, Psicologia Applicata and Psychology
(FISPPA) Western Sydney University
Università degli Studi di Padova Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Padova, Italy

ISBN 978-3-319-71772-2    ISBN 978-3-319-71773-9 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71773-9

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017960959

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
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Printed on acid-free paper

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The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 Contents

1 Introduction   1

2 The Sociology of Exorcism  21

3 Case Study of Catholic Exorcism: Visiting an Exorcist  41

4 Case Study of Catholic Exorcism: Undergoing Exorcism  65

5 Religious Competition over Exorcism  81

6 The Over-policing, and Decriminalizing, of the Devil  99

Conclusions 113

Note 115

References 117

Index125

v
 List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 ‘Devil’, ‘ghost’ and ‘Satan’ in Ngram Viewer (25 January 2016) 4
Fig. 1.2 ‘Exorcism’ in Ngram Viewer (25 January 2016) 5
Fig. 3.1 Initial consultations per year 51
Fig. 3.2 Consultations per month 52
Fig. 6.1 Number of participants at the training courses (2012–17) 104
Fig. 6.2 Percentage of participants at the training courses
per nationality (2012–17) 104
Fig. 6.3 Percentage of participants at the training course
per status (2012–17) 105

vii
 List of Tables

Table 3.1 Number of consultations 50

Table 3.2 Consultations per month 51
Table 3.3 Outcome of spiritual/physical assessment 53
Table 3.4 Reasons for the visit 55
Table 4.1 Exorcism rituals performed 72

ix
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Abstract This chapter not only introduces the book but describes the
increase in the belief in the devil and in demonic possession. It uses the
theory of de Certeau on exorcism and social changes and adapts his theory
from what happened in Loudun in France in the seventeenth century to a
late modern context. It grounds this research within the sociological lit-
erature on popular religion and on the supernatural.

Keywords Exorcism • de Certeau • Loudun • Popular religion • Supernatural

Satan, Lucifer, Baal, Moloch, Leviathan, Belfagor, Lilith, Chernobog,

Mammon, Vitra, Azazel, Loki, Iblis, Mara, and Angra Mainyu are only a few
of the names given to demons from various religions (Van der Toorn et al.
1999). For those who believe in the demonic being, he or she is an entity
that brings evil into the world and is working, often from a distance, to push
humanity towards temptation and, sometimes, destruction. To protect
themselves from this evil influence, people have used the most varied prac-
tices. They may pray, lead an ascetic life and/or use protective talismans. But
what happens when we are convinced that we are face to face with the
devil? Or even with someone that is possessed by this entity? Although the
ritual of exorcism is practised in many religions (Oesterreich 1930), social
scientists, apart from anthropologists in post-colonial countries, have, so

© The Author(s) 2018 1

G. Giordan, A. Possamai, Sociology of Exorcism in Late Modernity,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71773-9_1
2 G. GIORDAN AND A. POSSAMAI

far, given it little attention in today’s western societies. Sociologists of reli-

gion, perhaps considering that in industrial societies the figure of Satan is
merely a legacy of the superstitious and obscurantist past, seem to have
shelved this issue, probably believing it to be totally out-dated.
Actually, in recent years, reports of interest in the occult world and in
the rituals that release individuals from demonic possession have increased,
becoming more and more widespread among broad segments of the pop-
ulation (Baker 2008; McCloud 2015), thus justifying a renewed interest
on the part of certain religious institutions. In the US, Gallup polls show
that the percentage of people who believe in the devil has increased from
55 per cent in 1990 to 70 per cent in 2004. Baker (2008, p. 218) analysed
the data collected by the first wave of the Baylor Religion Survey which
was conducted in 2005, and discovered that in the US

African Americans tend to have a stronger belief in religious evil than do

whites. Women have a stronger degree of belief than men. Net of religious
controls, younger Americans hold stronger belief in conceptions of religious
evil than older Americans. Finally, social class plays an important role in how
certain an individual is about the existence of religious evil, with those of
higher social class having weaker confidence about the existence of religious
evil. However, these effects are conditioned by church attendance. For
those exhibiting a high level of participation in organized religion, the influ-
ence of social class is neutralized. For those not actively participating in
organized religion, the influence of social class is more pronounced.

The 1998 Southern Focus Poll in the US, which had a sample of 1200
people, posed a question much closer to the notion of exorcism. In this
poll, close to 59 per cent of respondents answered in the affirmative to the
question: ‘Do you believe that people on this Earth are sometimes pos-
sessed by the Devil?’ (Rice 2003). The second wave of the Baylor Religion
Survey, in 2007, posed the question: ‘Is it possible to be possessed?’ In
answer, 53.3 per cent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that it is
possible. Among those who attend church once or more than once a week
the proportion of respondents answering in the affirmative increased to
77.9 per cent. Republicans (65.9 per cent) were more likely than Democrats
(42.7 per cent), and Protestants (62.9 per cent) were more likely than
Catholics (53.3 per cent) or those professing to follow no religion (19.5
per cent) or the Jewish population (3.6 per cent) to agree or strongly agree
that it possible to be possessed by the devil. In Italy, ­according to the
Association of Catholic Psychiatrists and Psychologists, half a million
people per year would undergo an exorcism (Baglio 2009, p. 7).
 INTRODUCTION 3

It is difficult to find accurate figures for the number of people who

have been subjected to exorcism, and so proving in a rigorous way that
the incidence of the practice is increasing is extremely problematic. Even
if we were able to show a statistical increase, would this imply an increase
in actual numbers or just in visibility? Indeed, many exorcisms take place
‘underground’, but if they become more public and hence noticeable,
this does not necessarily mean that more are being conducted. We also
need to agree on what exorcism means. Do we include only the rituals
concerned with removing an unwanted spirit from a person’s body, or
does exorcism also include a ritual or practice that protects people from a
demon’s influence? Should we take into account the ministry of deliver-
ance (see Chap. 5) among Pentecostal groups, that is directed towards
delivering people from the presence of the devil, rather than from physi-
cal and mental possession by the devil? This ministry is certainly gaining
popularity and is becoming more mainstream, but it is a specific practice
that is not defined by everyone as exorcism.
Instead of demonstrating an increase in instances of exorcism, we can
show evidence of an increase in people’s sense of the normality of this
practice. More and more, people are believing in the presence of the devil
and in the possibility of being possessed. For example, to help move the
debate forward, this book turns to new data resources provided by Google
(and, more specifically, Google Ngrams) which has plans to digitize every
book ever printed. According to Alwin (2013), this site had, at the time of
his comment, more than 15 million scanned books, representing 12 per
cent of books ever published. There are, of course, certain issues to take
into account when using these new internet social research methods, but
we invite the reader to access Groves (2011) and Savage (2013), for exam-
ple, to explore this matter further.
We typed the key words ‘devil’, ‘Satan’ and ‘ghost’ (see Chap. 3) into
the Ngram Viewer on Google Books, which reports the proportion of refer-
ences to a given word or combination of words as a percentage of the total
corpus (Savage 2013). As shown in Fig. 1.1, among all the books held in
Google Books, the word ‘devil’ has been slightly more popular than ‘ghost’
and ‘Satan’. However, the usage of these terms has been in decline since
the 1840s. Thus it could at least be argued that people are discussing the
notions of the devil, Satan and ghosts less in books and this indicates that
these notions are less relevant or important today than they were in the
past. Unfortunately, Ngram Viewer offers no way to understand how
these words were used in the literature, and the use of the word ‘devil’ can
be questioned. Does it refer to a demon, as a specific type of religious
4 G. GIORDAN AND A. POSSAMAI

entity, or to a person who has some devilish characteristics reflecting a

cruel side. Google Trends gives an analysis of the use of keywords entered
into the Google search engine since 2004. On our entering the same three
key terms, it was shown that use of the term ‘devil’ peaked when the
movie The Devil Wears Prada was released in 2006, and the term ‘ghost’
was most popular when the Playstation game ‘Call of Duty: Ghosts’ was
released in 2013. Since the outcome of this kind of analysis is not relevant
for this present research, Google Trends was not used as a research method.
Returning to Ngram we can see that since the mid nineteenth century the
usage of these three words (whatever they may mean in their particular
contexts) has been in decline, though since the 1980s they have made a
slight comeback; it is clear that the nineteenth century was the heyday for
their usage.
However, with regards to ‘exorcism’, the case is quite different. As this
word is less ambiguous than ‘ghost’, ‘devil’ or ‘Satan’, the data collected
here are more meaningful. If we compare the term ‘exorcism’ to the three
above-mentioned terms, its number of instances is too low to appear on the
graph in Fig. 1.1. Therefore, in Fig. 1.2, this term is analysed on its own.
Figure 1.2 shows that, in contrast to the decline in the use of ‘devil’ and
‘Satan’ in the books scanned by Google, the use of the word ‘exorcism’ has
been on the increase since the 1940s and again since the 1970s. Although
there was an important peak at the end of the nineteenth century, it is clear
that this word is used today more than at any time since the 1800s.

