It seems to me clear that this belief in the tornarssuk, no less than in the tornat, must be traced to a belief in the spirits or ghosts of ancestors. We may possibly find evidence of this in the words themselves. It seems probable that tôrnak may have been the same word as tarnik or tarne (that is, soul), which again resembles tarrak (shadow—compare p. [226]). We find some support for this theory in the fact that tôrnak appears on the east coast in the form of tartok or tartak, which is the same word as tarrak.[87] Thus it appears to me probable that all these words were originally one and the same, signifying shadow, reflection, or soul, and also designating the souls of the dead. Tôrnârssuk, again, is certainly a derivative of tôrnak, having probably been in its origin the same as tôrnârssuak, that is to say, ‘the big, or the bad and horrible, tornak.’ This implies that he was originally a particularly powerful tornak, which, among some tribes, has gradually obtained a sort of dominion over the other tornat or souls of the dead.
That these souls should have become the subject of peculiar superstitions is readily comprehensible when we observe the fear with which they still regard the dead, and still more, of course, their spectres. These gengangere are often visible and may be very dangerous, though sometimes, too, they are tolerably well-disposed. The most amiable way in which they can manifest themselves is in a whistling sound, or a singing in people’s ears. In the latter case they are begging for food, and to such a request a Greenlander will reply: ‘Help yourself’—meaning ‘from my stores.’[88] That the ghost is not always hostile appears from what Niels Egede[89] relates of a boy at Godthaab who, playing one day with several others in the neighbourhood of his mother’s grave, suddenly saw a shape rising up from it. He and the others took to their heels, but the ghost ran after them, caught her son, ‘embraced him, kissed him, and said, “Do not be frightened of me; I am your mother, and love you”;’ with more to the same effect.
Their customs at the death and burial of their friends show how much they fear the dead, and especially their souls or ghosts. The dying are often dressed in their grave-clothes—that is to say, in their best garments—a little while before death. The legs, too, are often bent together, so that the feet come up under the back, and in this position they are sewed or swathed in skins. The object is, no doubt, that they may take up less space and need a smaller grave; and it is done during their life in order that the survivors may have to handle their corpses as little as possible. This dread of touching a dead body goes so far (as before-mentioned on page [137]) that they will not help a man in danger—for example, a kaiak-man who is drowning—when they believe that he is at the point of death.
When they are finally dead, they are taken, if it be in a house, out through the window; if in a tent, through an opening cut in the skins of the back wall.[90] This corresponds remarkably with the common custom in our own country of carrying a body out through an opening in the wall made for the purpose.[91] The reason is, no doubt, the same in both cases—namely, that these openings can be entirely closed again, so that the spectre or soul cannot re-enter, as it might if the body were carried out by way of the passage or the door. It is not improbable that the Greenlanders may have borrowed the habit from the ancient Norwegian or Icelandic settlers in Greenland. It is mentioned in several sagas as having been the custom of the heathen Icelanders. In the Eyrbyggja Saga[92] it is said: ‘Then he [Arnkel] let break down the wall behind him [the body of Thorolf], and brought him out thereby.’ The clothes and other possessions of the deceased are also at once thrown out, that they may not make the survivors unclean. This recalls our death-bed burning, which is also a widespread custom among our kindred races in Europe.[93]
The survivors also carry their own possessions out of the house, that the smell of death may pass away from them. They are either brought in again at evening, or, as on the east coast, are left lying out for several days. The relatives of the dead man, on the east coast, go so far as to leave off wearing their old clothes, which they throw away.[94]
When the body is carried out, a woman sets fire to a piece of wood, and waves it backwards and forwards, saying: ‘There is nothing more to be had here.’ This is, no doubt, done with a view to showing the soul that everything belonging to it has been thrown out.
Bodies are either buried in the earth or thrown into the sea (if one of the dead man’s ancestors has perished in a kaiak (?)). The possessions of the deceased—such as his kaiak, weapons, and clothes; or, in the case of a woman, her sewing materials, crooked knife, &c.—are laid on or beside the grave, or, if the body is thrown into the sea, they are laid somewhere upon the beach. This seems to be partly due to their fear of a dead person’s property and unwillingness to use it; partly, too, as Hans Egede says, to the fact that the sight of these things and the consequent recollection of the dear departed would be apt to set them crying, and ‘if they cry too much over the departed they believe that it makes him cold.’[95] This idea reminds one strongly of the second song of Helge Hundingsbane, where his widow Sigrun meets him wet and frozen, and wrapped in a cloud of hoar frost, by reason of her weeping over him. (‘Helge swims in the dew of sorrow.’[96]) Compare also the well-known Swedish-Danish folk-song of ‘Aage and Else,’ in which we read:
‘For every time that in thy breast
Thy heart is glad and light,
Then all within my coffin seems
With rose-leaves decked and dight.
For every time that in thy breast
Thy heart is sad and sore,
Then all within my coffin seems
To swim in red, red gore.’
But, beyond this, it was doubtless the belief of the Greenlanders that the deceased had need of his implements, partly for earthly excursions from the grave, partly also in the other world. They saw, indeed, that the implements rotted, but that only meant that their souls followed the soul of the deceased. Those who carry the body out, or have touched it or anything belonging to it, are for some time unclean, and must refrain from certain foods and occupations, which the angekoks prescribe; indeed, all those who live in the same house must observe the like precautions, partly to avoid injury to themselves, partly in order to place no hindrance in the way of the departed soul on its journey to the other world.