Angakorsiak, an arrogant angakok, sought to outdo others in displays of shamanic prowess, often mocking his rivals. After performing daring feats, he was bested by a northern angakok in both skill and a kayak-race. Overwhelmed by shame after his failure, he transformed into a reindeer, later reverting to human form. This humbling experience led him to abandon his competitive ways.
Source:
Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo
by Henry Rink
[William Blackwood and Sons]
Edinburgh and London, 1875
► Themes of the story
Transformation: Angakorsiak’s shame leads him to transform into a reindeer, symbolizing a profound change in identity and self-perception.
Tragic Flaw: His arrogance and competitive nature serve as his downfall, highlighting how personal weaknesses can lead to one’s undoing.
Moral Lessons: The story imparts a lesson on the perils of pride and the value of humility, encouraging self-reflection and personal growth.
► From the same Region or People
Learn more about the Inuit peoples
Abridged version of the story.
Angakorsiak was very proud of his angakok wisdom, and always roamed about seeking opportunities of emulating other angakut. When he happened to surpass them, he used to mock and ridicule them in a most overbearing manner. Once he visited an angakok far up north, and challenged him to a match, at which, in broad daylight, they were to contend in working the wonders of their art before an assembly.
Angakorsiak began his performance by cutting off his arm near the shoulder, inserting it again and drinking the blood from the wound; after which he swallowed an arrow-point and made it appear again, opened his stomach with a knife, and so on.
► Continue reading…
When he had finished, the other angakok repeated the same feats with the utmost perfection, and then remarked, “Well, what we have yet done amounts to nothing; but I should now like to try a kayak-race with thee.” They went down in their kayaks, and the angakok of the place, taking his way to an island, threw his harpoon at a rock with such force as to make it enter the stone and blood to spring from it. Angakorsiak on trying this entirely failed, his harpoon being broken and lost. On their way back to the shore he bent down his head from shame, capsized his kayak, and sank. But directly afterwards a reindeer emerged from the water, and ran up on the beach. Shame having thus transformed him into a reindeer, he afterwards turned a man again, and hastened away, resolved to give up all kind of emulation in future.
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