Fig. 1.1 ‘Devil’, ‘ghost’ and ‘Satan’ in Ngram Viewer (25 January 2016)
 INTRODUCTION 5

Fig. 1.2 ‘Exorcism’ in Ngram Viewer (25 January 2016)

Popular culture, especially the 1973 movie, the Exorcist, and the 1975
account of Malachi Martin’s (1992) Hostage to the Devil: The Possession
and Exorcism of Five Living Americans, has been instrumental in revital-
izing a belief in exorcism in the western world, touching and impressing
millions of readers and viewers and bringing the notion of exorcism back
into people’s consciousness (Cuneo 2001). However, rather than seeing
these works as a causative factor in this renewed interest, it might be more
appropriate to see them as catalysts to wider social and cultural changes
brought about by late modernity.
In our post-industrial society, despite the increase in education, urban-
ism, and scientific knowledge, science no longer dominates our way of
thinking and expert scientists are no longer believed implicitly. We have
also entered the era of a globalized world, and multicultural and multi-­
faith scenarios are part of our everyday lives. Religions, also, are not static,
but have had to change as they adapt to (or sometimes reject) social and
cultural transformations. For example, although the canons of the
seventeenth-­century Church of England with regards to exorcism were
repealed in 1969, a revival in interest in this phenomenon has emerged
from the Church hierarchy as New Age movements (seen as a manifesta-
tion of uncontrolled spirituality) have grown (see Chap. 5). Collins (2009,
p. 3) points out how, importantly, these groups have fed into an occult
revival which has led to an increase in interest in the issues of the super-
natural, including exorcism, among Christians.
6 G. GIORDAN AND A. POSSAMAI

The historical research by Sluhovsky (2007) into medieval Europe is of

great interest for us, in understanding our contemporary situation and
showing how the practice of exorcism can change through the years,
depending on social and cultural contexts. Sluhovsky discovered that in
continental Europe, exorcism (before it became bureaucratized and codi-
fied by the Vatican in the seventeenth century) was a common practice
conducted by both priests and lay people (for example, guaritore and mag-
ara in Italy, Zauberer in southern Germany, devin and guérisseur in France,
ensalmadore in Spain and curandeiro in Portugal). Almost like attending a
mass deliverance rally, people used to go on pilgrimages and remain at the
sacred sites for days to be cured of their possession by the devil or of their
various ills. It was only in 1614, when the official rite was promoted, that
the task of the exorcist became professionalized and codified. Thus, what
had been seen as a common event was changed into one which was more
exceptional and regulated by canon. In a Catholic country, people then had
to follow the regulations issued by the Vatican. During this period, also,
when Protestant groups were on the rise, Catholics used to perform exor-
cisms in order to demonstrate and validate the strength of their religion, as
a form of propaganda. Sluhovsky’s research also reveals that around the
same time a growth in spirituality was occurring (i.e. quietism) and it was
believed that when untrained people got in touch with their spiritual selves,
they became more vulnerable to attacks from the devil. Along with the
increase in the number of practitioners of the new spirituality came an
increase in the number of people deemed to be possessed; we can see here
a parallel with our current period and the belief that with the growth of
personal spirituality (especially alternative spirituality) there is a higher risk
of people becoming victims of the devil (see Chap. 5).
In the Catholic ambit, belief in the devil, like many other traditional
religious beliefs, has been scientifically explained during modernity (for
example, through psychology or psychiatry) to the point where such belief
has nearly disappeared from the scope of theological deliberation. At the
same time, however, in people’s everyday lives, this belief has spread con-
siderably, so as to force religious authorities to restore the profession of
exorcism that had virtually disappeared. In this context, the figure of the
Catholic exorcist has undergone a truly renewed professionalization pro-
cess, through the foundation of an international organization of exorcists
and the provision of training courses (see Chap. 6).
Changes now occurring are not only limited to belief systems concerning
devilish possession, but are affecting exorcism rituals as well. During research
 INTRODUCTION 7

on religion and Indigenous peoples in Australia (see Cox and Possamai

2016), an interview was conducted with a woman who was following the
Aboriginal traditional ways and yet was a practising Catholic. The interview
was often interrupted by people calling her or coming to her place. During
a casual discussion of her recent activities she stated that she had recently
performed an exorcism. Her version of her ritual was a hybrid of the two
religions. She had also found a way to innovate the ritual and make it more
effective: she emptied a bottle of Windex and put some holy water in it.
Apparently, the spray made it easier and more efficient to disperse the
water for the ritual. In his research on exorcism in Sri Lanka, Kapferer
(1991) found that such rituals are indeed not static and unchanging; while
some elements of the past can be retained, the rituals are adapted to new
and current situations. We come back to Kapferer’s research in Chap. 2.
The intriguing way in which the practice of exorcism is spreading can
be considered an interesting indicator of the changes taking place within
the contemporary religious field which, beyond any pretence of seculariza-
tion, is being unpredictably renewed and transformed. The ritual of exor-
cism can therefore serve the social scientist almost as a ‘litmus test’ to
identify trends and features of contemporary religiosity.

A Return of Exorcism?
Despite the claim made above concerning the difficulty in pinpointing
exactly what exorcism is, can we still make reference to a return of exor-
cism? If we can, this would imply that exorcism ‘left’. In his analysis of the
devil, although it is not directly connected to the rituals of exorcism,
Muchembled (2000, p. 10) claims that the devil has never really ‘left’,
even after the French Revolution – he simply became less central to peo-
ple’s religious consciousness, although developed in works of popular cul-
ture during the boom of the pulp fiction of the nineteenth century. Could
the same be said about exorcism? Indeed, it continued to be practised in a
low key manner until it became a central component of mainstream
­popular culture in the 1970s, with the release of the famous movie, The
Exorcist. Stories of people being possessed by ancient entities, such as in
the weird fiction of Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian in the
1930s were, of course, common in the literature. One should remember
the classic story by Edgard Allan Poe, Ligeia (1838), in which the soul of
a former wife takes control of the new wife, or H. P. Lovecraft’s The Case
of Charles Dexter Ward (1927), in which the spirit of a maleficent ancestor
8 G. GIORDAN AND A. POSSAMAI

takes over the body of a young descendent. The Exorcist came onto the
silver screen at the right time and made exorcism realistic (rather than just
part of a weird tale) to the public. No longer was possession experienced
only in an obscure land, during an atavistic time, or by an adventurer. This
movie was about an ordinary girl in an upper middle class setting, in a
normal and industrial town.
There have been various periods in our history in which the practice of
exorcism has been a part of people’s everyday lives. The era of modernity,
the most secularised period in human history, relegated exorcism to the
shadows, but never quite got rid of it. We claim, in this study, that there
have been periods of high activity, but never a total eradication of this phe-
nomenon. Indeed, as we explain in the next section, Young (2016a) sees
that, within Catholicism, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were the
golden age of the practice of exorcism and describes our contemporary
period as a second golden age. He also lists other important periods, such
as late antiquity – exorcism being one of the most important practices of
the early Church (Young 2016a), aimed at getting rid of the old pagan
gods and proving the power of the Catholic saints against demons – the
early Medieval era, and the Late Middle Ages.
During the Enlightenment period, the Christian Church attempted to
rationalize its doctrine and kept away any superstitious elements, such as
contacts with the supernatural, but exorcisms still took place. John Wesley,
in the eighteenth century, practised exorcism himself and used these ritu-
als to rebut Enlightenment scepticism and to demonstrate the reality of
demonic possession and hence the need for religion (Collins 2009,
p. 140). Abbé Julio (1990), who was involved in the Eglise Gallicane in
the early twentieth century, was a popular healer and an expert in exor-
cism. The German, Johann-Joseph Gassner, was famous in the eighteenth
century for practising a type of charismatic exorcism. Pia (1995, p. 144)
makes reference to Catholic Sisters at the hospital where Charles Baudelaire
spent his last days at the end of the nineteenth century. Even while
Haussman was modernizing Paris, these nuns brought an exorcist to
‘clean’ the room of the mentally ill poet.
Rather than seeing exorcism as an atavistic practice coming back, one
should instead see it as a common phenomenon that comes and goes in
intensity depending on social and cultural context. Religion has never dis-
appeared, even during the Enlightenment, but has changed over time, and
the same is true for magic.
 INTRODUCTION 9

To develop this point, we now cover the relationship between the three
fields of sense/meaning-making which are found in our society: magic,
religion, and science. These domains are difficult to define, as they are
socially constructed and not impermeable to each other’s influence; for
example, one can believe that science will, almost magically, solve all prob-
lems. Exorcism can therefore be seen as both a magical and a religious act.
When an exorcism does not follow a scripted theological process, it is
often seen as a magical process aimed at healing the patient. When an
institutionalized and rigorous ritual is enacted, it is more about a religious
fight against the devil than just a ritual for healing. We discuss these ambi-
guities further throughout this book.
Today, we are witnessing processes of secularization and de-­
secularization in various parts of the world; that is, religion is waxing and
waning in the public sphere, rather than fully disappearing or becoming
fully theocratic and anti-scientific (see below). We can no longer follow
the social evolutionist belief that our society evolved from a focus on
magic (the age of unsystematic beliefs dominant in pre-historic times) to a
focus on religion (the age of systematic beliefs and the advent of theology,
which was dominant until the scientific revolution), and finally to thinking
scientifically (supposedly, since the Enlightenment). Instead, we need to
study periods of history and places in the world taking into account that
these three elements – magic, religion and science – exist together at dif-
ferent levels of intensity, without any one eliminating the others. If any of
these three elements appears to be missing during a certain period in a
specific context (for example, science during the heyday of the Inquisition,
religion during the French Revolution, or magic during the development
of institutionalized religion in early twentieth-century China (Goossaert
2003)), they are, in fact, simply hiding. Nietzsche can ‘kill’ God, but reli-
gion and magic will live on; it is not a question of progress or regress, but
rather of different mixes of the three elements occurring at any given time.
Even though religion is present in today’s public sphere, it must be
noted that its presence is not as strong as it used to be in the Middle Ages.
Religion is no longer an overarching cultural system; it is now seen as a
sub-system of our society alongside other sub-systems (such as education,
health, commercial or scientific institutions), such that any all-­encompassing
claims made by religions have much less relevance. Religion no longer has
pride of place in our societal structure and is no longer the dominant voice
when it comes to, for example, politics, welfare and education. Even if
religion is still strong in our culture, it is no longer the pillar of western
10 G. GIORDAN AND A. POSSAMAI

