[148] Angekoks, too, might be of either sex, but women seem always to have been in the minority among them.
[149] Holm, Meddelelser om Grönland, part 10, p. 135; Rink, Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, pp. 53, 151, 201, 461; N. Egede, Tredie Continuation af Relationerne, pp. 43, 48; P. Egede, Efterretninger om Grönland, p. 18, &c.
[150] Compare Carl Andersen, Islandske Folkesagn og Eventyr, 2nd edit. (1877) pp. 144-149. It is interesting to compare these Icelandic tales with the East Greenland legend related by Holm (Meddelelser om Grönland, part 10, p. 303), which is very similar in matter, though of course adapted to the conditions of life in Greenland. Analogous tales are also to be found in Norway, according to Moltke Moe, who has directed my attention to this remarkable similarity.
[151] Rink, Tales and Traditions of the Eskimos, p. 42.
[152] One of the characteristics of the ilisitsoks, as well as of the angekoks, is that they breathe fire. In the mediæval legends, and even in more recent European folk-lore, this faculty was attributed to the Devil, and was often extended to those who had sold themselves to him. The Greenland fire-breathing is probably connected with this mediæval superstition. The ilisitsoks, moreover, when seen by the angekoks during their exorcisms, are observed to be black from the hands up to the elbows—a trait which may also have its origin in the popular European conception of the Devil and his host as black in colour.
[153] Hans Egede, Grönlands Perlustration, p. 116.
[154] Compare Holm, Meddelelser om Grönland, part 10, p. 118.
[155] Holm, Meddelelser om Grönland, part. 10, p. 119.
[156] Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, p. 51; Danish ed. suppl. p. 194.
[157] As regards the greater part of these myths, the theory that they were invented independently in different parts of the world seems quite inadmissible; the coincidences are too numerous and too characteristic. Examples may be cited, indeed, of the same invention having been made independently by different races remotely situated from each other; but they are remarkably rare. On the other hand, it is surprising how certain tools, cultivated plants, and arts or accomplishments have been handed on from people to people over immense tracts of the earth. (Compare Peschel, Abhandlungen zur Erd-und Völkerkunde, 1877, i. p. 468).