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248 LITERATÛRZINÂTNE, FOLKLORISTIKA, MÂKSLA
intuitively knows the path into the complex interrelationships of the material world,
animate force, and powers of transformation, thus he survives. Moreover he punishes
his wrong–doers.
“The greatest peril of life lies in the fact that human food consists entirely
of souls. All the creatures that we have to kill and eat, all those
that we have to strike down and destroy to make clothes for ourselves,
have souls, souls that do not perish with the body…” 8
And it seems to be one of the truths known to Ughek, thus he cuts monster killed
by the stone into small pieces, cooks him and leaves on the dishes as a treat for the
villagers who subsequently drop dead on having consumed the flesh of the monster
but Ughek himself returned to his but to live with his store, and there he is now. 9
In other cases madness is brought forth for the sake of its origin, hence pointing
to its metaphysical nature, as when the soul of a human is captured by the evil spirit
and is to be released via sacred rituals.
The Kwakiutl Hamatsa Dance for instance is based on the myth of an ancestor
who encountered the supernatural cannibal spirit Bakhbakwalanooksiwey and later
on returned to his fellow–villagers in a wild state. With the help of ritual dances he
was restored to his normal state. In a while the boundaries between the realms of
human creatures and spirits, between the dimensions of present and past were secured
again.
Life, out there in the wild of Canada is a constant concern about survival. The
idea of “enemy” or “threat” is an external world realia, yet the experience of this
phenomenon results in internal pressures and tensions. Fear and panic are one of the
most threatening correlations of the internal and external realms. The vitalized embodiment
of “threat” sits itself somewhere on the threshold of internal and external
reality where Self is opposed to the notion of Other, Unknown, Incomprehensible,
which is incorporation of animosity. “Enemy”, “threat” or “fear” often disguise in
symbolic representations. The mythologies explore the passage between the inner and
outer worlds calling for wide–ranging perspectives. They are neither inside nor outside,
they serve as a medium.
The underlying mechanisms of mental disorders quite common in the Arctic are
obscure. Some part of the mind which usually is reality–bound frees itself to turn to
fantasy and eventually to hallucination. Inner factors of the mind being projected
outward lead one to see monsters, hallucinate his past, become “at one” with the cannibal
spirit. The supernatural reality of Canada was no less threatening and severe to
the peoples of Canada than its physical world. The myths about the Cannibal monsters
of the Canadian forests is one of the examples to the above – mentioned.
The Windigos who were given various names by different bands of Algonquian
peoples are one of those threatening realias. The description of their outlook also
could vary but by and large the existent narrations show them as the most evil and
appalling of spirits.