social structure. Moving beyond this fait accompli, Martin’s (2005) work
advances our understanding of the process of secularization by underlin-
ing its various dynamics, rather than offering, as many previous sociologi-
cal studies have done, the simplistic assumption that there is a single
dynamic at work – as in the evolutionist belief that society moves from
magic to religion, and from religion to science. The fundamental argu-
ment of his work is that secularization is not a clear-cut process that occurs
in all western societies homogenously or that will necessarily occur in all
developing countries. Indeed, as the author argues in relation to
Christianity,

instead of regarding secularization as a once-for-all unilateral process, one

might rather think in terms of successive Christianizations followed or
accompanied by recoils. Each Christianization is a salient of faith driven into
the secular from a different angle, each pays a characteristic cost which
affects the character of the recoil, and each undergoes a partial collapse.
(Martin 2005, p. 3)

There is no one secular ending to western history, but rather various

phases of secularization and sanctification. In Europe: The Exceptional
Case, Davie (2002) questions whether modernization and secularization
are necessarily connected. After considering case studies from around the
world, with a particular focus on North America, Latin America, Africa,
and Christian communities in the Far East, she concludes her book with
this sentence: ‘Secularisation is essentially a European phenomenon and is
extrinsic rather than intrinsic to the modernising process per se’ (Davie
2002, p. 161). The project of modernity started from Europe and spread
around the world. Religion, from the Old Continent’s point of view, had
no place in it, but this was not the case for all other countries that embarked
on this project, and which did include religion.
Freud, Marx and Durkheim all claimed that religion has disappeared,
and we are today debating how to manage the links between religions and
non-religions in the public sphere through the frame of what we call, in
sociology, ‘post-secularism’. This is, in fact, a misnomer, because while it is
true that our society in its present phase is more open to religious thought
and activity than before, it is still secular (Possamai forthcoming).
Weber referred to the disenchantment of society in the early twentieth
century and he saw this as a discontent of early modernity. Now, in the
early twenty-first century, magic is back in popular culture and in our
 INTRODUCTION 11

everyday lives (see Possamai 2005) and we can speak about the re-­
enchantment of late modernity. But has magic (including exorcism) ever
been absent?
The practices of exorcism will not only be different across times, but
across world regions as well. When Young (2016a, p. 210) writes about
the twenty-first century as being a new golden age of exorcism, he refers
to Europe and North America, but not to the rest of the world since else-
where this practice did not go into hiding to the same extent. He thus
echoes Davie’s (2002) comment (above) that Europe is the exceptional
case, when compared to other regions, regarding the effects of
secularization.
One of the leading Catholic exorcists of this century, Father Gabrielle
Amorth, makes the claim that ‘[w]hen faith in God declines, idolatry and
irrationality increases; man [sic] must then look elsewhere for answers to
his meaningful questions’ (2016, p. 53). In this comment, the priest puts
religion far above magic and does not include science. A secularist would
claim instead that this same trend occurs when trust in science declines,
and that one has simply to replace the word ‘God’ with ‘Science’ in the
sentence for it to have a quite different slant. We, the authors of this book,
are aiming to be as rigorous as possible when dealing with science, magic
and religion and do not value any one over the others. They each have
aspects which are positive (science and development, religion and quality
of life, magic and enchantment) and negative (the irrationality of religion
and magic, and the irrationality of scientific rationality, as in the ‘iron cage’
of bureaucratic rationality). Below, we detail our phenomenological nou-
menalist approach which allows us to follow this path of neutrality.
Father Amorth also claims that exorcism existed before Christianity and
that it was known in ‘practically all ancient cultures’ (Amorth 2016, p. 97);
he even states that ancient magical rituals were simply the precursor to
Christian rituals (that is, in his interpretation, religious rituals) when they
became ‘illuminated by the truth of Christ’. Although we do not claim
that exorcism is universal, we can state with confidence that this practice
can be found in many parts of the world and at many times in human his-
tory (see also Oesterreich 1930).
Instead of questioning when (or if) the practice of exorcism has van-
ished or reappeared, we are instead asking when it is likely to be at its peak
in the public sphere and in people’s everyday life consciousness. To answer
this we turn to the work of de Certeau.
12 G. GIORDAN AND A. POSSAMAI

The Devil and Social Sciences [de Certeau

and Social Changes]

De Certeau dedicated a whole book to the famous case of the mass pos-
session of Loudun in France in the seventeenth century. The case lasted
from 1632 to 1640 at the time when Descartes’ Discours de la méthode
(1637) was published. It was claimed that a whole convent of Ursuline
nuns had been possessed, and the rituals of their exorcism were conducted
in public, attracting crowds of visitors not only from many parts of France,
but from elsewhere in Europe as well. Father Urbain Grandier, a priest
and Huguenot, was accused of having made a pact with the devil, causing
the mass possession. He was condemned at trial and subsequently exe-
cuted, thus allowing the powerful Cardinal Richelieu to weaken the
strength of this Protestant group by getting rid of a charismatic priest who
was opposed to his political schemes. The possessions and mass exorcisms
still continued after Grandier was burned at the stake.
In his research, de Certeau (2005) differentiates between the ‘possessed’
and the ‘possessionists’, those who are convinced of the reality of posses-
sion. In opposition to these stances, we find the ‘antipossessionists’, that is,
those who are confronted by events for which they do not have a rational
explanation, but who still do not regard these events as being supernatural.
In his study of Loudun, de Certeau (2005) referred to people who wit-
nessed the mass possession of the Ursuline convent and who could not
explain it in a rational way; they argued that science was not yet well devel-
oped enough to shed light on the phenomenon, and that it was only a
matter of time before reason would develop sufficiently to provide the cor-
rect answers. We have argued, above, that the number of possessionists has
certainly increased in late modernity; however, as to the number of ‘pos-
sessed’ people, we are unable to provide any concrete data, since this would
depend on what the we take ‘possessed’ to mean and include. For example,
does it (or should it) include people who attend the Pentecostal Ministry
of Deliverance, even if the devil is not considered to be inside them?
De Certeau argues that religious activities of the type of the exceptional
event at Loudun are symptomatic of a time of change in French society,
when it was moving from a feudal society to a nation, and when Catholicism
was struggling with the presence of Huguenots and libertines. Sorcery
and possession, for, de Certeau, encapsulate a type of underground system
of beliefs and practices that emerge when social cracks are opening wide.
From an anti-magical viewpoint, this would be a type of social virus that
 INTRODUCTION 13

turns into an infection when the social body is run down and is too weak
to fight from the inside. Diabolic crises signify both a culture in disequilib-
rium and a set of transitory solutions. De Certeau makes reference to a
society dominated by religion but in which science was slowly developing.
But what of a society that is dominated by magic? Would a crack in the
belief system push people towards the demonic in a society that already
believes in demons? Would it bring reason to the fore and have a counter-­
effect or would it push the demoniac even further? To attempt to answer
this question, we apply de Certeau’s theory to the periods of history when
exorcism was at its apex in Europe.
Late antiquity and the early Middles Ages saw an increase in the prac-
tice of exorcism in Europe due to the threat of Paganism. When the ten-
sion with this old religion was reduced, so was the need for exorcism.
Later, in the thirteenth century, it was revived to fight against what was
seen as the heretical doctrines of the Cathars (Young 2016a).
The sixteenth century was a century of crisis in the Church; the
Counter-Reformation found some utility in exorcisms practised with the-
atrical liturgical forms. It was useful for the Church to spread the word
among the people that the devil flees from the relics of saints, from the
exposed Eucharist, and at the priests’ commands (Paxia 2002, p. 27). The
Protestants still believed in exorcism but did not use sacred objects or a
ritual with specific formulas. They aimed to excise the magical and the
superstitious elements – such as following the cult of saints and using holy
water – from the act and their methods were mainly prayer and fasting
(Levack 2013, pp. 22–3). For the Protestants, only God could expel the
devil or demons (Levack 2013, p. 39), and their aim was more to save the
possessed person from eternal damnation than from possession (Levack
2013, p. 85). This was in line with the Protestant doctrine of the cessation
of miracles, expounded in the writings of Luther and Calvin; miracles,
including the magical aspect of exorcism, ceased with the end of the
Apostolic time and the conversion of Rome to Christianity – there was no
need for new miracles (Levack 2013, pp. 40–1).
During this period, also, a fight was being waged against the threat of
witchcraft (Young 2016a). The famous case in Aix-en-Provence in
1610–11 is quite interesting here and the trial of the accused, taking place
a year after the assassination of Henri IV, was clearly an indirect attack
against the Huguenots in France. This trial, also, condemned to death a
Catholic priest who was suspected of witchcraft. Fanlo (2017) writes that
those leading the trial were strong supporters of a type of conservative
14 G. GIORDAN AND A. POSSAMAI

