Ilatsiak - 7

Patsy could see a dog team forming in the the dazzling whiteness out on the sea ice. It was merely a speck in his eye, but the fact that it was moving told him it was time to go and warn his father, People were coming, perhaps to trade, perhaps just with stories to tell, in which case the scientists would be wanting to know and he would get some money working as a translater.
“That’s all, old man,” Patsy said as he got to his feet. “You must tell me about the times you had with your new wife. I bet you had many children, yes?”
“No, we had hardly any...” Ilatsiak quietly said. There was something about his eyes that let Patsy know there were stories lying behind them and he smiled back. Then he turned and headed towards his father’s cabin. As he walked along, the old man stayed in his mind. What is it about him, he thought. He is not like the others, yet he is... It’s as if he knows things the rest of us don’t know, yet what he says is perfectly ordinary. He made up his mind to spend more time talking with him. Maybe he would find out about him, who is was and more of his stories. Maybe the scientists would like to meet him. They were always looking for new people and especially shamen with supernatural powers.
At the trader’s combined store and cabin dwelling, several members of Ilatsiak’s band were already milling around talking with Patsy’s father, the Captain. The news in the air was that a dog team was coming up the bay. Everyone had a pretty good idea who it might be. Even at this distance, there was considerable certainty about the driver. The way he moved, the colour of his dogs, the way they moved through the ice ridges all told his name as if he had yelled it out. Ulotsaq was coming.
Ulotsaq was a powerful shaman from Bathurst Inlet and well known to Ilatsiak’s people. He had bought his powers from another shaman. Or, to be more truthful, he had bought the goodwill and knowledge of how to summon certain spirits to him. Some spirits were willing to come of their own accord, but others had to be summoned through special knowledge and it was this knowledge that Ulotsaq had acquired. At first, none came to him and he thought he had been tricked by the old shaman who had sold him the knowledge. However, one day while hunting, as he usually did, he arrived at a small island. Several spirits appeared to him one after another. They forbade him to eat any part of the stomach of the caribou, but to eat plenty of brains. If he did as he was asked, the spirits promised him they would stay with him and give him magical powers. He readily accepted. However, for his troubles, he was roughed up and beaten about and began dreaming that he had become a white man - a type of person he had only heard stories about, but had never actually seen alive.
Ilatsiak met him soon after this strange transformation and convinced him that he was really an Inuk and not possessed of any shaman abilities. It was only that bad spirits were at work within him. Several shaman then worked together to rid Ulotsaq of his white man images, but the end result was finally to make Ulotsaq into one of the more powerful shamen in the area. He became both loved and feared at the same time by many people. Everyone agreed he was nearly as powerful a man as Ilatsiak, the greatest shaman known to the Bathurst people.
Patsy felt a rush of blood through his body! So, the old man was a shaman, and a powerful one at that! He knew why he had felt Ilatsiak was special and now it was clear why. A shaman, and not just an ordinary one, but someone with immense powers!