Eskimo Heritage Reader part 7

Healing with Dogs

Job Kokochuruk of White Mountain:
Long ago they believed that you had to have a dog around your house. Then when sickness came, you would transfer the sickness onto your dog. If you didn’t have a dog, one of your family might get sick. They were happy when their dogs got sick. It might have been one of the family, but instead the sickness made a mistake and took the dog.

Margaret Seeganna of King Island:
They had that belief at King Island, too. People never put a puppy out of the house. Even if there was a newborn baby, they let the puppy play inside. They believed that when the baby got sick, the puppy would lick the sickness away. They said, “The puppy brings life.”
I knew a woman who had a sickly baby, about 6 months old. One day the baby was very sick with a temperature. While she washed out his clothes and diapers, she saw something move. She turned and saw one of their puppies licking the baby. She decided not to do anything. Maybe the puppy would take all the sickness away. He licked all over the baby’s face and hands. Then he went back into the outer shed. In the morning, the puppy was dead. But the baby got well and grew into a healthy boy. He is still alive today!

Clarence Irrigoo of Gambell:
Sometimes if a family member got sick out on the Island, they would ask Amuskok, a healing man, for help. They took something very important from the house. It was to be a sacrifice. It could be a dog. In modern times, it could be a gun, a good gun. Everyone would lean on the gun. Then they’d throw it away. This sacrifice was made so no one in the family would die.
Sometimes they sacrificed a dog. They brought the dog inside, and everyone ould lean over him. Each would say, “Now my sickness is in the dog. I am well now.” They let the dog live until the sick man or woman was strong enough to go outside. Then they killed that dog. They cut open his belly and pulled out his intestines, pulling carefully, not breaking them. Two men held the intestines out in a circle, and we walked through the loop. I did, too, because I belonged to the family.
The sacrifice meant that we had all come through the bad times. That dog had taken all our guilt and sickness, and we were well. Then we took the dog away and buried it. It’s pretty much like the scapegoat in the Bible who takes away the sins. Only it’s the Eskimo way.