Catholic revivalism (La Ligue) which was pitted against perceived ‘non-­
authentic’ forms of Catholicism. As with the latter case of Loudun, de
Certeau (2005) saw in this event, also, a reflection of the polemic between
the Catholics and the Huguenots. Muchembled’s (2000, pp. 196–7) his-
tory of the devil confirms that in some regions where Huguenots lived in
the seventeenth century, the Catholic possessed often let their demons
claim collusion between the Protestants and Satan and prophesy that the
‘heretic’ religion of the Protestants would soon collapse. We also find dur-
ing that time that missionaries were utilizing exorcism in their work of
conversion in China to demonstrate the superiority of Christianity
(Catholicism) over Buddhism and Daoism when it came to driving away
the evil spirits with holy water.
With the Enlightenment in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
exorcism was discouraged – although the practice was continued in the
New World and was still supported in the Old World by the Jesuits and
Capuchins who were promoting their missionary and political agenda
(Young 2016a, pp. 155–6). This discouragement was not only a result of
the influence of the development of rationalism, but also of changes from
within the Catholic Church, such as the development of sceptical
Augustinian theology (Young 2016a, p. 179). Indeed, in 1744 Pope
Benedict XIV urged the bishops in Italy to use caution when dealing with
the rite of exorcism (Young 2016a, p. 165).
Young (2016b) makes an interesting analysis of the conflict over exor-
cism in early nineteenth-century England. Around that time, British
Catholics were a minority in a Protestant regime that was strongly opposed
to the French Revolution. Although Enlightenment views were against
the offering of exorcism by the churches, especially Catholic churches,
people did not necessarily stop believing in possession. A schism devel-
oped within the British Catholics; the Ultramontanes were not opposed to
the practice of exorcism and were seen by the Cisalpines as superstitious.
The argument was that continuing this ante-Enlightenment practice could
lead to religious and political scandals and fuel anti-Catholic propaganda.
The Cisalpines, on the other hand, were seen by the Ultramontanes as
being disloyal Catholics and selling out to the Protestant establishment.
The ritual of exorcism saw another revival at the end of the nineteenth
century, instigated by Pope Leo XIII, who believed that a global Satanist
conspiracy led by Freemasons was threatening the Vatican (Young 2016a).
With the overthrow of the Papal States in 1870, the Pope became an
opponent of state secularism and saw these social and cultural changes as
 INTRODUCTION 15

a conspiracy by the devil that needed to be opposed. In this period, exor-

cism was employed to protect the Church as an institution rather than its
human adherents. Despite this attempt by the Pope to appropriate exorcism
and promote it in a different way, it never caught up with the population
at large, at least not in the same way as in the previous periods of crisis.
Exorcism is thus more likely to appear at times of crisis – mainly when
religious groups are competing against each other – something that did
not happen in modernity – and not when scientific discourse is dominant.
Indeed, during modernity, scientific views were imposed on faith and
forced religions to get rid of any magical component in order to maintain
their relevance in this new world of calculative and scientific reasoning.
This, also, was a time of crisis; adapting large populations to changes
brought about by industrialization created difficulties. There were prob-
lems of overpopulation, rural exodus, rapid urban growth, and famine in
the early stages of the industrialization of society (Hearder 1966).
Exorcism still existed at that time, but it did not emerge sufficiently from
the social underground for any growing trend to be perceived. One should
note however that many new occultist and esoteric groups developed dur-
ing that period (see, for example, McIntosh (2011) and his study of the
rebirth of magic in France in the nineteenth century).
At the present time, science is no longer the dominant paradigm and
must engage more and more with religions; and religions, themselves,
have to take magic on board. In late modernity, in this post-colonial, post-­
industrial, post-Fordist world, we, also, are experiencing crises, and exor-
cism is again coming to the fore. Science is today not dominant enough to
curb the revival of exorcism, and, further, the new competition between
Pentecostalism and the Catholic Church (with the Anglican Church and
various groups as other key players in this religious market) is creating
conditions conducive to this development (see Chap. 5).
What does it mean when people believe they are confronted by the super-
natural in their everyday lives and understand it to be demonic? In this
book, while we are exploring the social construction of this phenomenon,
we are nevertheless also investigating, more specifically, the elementary form
of this religious experience in a late modern context, a period since the
1980s which has been touched by globalization, post-­colonialism, post-
Fordism, and post-industrialism. Some authors refer to this period as ‘post-
modernity’ to demarcate it from modernity and its ethos of progress and
reason. We have not moved beyond progress and reason, but the present era
is different from the early eighteenth century, in that it is more open to
religion and re-enchantment.
16 G. GIORDAN AND A. POSSAMAI

Aim, Method and Structure of the Book

In this book, rather than using a theological definition of exorcism, we will
follow the social definition used by Sluhovsky (2007, pp. 35–6): ‘exorcism
is defined as a curing technique against evil spirits that have taken over a
possessed person, an animal, or an object’. However, this definition is still
problematic as it does not reflect current practices, especially with regards
to recent Pentecostal rituals. Should the ministry of deliverance be
included as part of our understanding of exorcism? If the answer is ‘yes’,
this means including the concept that the evil spirits are not just taking
over a person, but are also afflicting him or her from outside.
This understanding is in line with the work of sociologists of religion,
who tend to use a methodological agnostic approach when conducting
research. This means, for example, that we do not analyse the veracity of
claims of possession from a theological perspective. We study what people
do with or against this belief, and how this belief affects them.
This book does not delve into an analysis of exorcism from a psycho-
logical or medical point of view. Such analysis is not something to be
ignored but it is not part of the focus of this piece of work. It is indeed
worth noting, from the research of the anthropologist, Goodman (1988,
p. 107), that demonic possession is not just about scary stories but can
sometimes involve actual and disastrous physical and psychological
changes. Bowman (1993) refers to people with multiple personality disor-
der who took part in a ministry of deliverance, sometimes in front of hun-
dreds of people, and had feelings of rage, humiliation, and suicidality. We
are, however, aiming to understand this phenomenon sociologically in the
current western and late modern world.
This book does not address the antipossessionist discourse; it focuses on
the possessionists’ viewpoint. Although we cannot claim that there has
been an increase in the number of possessed people, we have put forward
our view that there has been an increase in the number of possessionists.
Our research method follows what Garret (1974) has called a phenomeno-
logical noumenalist approach; this approach admits subjective reality as an
independent variable in social analysis and focuses its research on the con-
sequences of belief and the behaviour generated by religious experiences.
This school has its roots in the work of Rudolf Otto (1936), a German
theologian, philosopher and historian of comparative religions, who
focused his research on the non-rational aspect of the religious dimension.
Being both theologian and scientist, Otto’s purpose was to embrace the
 INTRODUCTION 17

scientific paradigm and the religious interpretation of the world. He sought

to determine the kind of rationality that is relevant to religious study, and
found in Immanuel Kant the pertinent pair of ‘noumenon’ and ‘phenom-
enon’. The noumenon is, in Kant’s philosophy, the thing-in-itself (das
Ding an sich), as opposed to what Kant has called the phenomenon, the
thing as it appears to an observer. Though the noumenal holds the con-
tents of the intelligible world, Kant has claimed that humans’ speculative
reason can only know phenomena and can never penetrate to the
noumenon. The phenomenological noumenalist school accepts the nou-
menal as irreducible experience and as producing effects at the individual
and social levels. Indeed, when the second co-author of this book con-
ducted fieldwork on New Age at the end of the twentieth century (see
Possamai 2005), informants were asked about their experience of this alter-
native spirituality. While it was expected that replies would be framed in
terms of ‘social experience’, many told about their ‘mystical experiences’
which had changed their life trajectories. By taking this ‘supernatural com-
ponent’ as a variable of analysis, it was possible to discuss key sociological
findings. We apply this perspective to this current research on exorcism by
aiming to understand, not this extraordinary experience, but its conse-
quences on people’s lives; we are not aiming to debunk this phenomenon,
nor to explain it in psychological or medical terms.
The aim of this book is not only to provide a sociological understand-
ing of the phenomenon of exorcism, but also to analyse the reasons for its
re-emergence and its impact on various communities. To reach this goal,
in Chap. 2, ‘The Sociology of Exorcism’, we give an account of a socio-
logical understanding of what exorcism is. Using functional (what reli-
gion does for people and/or community) and substantive (what religion
is for people and/or community) definitions of religion, we analyse this
phenomenon through the ages, through classical Durkheimian, Marxian,
and Weberian lenses. In this chapter, we also explore the fluidity of under-
standing concerning what this practice is, and, more specifically, how
people understand when an entity is or is not a demon. Acknowledging
the difficulty of reaching a substantive understanding of exorcism and its
rituals, we move to a social constructionist perspective on this phenome-
non. By analysing the social history of ghosts and demons, we demon-
strate the fluidity of understanding not only by the average lay person,
but also by theologians, when interpreting whether an entity is the devil
and when this entity needs to be expelled. We argue that, however the
devil and exorcism are understood, there has been an increase in the level
and occurrence of belief.
18 G. GIORDAN AND A. POSSAMAI

In Chap. 3, ‘Case Study of Catholic Exorcism: Visiting an Exorcist’, we

move to a case study and analyse the data, covering a ten-year period,
which was provided by an experienced Catholic exorcist in the south of
Europe. The data comprise a sociological analysis of the more than 1000
cases dealt with and reported, in a document of more than 200,000 words.
This chapter reports on the data analysis for those cases (95 per cent)
which did not lead to an exorcism.
Utilizing the same data, Chap. 4, ‘Case Study of Catholic Exorcism:
Undergoing Exorcism’, specifically focuses on the analysis of the 5 per cent
of cases which have led to a formal exorcism. It also details the observations
made by the authors during their attendance at one of these rituals.
In Chap. 5, ‘Religious Competition over Exorcism’, we start to ques-
tion, sociologically, the increase in the visibility of this practice and the
belief behind it. We argue that, due to intense competition between reli-
gious groups in our multi-faith societies, these groups are now branding
their particular type of exorcism ritual in order to validate the strength of
their own belief system. Comparing this case study with other cases from
the Pentecostal and the Anglican Churches, this chapter develops the the-
ory of the branding of exorcism. It argues that in a competitive religious
market, religious groups are increasing their interest in the devil in order
to justify their relevance and strength, but that each does this in a different
way – for example, the Pentecostals have their ministry of deliverance and
Catholics embrace the ritual of exorcism. Drawing on the data from our
fieldwork, we also show a move by the Catholic Church to a type of min-
istry of deliverance, which, in late modernity, is a more popular way of
dealing with the devil.
As part of an elective causation, the number of professional exorcists
has increased over the years, and Chap. 6, ‘The Over-Policing, and
Decriminalizing, of the Devil’, claims that as more experts are pointing
out that the devil is among us, more people are believing in him. We call
this process ‘the over-policing of the devil’. Our claim is that because of
the increasing number of religious experts on the devil, in various reli-
gions, and the increased reporting, by these same professionals, of the
presence of the demon, more and more people will come to believe in the
need for deliverance and/or exorcism. This chapter also includes an analy-
sis of the court cases resulting from two exorcisms gone wrong (R v
Vollmer and Others – 1996 in Australia, and R v Lee – 2006 in New
Zealand), and discusses discourses emerging from the secular courts with
regards to the decriminalization of the devil.
 INTRODUCTION 19

References
Alwin, D. (2013). Reflection on Thirty Years of Methodology and the Next
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Amorth, G. with Stimamiglio, S. (2016). An Exorcist Explains the Demonic. The
Antics of Satan and His Army of Fallen Angels. Manchester: Sophia Institute Press.
Baglio, M. (2009). The Rite. The Making of a Modern Exorcist. London: Simon
& Schuster.
Baker, J. (2008). Who Believes in Religious Evil? An Investigation of Sociological
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Bowman, E. (1993). Clinical and Spiritual Effects of Exorcism in Fifteen Patients
with Multiple Personality Disorder. Dissociation, 6(4), 222–238.
Collins, J. (2009). Exorcism and Deliverance Ministry in the Twentieth Century. An
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Cox, J., & Possamai, A. (Eds.). (2016). Religion and Non-religion among
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New York: Doubleday.
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Provence (1610–1611). Ceyzérieu: Champ Vallon.
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Martin, D. (2005). On Secularization: Towards a Revised General Theory.

Aldershot: Ashgate.
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 CHAPTER 2

The Sociology of Exorcism

Abstract This chapter gives an account of a sociological understanding of

what exorcism is. Using functional (what religion does for people and/or
community) and substantive (what religion is for people and/or community)
definitions of religion, this phenomenon is analysed through the ages, and
through classical Durkheimian, Marxian, and Weberian lenses. This chap-
ter also explores the fluidity of understanding concerning what this prac-
tice is, and, more specifically, how people understand when an entity is or
is not a demon. Acknowledging the difficulty of reaching a substantive
understanding of exorcism and its rituals, a social constructionist perspec-
tive on this phenomenon is then presented. By analysing the social history
of ghosts and demons, this chapter demonstrates the fluidity of under-
standing not only by the average lay person, but also by theologians, when
interpreting whether an entity is the devil and when this entity needs to be
expelled. No matter how the devil and exorcism are understood, this
chapter argues that there has been an increase in the level and occurrence
of belief.

Keywords Social constructionism • Ghosts • Demons • Devil • Social

theories

© The Author(s) 2018 21

G. Giordan, A. Possamai, Sociology of Exorcism in Late Modernity,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71773-9_2
22 G. GIORDAN AND A. POSSAMAI

Introduction
In the field of social sciences, the literature on possession is far more
extensive than that on the more specific topic of exorcism (e.g. Cuneo
2001; Hunt 1998). Apart from the work of de Certeau (2005) (as discussed
in the Introduction), these works do not provide a sociological overview
of this phenomenon. The aim of this chapter is to provide such an
overview.
We, the authors, do not adhere exclusively to one school of thought in
order to explain the phenomenon of exorcism. Our approach is that any
explanation of exorcism is dependent on context, and the explanation can
sometimes be in the eye of the sociologist. We discuss, below, the social
construction of this phenomenon, but we are also aware of the social con-
struction of the sociologist’s approach to this issue. For this reason, we
provide an overarching perspective on exorcism by underlining the need
to localize the phenomenon within specific cultural and social contexts.
Depending on the setting and each observer’s gaze, any of the sociological
theories proposed below will be elucidatory; apart from our use of de
Certeau’s theory and the theory of social constructionism, we do not pro-
vide any universal approach. Although Durkheim, Marx, and Weber did
not address this phenomenon, we will use their perspectives (and those of
others) to provide tools of analysis which are context dependent.
This chapter also explores the notion of exorcism as a form of popular
religion, rather than a form of institutionalized religion. In its worst possible
interpretation, ‘popular religion’ can refer to the ‘vulgar’, the ‘supersti-
tious’, the ‘hopelessly irrational’, the ‘socially retrograde’ and the ‘idiotic’
(Berlinerblau 2001). Popular religion often reflects the lived and unstruc-
tured religion of subordinated groups and is a term which has developed
mainly in contrast to institutionalized, established, and/or official religion,
which has a rationalized, codified, and inscribed theology. ‘Popular religion’
also refers to the religion of the people, when they subvert the codified
official religion of the elite group by, for example, changing the official lit-
urgy of the established religion to their own liking, bringing eclectic ele-
ments into a syncretic set of beliefs from other religions that are not officially
recognized, or simply by following a previous religion in opposition to a
new official one. In Parker’s (1998, p. 205) view, ‘[u]nlike the [official]
religion of reason characteristic of the intellectual elites and clergy, popular
religion is a religion of rites and myths, of dreams and emotions, of body
and the quest for this-worldly well-being’.
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 Clothing—Boat Building

In the preceding chapters little but an outline has been given of the
activities of the day in an Eskimo encampment. Boat building is one of
the occupations in which men and women jointly engage; but before this
is described at the length it requires, there is much to be said about the
dressing and fashioning of the various skins which form the most
important item of Eskimo economy.

The Eskimo woman values none of her possessions more than the
ooloo, a short-handled knife shaped like a small half-moon turf cutter,
chiefly used for paring off the inner membrane of the stout sealskin for
the lighter hangings of the summer tent, but of universal utility. With it
she cuts out her garments or dismembers a seal. In addition to this she
has steel or ivory needles and a thimble.

The Eskimo have no woven fabrics or European clothes until they come
in contact with the whites, and—perhaps unfortunately—acquire the
beginnings of a civilisation alien to the natural evolution and necessities
of their lives.

Their own native dress consists entirely of deerskins for winter use and
sealskins for the summer. [109]Both sets are warmly lined with fur. The
deerskins employed as clothing are the summer and autumn hides;
those flayed in the winter are reserved for the kaksak or sleeping
blankets. The men’s and women’s tunics are lined either with fawn skins
or the summer skins with the hair on. No underclothing is required, fur
always being worn next to the skin. The man’s jacket is looser in shape
than the woman’s, and the hood (nessak) fits closely round the face.
The woman’s garment is quite different. It has shorter, baggy sleeves, is
large and roomy at the back, fitting, however, tightly to the waist; it has a
hood (amout) big enough for two heads, a short stomacher-like apron
about twelve inches long in front, and a lengthy tail reaching to the
heels behind. The Eskimo women carry their babies on their backs in
this queer jacket. The child has no clothing on it, but it keeps admirably
warm next the fur-clad mother. Its feet rest on her waist line and its
head peers from out of the capacious hood over her shoulder.

Both sexes wear short, wide trousers. For footgear they have long
deerskin stockings like Lifeguardsmen’s boots, with the hair turned next
the skin, reaching well up over the knees under the pants. Over these is
worn a sock like a Turkish slipper, made from the skin of the Large
Glaucus Gull, the feathers being inside; and over this again goes a
short sock of deerskin, with the hair turned outwards and upwards so as
to enable the long boot, or kummik, to pull on easily. This boot is tied on
below the knee and round the [110]ankle. The sole is made of the leather
of the large ground seal, with the hair shaved off, and the leg is the skin
of deer’s legs stoutly stitched together.

The women take immense pride in the cut, fit, workmanship and
ornamentation of their dresses, showing no little taste and
discrimination in the management of design and ornament. The various
furs are introduced in lines, panels and patterns, with an eye to colour
and texture a skilled furrier might envy.

Prior to the advent of Europeans to the Arctics, fringes of deerskin were

the most popular form of ornament for clothing; but to-day the Eskimo
women are passionately fond of elaborate beadwork. The beads are of
European manufacture, but the design in which they are applied is
native. The favourite beads are small and brightly coloured. The native
sempstress will also sew two or three coins down the front of the inside
jacket and down the tail of the dress, or even the bowls of a few spoons.
These clink as they walk, and greatly delight their wearers.

The Eskimo tailor has a wonderfully correct eye, and can so scrutinise a
figure as to be able to turn out a well-fitting suit of skins without taking a
single measurement, or “trying on.”
The men’s clothes are plain, without ornamentation, and the fashion of
them does not vary with the season. In summer they are lined with the
white skins of the baby seal, which are as soft and fleecy as lambs’
wool; in winter, with the skins of the fawn, which are very soft and warm.
[111]

The Eskimo housewife prides herself greatly upon her store of skins.
These, and the soapstone cooking utensils, and the carefully housed
poles for the summer tupik, dogs, sled, and kyak, constitute the wealth
of a native family. Fine sewing thread is made from the sinew of deer’s
legs, scraped and dried. For stouter purposes, seal sinew is used.
Eskimo stitching requires to be seen to be appreciated. It is amusing to
note that the age of a child can be told at a glance by the length of the
tail of its little jacket.

Apropos generally of domestic tastes, a word must be added on the

women’s hairdressing. The hair is generally parted down the centre and
plaited on either side of the face, the two plaits being looped under the
ears (reminiscent of the early Victorian style!) and tied in a knot at the
back. In some tribes the women gather their hair up and bind it all into a
stiff vertical cone on the top of the head. They weave into this stubborn
erection every hair which comes out, so that in time a woman’s age may
be guessed by the size of her topknot. It used to be the fashion in
bygone days to tattoo the face with linear designs, but this has now
practically died out.

It is a common error of writers upon the Eskimo folk to assert that they
oil themselves to keep out the cold, that they drink oil as a food, and
revel in grease generally. Nothing of this is correct. The dirtier and the
greasier a man is, the colder he is; so every effort is made—not after
cleanliness exactly, as that is an impracticable standard—to keep
grease from [112]the clothes and the person. When engaged in preparing
or cleaning anything very oily, the women remove part of their dress to
save it, and afterwards rub away as much of the grease as possible
from their hands and arms. Seal oil and melted blubber act as strong
purgatives, hence it would be impossible to use them as drink, besides
they are required for the lamps.

Perhaps the next most important business of the Eskimo women, after
cooking and making the clothes, is the preparation of skins for the two
types of boat in use on the coast. This entails considerable labour and
skill. The men are responsible for the framework.
 (1) A Kayak. Fully equipped for hunting. (2) The Light
Framework of (1) over which skin is stitched. (3) Model of a
Umiak. The sail is made of seal intestines. (4) An Okushuk. A
cooking-pot with drinking-bowl, made of soapstone.

The kyak—a creation as truly national to these intrepid coasters as the

snowshoe may be to the Indian, the ski to the Norwegian, and the
alpenstock to the Swiss mountaineer—is a covered canoe, graceful as
a fish, for use at sea. It can be handled in the roughest weather. It
consists of a light framework, formerly of whalebone, but now generally
of driftwood, fastened together with thongs of sealskin. It is from
eighteen to twenty feet in length, strong and elastic to a degree, and
entirely covered with skins, almost resembling a torpedo in shape, with
long, tapering extremities. There is a small circular opening amid-ships,
where the kyaker sits, fitting closely round his body. In rough weather he
wears a waterproof jacket (of seal gut), the hood fitting tightly round his
face and the sleeves to his wrists. The lower edge [113]of this comes
over the opening in the canoe and is laced round it, so that man and
craft are fairly one.

The Rev. A. L. Fleming, formerly a naval architect, informed the writer

that the lines of the kyak are perfect, and from the point of view of sea-
going architecture could not be improved. The Baffin Land kyak is
broader than the Greenland type. The latter is much narrower, and
requires great skill to handle. Readers of Arctic literature will recall
Nansen’s account of the extraordinary feats performed by the Eskimo
on the west coast of Greenland in manœuvring these canoes. The
Baffin Islanders are also very skilful. They can right themselves, if
completely overturned, by a peculiar quick jerk of the paddle. The kyak
cannot fill, should the waves wash right over it. It probably comes
nearer the ideal of an unsinkable boat than many a more ambitious
construction. It would be hard to say, as between hunting and fishing
(the staple business of their lives), which is the characteristic national
“sport” of the Eskimo; but certainly no one not born and bred to the
handling of the kyak could acquire the native degree of ease and
daring.

The sealskins for these canoes are bleached. Either they are scalded,
or tied in bundles and hung up in a warm atmosphere to ferment. This
process is allowed to go on for a week or two, until the stench becomes
unbearable. When taken down and shaved with the ooloo, the black
epidermis comes away with the hair, leaving the skins beautifully white.
The inner membranes [114]are left intact. The next step is to stitch the
skins together. Bleached hides may be made to alternate with
unbleaced ones, by way of ornament; or the entire covering may be
merely black or brown.

The thread is sinew from seal flesh, since it must be derived from the
same source as the skins, to ensure the same degree of shrinking and
stretching. The seams are double stitched, first through the skin only,
leaving the membrane untouched, and then oversewing the latter, so as
to make them perfectly watertight. The moistened skins are then loosely
applied to the framework; as they shrink and dry they fit to it exactly,
and form a light, drum-tight covering over the whole. It is part of the
man’s job to fit the wooden rim to the opening on top, and to make the
loops which serve to secure his weapons.

He carries a three-pronged bird spear on the left hand side in front of

him; on the right is his sealing spear, and between the two is a small
round tray for the coiled seal line fixed to the detachable spearhead.
Behind him on the left is his nixie or hook, on the right a heavy harpoon
for striking walrus or the larger creatures he may encounter, between
the two and immediately behind him an inflated sealskin with the end of
his sealing line attached. Thus equipped, the canoe is complete, a thing
of pride to its owner, which will last all his life and be handed down to
his sons and their sons after him.

The sealing spear has an ivory (or nowadays a steel) butt for breaking
ice, and acts as an ice chisel. [115]Its shaft consists of a piece of
driftwood, its long keen point is made from part of the jawbone or rib of
the whale, and its detachable barbed head is of steel or ivory. The long
line attached to this is a stout strip of white whale hide. The harpoon,
too, is of wood and ivory, as also is the long hunting knife and the small
kit of lesser tools without which the hunter seldom moves. All these
things are made during the endless winter evenings, while sitting round
the seal oil lamps in the igloo, or on stormy days when the Arctic
blizzard obliterates the world without. (There is an interesting collection
of Eskimo dresses and implements and utensils to be seen in the
Ethnological Gallery at the British Museum; but perhaps even more
representative a one is that in the Natural History Museum in New
York.)

The paddle of the kyak is made from a long piece of driftwood. Its
proper length is the span of the owner (the full extent of the two
extended arms), and half a span again. The blades are narrow, since
they are for use at sea, and engage the most skilful attention of the
craftsman. Both are tipped with ivory. This pouteek, as it is called, can
be used as an outrigger. On top of the kyak, in front of the man, there
are four strongly made loops of hide, the exact width of the blade of the
paddle. If the rower wishes to stand up or give play to free movement,
to cut up and store away a seal either upon the craft or inside it, he
cannot do so without an outrigger or he would simply capsize. To
prevent this, he pushes one end [116]of the paddle into the loops, which
hold it fast. The other end, outboard, acts as a counter-weight and
exactly balances the canoe. It is then perfectly stable and almost
impossible to upset. The dexterity of the kyaker has already been
alluded to. He can do anything with this boat. His confidence is so
complete that not infrequently, when a heavy wave is atop of him, he
will deliberately turn turtle, receive the weight of the water on the
bottom, and right himself when the moment is passed.

The Umiak is a very different craft, and serves the Eskimo family as a
sort of general pantechnicon and removing van. It consists of a large,
clumsy framework of wood, covered with the skins of the big ground
seal, which are dressed into a thick tough leather. It is really an open
sailing boat, capable of carrying perhaps six families and a huge and
miscellaneous cargo. It has a square stem and stern and a stumpy mast
set well forward in the bows. The large square sail used to be made in
earlier days of skin stitched together, or of the intestines of seals blown
out and dried, then split open, the long, broad strips alternating with
narrow strips of the same material, to ensure equal stretching and
shrinking. Nowadays, the natives provide themselves with sail-cloth
from the trading posts. The Umiak is an unhandy thing to manage, but a
good enough boat in a heavy sea way. When on a long voyage up or
down the coast or across the bays, in former times, the Umiak had a
double skin; the outer covering becomes so waterlogged [117]and the
movement so sluggish that the whole thing is cast off, and the journey
proceeds in the inner, lighter and drier shell. The gut sail requires
constant wetting to prevent it splitting into ribbons. This primitive
concern is paddled by women when the paddles become necessary, but
a man has the steering in his charge.

The oars for the Umiak are clumsy things compared to the kyak paddle.
The blades are rough oblongs of wood, almost like spades, fitted to
poles of wood by no means necessarily straight, and bound on by
thongs of hide. Sometimes the oar is quite a crooked branch, and a
collection of these in the hide hung boat looks about as prehistoric an
outfit as Mr. E. T. Reed’s most comic imagination might depict among
his inimitable parodies of life in the neolithic period.

The Kyak and the Umiak are the two purely native types of boat used
on the Arctic coast. The people, however, are familiar and handy
enough nowadays with rowing and sailing boats of European model,
wherever they have had the opportunity of using and knowing them.
They have other ingenious means of getting about on the water when
boats of any description are not to be had at all. The hunter at the edge
of the floe can stand and paddle himself away out to sea on a raft or
slab of ice detached from the mass; and the deerstalker inland, anxious
to cross a sheet of water or a river, will utilise a skin stuffed with dried
heather, stoutly bound about with thongs of [118]hide. He sits on this and
skims off as happily as a water-beetle.

The possession of a couple of boats like the foregoing, of a good store

of hunting weapons, plenty of skins, a team of well-trained dogs, and
two sleds—one, a short, light, travelling affair for hunting, and the other
a heavy, long-distance thing for the migrations of the family—constitute
the Eskimo house-holder’s wealth, and determine his social precedence
and standing in the tribe. [119]
[Contents]
CHAPTER IX
 Eskimo Dogs

The value to the Eskimo of a good team of about five dogs is equivalent to that
of a kyak or a sled, or a reliable gun. To assess it in terms of money would have
no significance in a land where utility and necessity alone determine the scale.

The breed is part, or half, wolf. In build, the true Eskimo dog is well formed,
almost slim about the hindquarters compared with the rest of his body, the broad
and sturdy chest, the strong neck and heavy jaws. His hair is very thick, grey or
tawny in colour, and his tail immensely bushy, always carried erectly, curving
over the back. He is a different creature to the Samoyede and the Kentucky wolf
hound; but probably there is very little to distinguish him from the famous
Alaskan “husky” dog of so much literary fame, and the dog of the Labrador.

The dogs in Baffin Land are fed solely on seal flesh, unlike those of the trappers
and mail carriers in Alaska and elsewhere, who subsist on a spare and spartan
ration of frozen fish. Sacks of chopped seal are always carried on the sleds for
the dogs on a winter journey, skin and hair included. They are [120]wonderful
travellers, although the speed with which a trip may be accomplished depends
on a good many other factors than dog power alone. In the winter a team may
average thirty miles a day; or when conditions of ice and wind are particularly
favourable this figure may be doubled.

The Eskimo dogs begin their lives in quite pleasant domestic comfort. They
breed in the spring and autumn, and the puppies when born are kept on the
sleeping place in the tent or igloo, and played with by the women and children in
order to accustom them to being handled, and to the scent of human beings.
Otherwise they would grow up wild and savage, and a trouble to their owners;
and, moreover, might too easily fall a fat and toothsome morsel to any
particularly hungry parent or stray wolf about the camp. They are pretty, playful
puppies, full of puppy imbecility and fun. When about six weeks old this halcyon
period of irresponsibility and shelter comes to an abrupt end. Out go the lot into
the hard world, to eat and sleep with the grown-up dogs of the village. And
immediately the puppy’s training begins. He has a miniature harness made for
him and a little sled. The small boys take him in hand. They harness him and
drive him about, to his unfathomable disgust and their own diversion, until he
becomes used to the process and the various words of command.
As time goes on and he gets a little older his serious education engages the
attention of the men. Puppy is harnessed to the real sled with the older dogs
and [121]has to help to drag it to the hunting grounds. He objects strongly to
leaving the village and what it has of possibilities in the way of tit-bits; but the
accustomed orders break over his head in a fearful roar he has never heard
before, and he scares up a new obedience. Soon, however, he tries the effect of
rebellion, and bolts back on the trail, only to be brought up with a jerk as he
reaches the end of his line. He is unceremoniously dragged along on his back,
bumping over the rough ice, hating everything and everybody, thinking life not a
bit worth living and that the bottom of his world has fallen out. He is rudely
brought to! The leader of the team knows what to do. Like a parent spanking a
naughty child, the leader sails in, and with many a forceful shake and many a
shrewd nip at every tender point, he forces Puppy to take his rightful station in
the team and do his best to pull. As he goes back to his own position at the
head the Leader just passes word along to the rest to follow his example. They
make quite a point of it. As often as the recruit shows a tendency to slack off
again, or so much as rolls an eye towards the back trail, they give him a shake
up or a nip on the leg to encourage him to proceed, rather, in the right direction.
He receives further assistance towards this desirable fixity of purpose by an
occasional and painfully adroit flick of the hunter’s long driving lash.

A few days of this sort of thing, and the youngster registers the lesson that
discretion is the better part of valour. He learns to keep his objections to himself.
[122]

The next thing to dawn upon his expanding mind is that dragging heavy weights
over the snow makes one’s feet uncommonly sore. The older dogs knew that
long ago, and lay down before starting in the morning, quite willing to have their
boots put on. The dog “boot” is merely an oblong strip of seal leather with two
holes for the nails to go through and a couple of thongs to secure the ends
round the leg. Everywhere in the Arctics the freight dogs are obliged to have
protection for their feet. But Youngster, whose turn for practical investigation has
ere this convinced him that nothing is inedible except sticks and stones, retires
promptly to the back of the sled or behind the nearest cover, and eats his boots
there and then, with early morning relish. The team, to a dog, say nothing, but
start off as usual. Youngster licks his lips, curls his tail, and feels good. But after
a few miles something of the curl goes out of his tail, his feet become tender
and he droops a little. The others plod on; he lags. Instantly comes the sting of
the whip or a nip of teeth like a vice. Youngster sprints ahead, only to flag more
and more, to limp and crawl at last with the pain in his unprotected, wayworn
feet. At the end of the day he simply staggers home, a very sad and sobered
Puppy. Leader strolls over, when he thinks he will, looks at him en passant, and
grins. The culprit adds another mental note to his list of things not good for the
digestion. No more boots!

Comes another milestone on the hard path of learning and virtue—pilfering. [123]

Young dogs have to learn that everything on the sled is rigorously taboo—for
them. Not to be touched, or so much as sniffed at, on any account whatever.
This lesson can only be enforced by many a whipping. For Youngster does so
love to stroll past the sled with a preoccupied air, hands in pocket as it were. If
he were a human being he would hum a hymn tune. Then, just in that flick of
time when no one seems to be looking, he steals a mouthful of seal-meat or
blubber. Instantly retribution envelops him. He is severely thrashed. If an
experience of this sort repeated once or twice does not cure him his master
becomes harsh indeed. The hunter must at all costs gain and keep the
ascendancy over his dogs. The thief has his head forced hard back with the
mouth wide open, and the man smashes out the two long upper fangs with the
back of his hunting knife. That bit of violence completes this part of Youngster’s
spartan education.

He graduates by learning how to smell for seal holes in the ice, how to tackle a
bear, how to defend himself, how to guard the tent or igloo, how to brave every
extreme of bitter weather. When an Eskimo dog knows all this he becomes a
valuable asset to his master.

The Eskimo drives his sled team spread out fanwise. In this formation they are
less likely to break through the snow crust than if driven Indian fashion, one
ahead of the other. The tandem style is suitable for wooded country, where
there is no room to expand [124]and where it is imperative to keep to a narrow,
perhaps ill-defined trail; but in the Arctics one of the greatest dangers of
travelling is to fall into deep snow. Men and dogs alike can be smothered if the
crust gives way, for their struggles only cause them to sink the deeper. The dogs
are driven by word of command only (i.e., orders to get up, start, straight ahead,
right or left, lie down), and by the whip, a tremendously long thong of white
whale hide attached to a short stock. Half the art of dog driving consists in the
right management of this difficult whip. It has to sail out to touch just the right
dog in just the right place, and should crack sharply at the tip. The Leader is the
most important, reliable and experienced dog in the team. He is attached to the
sled by a longer trace than the others, so that he runs ahead of them, and his
position is in the centre. It goes without saying that he is very conscious of his
eminence, and gives himself insufferable airs.

In camp the team always sleep curled round in the snow, if not in the porch at
least near their master’s dwelling, ready for any scraps that may be flung out;
and woe betide any other dog who dares to come near, or even essays to pass
by! There is a rush and the outsider is severely mauled. Another time, he makes
a wide détour. The people never leave the tents without a guard if they can
possibly help it. If the man and woman are both away a child is left. The dogs
can tell the place is inhabited and refrain from a raid, which would only bring a
storm about their ears if [125]once the alarm were raised. But should the dwelling
be empty even for a short time, the dogs at once get to know it—and they know
about the stores of meat and oil and blubber inside! Now, the Leader of the
team belonging to the establishment is there also as a “guard,” but his argument
seems to be that this obligation applies only to outsiders. Having driven off any
strange visitants who may venture around, he has no further scruples about
helping himself. Moreover, he has a remarkable business head. He believes, in
letting the others down—for his own advantage and prestige.

As soon, then, as he decides the tupik is really empty, he gives one short, deep
note, well understood by the others dogs, signifying that the coast is clear. Then
he bounces at the tent wall, bursts through it, and snatching the first big
mouthful of meat he can get, beats a discreet retreat, leaving the others like
thoughtless children to do the work and get themselves into the required mess.
They rush in, of course, make hay of the tent, and kick up a tremendous uproar,
giving themselves away to the whole village. It does not take long for the natives
to cope with the situation. Armed with sticks, they hurry to the spot, and while
some penetrate the tent to lay about and drive the dogs outside, others stand
ready for the culprits when they come out, to give them such hard blows as will
last them well—until next time! Out comes number one, a lump of provender in
his teeth. He gets his blows right enough, but sticks to the meat [126]… only to
be met, further on by the Leader, a surprised and indignant look on his face, as
who should say “What! You at it again! Stealing, when you ought to be on guard!
And having the effrontery to try to pass Me with your plunder! Put that meat
down instantly and I’ll take charge of it! If you want any more, go back and get
it.”
There is no getting past this. The delinquent is bowled out, rolled over, bullied
until he loses his head and his booty into the bargain. He is glad to escape alive.
He breaks away at last, frantically licking his wounds. Whereupon Leader
absent-mindedly eats the meat and sits down to await another scrap from the
next offender. He calls this keeping his end up with the mob.

On one lurid occasion of this sort, all the canine raiders had escaped from the
tent but one, a small fat puppy. He happened to be in the place at the time and
quite enjoyed entering into the spirit of the thing—meant to do his best like the
others. So he climbed into the lamp, freshly replenished with oil, and fitted it so
exactly, lubricating himself from head to foot, that he stuck in situ to be caught,
but looking quite proud of his position and feeling altogether grown up. He was
soaked in oil and grime; oil dripped from his mouth, and the laugh on his face
plainly said, “My! This is good! Why didn’t I think of it before?” He was
summarily pulled both out of the lamp and out of his complacency. Infantile yells
outside told of early correction being administered and a lesson in honesty
[127]enforced. After that his mother took him in hand and licked him clean.

It is sometimes asserted that the Eskimo dog does not bark. This is a mistake,
as he certainly has a snappy bark of his own, however little it may resemble the
recognised barks of all other sorts of dogs. For the most part he howls.

The dogs, one and all, are up to every sort of trick. Moreover, their stomachs are
for ever empty and always keen for any sort of food. They are fed at night whilst
on the trail, in order that the meal should have time to digest and strengthen
them. Incidentally, they sleep soundly buried in the snow, and neither attempt to
stray nor to break into the hunter’s sleeping place. In the morning they are
nowhere to be seen. The white expanse remains unbroken. They are all under
the snow, and in no way inclined to rouse up and be harnessed. Nobody wastes
time looking for them. Someone takes a lamp outside the shelter and empties
the oil on the ground. Immediately black noses emerge from here and there,
tempted by the smell, and the rest is easy.

Once upon a time Nannook (the bear) the Bad Hat of the team, had a brilliant
idea. He had often considered the weighty problem of the driving lash it seemed
so impossible for his master ever to forget. The point was, how to get rid of it.
So long as that whip cracked forever about them there was no chance of
making the other dogs do his share of the work, no opportunity to slack off or
snatch a rest. The only [128]scheme seemed to be to eat it. Nothing loth,
Nannook waited for the usual midday halt. The hunter chopped off some frozen
pieces of meat, sat down in the lee of the sled and ate and smoked. The whip
lay unheeded on the snow behind his shoulder.

Nannook sneaked up, caught hold of the end of the lash, and steadily began to
chew. He chewed yard after yard, his stomach feeling better with every foot of
the way. He chewed up to the very stock, undetected; and having packed away
at least eighteen feet of seasoned whalehide, crept back to the team. Presently
the hunter bestirred himself for a start. Picking up his whip—he just gazed
round. It was a dog, without a doubt; but which one? Who on earth could tell! All
were innocently dozing, every one in his place, the picture of virtuous decorum.
No one could tell. No one, therefore, could be punished. The rest of the journey
was accomplished perforce of shouting only. For once in a way the dogs had the
best of the joke.

It sometimes happens on a long trail with a heavy sled that a blizzard, or some
other untoward circumstance, may delay a traveller for a longer or shorter time;
sometimes for days. His food supply gives out and the dogs come to an end of
their rations. The team gets ever more weary and more weak. The hunter goes
on ahead, breaking the trail for them on snowshoes; the dogs stagger along
after him, often lying down and refusing to get up. But the trouble has not been
unforeseen. The master has prepared [129]for this sort of emergency by carefully
bringing along some particularly bad bits of refuse seal meat. The stench of
them would imbue a skunk with self-respect, in comparison. Taking one of
these, he forges ahead, calling the dogs and leaving behind him a lure like
poison gas. He drops the meat, and the Leader, picking up the scent, with a new
cock in his dispirited ears, bustles round, spurring up the team with the
information. “Come on!” he says. “Can’t you see he’s dropped that bit? My, can’t
you smell it? Hurry up, and let’s get it!” They do get up, poor dupes; but the
Leader, in virtue of his longer trace gets there first, and doesn’t wait to argue.
Over and over again this manœuvre is repeated, both on the hunter’s part and
on the Leader’s. The rest of the team make all the effort they can to get equal
with such duplicity, and sometimes even succeed in snatching first at the bait.
Anyway, it is a fine way of getting the sled along and taking their minds off their
troubles. A trail of loathsome scraps, each one encouraging a spurt on the part
of the dogs, helps over the distance. Often an exhausted team has been
enabled to cover the last few miles by this method, when otherwise they must
have dropped.
In spite of the rigour of his life and the necessary hardness of his owner, the
Eskimo dog is not without that glorious power of faithful canine devotion which is
one of the most beautiful forms of love on earth. The writer knows of at least two
instances where a dog has wasted away and died of grief in his master’s
[130]absence or after his death. But such a true canine trait is very rare. For the
most part, these animals readily transfer their affections to the hand that feeds
them.

They are savage to all strangers. The team guards its master’s tent or igloo
because he is the one who provides for it. The dogs sleep in the porch as a rule;
and before entering a dwelling the visitor is well advised to call to one of the
inmates to quiet them, otherwise he will be severely bitten. In winter, when
hungry, the dogs are more dangerous than ever. It happened, once, that two
Eskimo had died, and been sewn up in their blankets and buried beneath a
cairn of huge stones in a neighbouring valley. One of the bodies was even
enclosed in a light barrel. During the night the dogs raided the place, tore down
the stones, and ate the dead. In the summer time they forage for themselves on
the seashore, picking up small fish left by the tide, and anything edible they can
find.

The Eskimo dog has a great deal that is wolfish and dangerous in him. The
strain, indeed, is very little differentiated from the wolf. Sometimes a dog will
leave camp, go back to the wild, and join a pack of wolves as one of
themselves. Those who do this seldom return; but when they do, puppies of the
direct resulting strain are greatly valued. It has been remarked that, whereas
wolves in the Arctic seldom attack a human being, dogs will not uncommonly do
so. The extraordinary thing about this is that hydrophobia [131]is practically
unknown. It would be difficult to say exactly what may be the natural span of life
of the Eskimo dogs, but they seem to be at least as long lived as the larger
breeds of European dogs.

The Eskimo names his dog ‘The Lively One,’ the ‘Bear,’ the ‘North Star,’ and in
similar fashion. The animals possess much humour of their own; one belonging
to the writer, of whom he was extremely fond, certainly enjoyed fun, and could
very nearly speak!

Lest, while on the subject of these creatures too much space should be devoted
to them, this chapter cannot be concluded without a brief description of the
sleds to which their toilsome lives are vowed.
The small, light-going sled used for hunting is only about six feet in length. The
cross bars are fastened to the runners by sealskin thongs, to ensure a certain
degree of pliability in travelling over rough ice. A pair of reindeer horns with part
of the skull attached are fastened by thongs to the back of the sled, forming a
sort of erect triangle. This serves as a rack upon which to hang coils of sealing
line and various implements, and also as a rest to lean against for anyone sitting
on the sled. The runners are shod with strips of bone sawn from the ribs or jaw
of the whale, and fastened on either by wooden pegs or by thongs sunk into
grooves to prevent them wearing through. These runners are the object of very
special care and constant daily attention on the part of the owner. They are
covered with a thick coating of seal’s blood, [132]for the sake of a fine surface.
The craftsman takes a mouthful of this material and squirts it upon the runners,
moulding it at the same time with his fingers. It freezes even as he smooths it
down, and with a final squirting of water takes a high, hard glaze which ensures
smooth and swift running for the sled. If seal’s blood happens to be scarce the
maker uses a mixture of moss roots and water, which gives an almost equally
good surface when applied in the same way, and looks like nothing so much as
a first-class cork lino.

The Kummotik, or long travelling sled, is double the length of the foregoing and
heavier in proportion. Otherwise its construction is the same. It requires a team
of from twelve to eighteen dogs, whereas five are sufficient for the hunting sled.
The loading of a Kummotik is a work of art. There is a place for everything, and
everything has to go, just so, into its place. The spears and weapons are stowed
in the bottom of the sled in front, by the driver. At the far end, a piece of skin is
laid down and upon this slab upon slab of blubber for the lamp is piled up, and
the lamp set atop of the lot, bottom up, because of the grease and dirt. Then the
meat for the journey is put aboard—frozen deer hams, and frozen seals entire,
enough for the whole party until they fetch up at the next tribe’s camping
ground. The meat is, of course, uncooked, since a minimum of raw meat gives a
maximum of heat and strength. (Hence the Eskimo prefer their rations raw when
there is work to be [133]done. The cooked stew of an evening is a mere luxury
meal.) A skin is thrown over the heap of provisions to prevent the travellers’
clothing being soiled by it. Over it all are piled the rolled-up sleeping blankets
and the karsâte or deerskin rugs for mattresses. Knives, axes and lines hang
upon the horns behind. The driver’s seat in front is a box containing small tools,
flint and steel. The whole load is securely lashed down to the cross bars of the
sled. The man’s spear is slipped into the lashings on one side, so as to be