360 THE MAGIC OF JEWELS AND CHARMS
talisman
was hidden beneath this strap, or else it may have been designed to
serve as a point of support for an amulet that had been taken off at
the time the traveller saw the strap.
Animal
amulets, that is to say, amulets for animals, are in use in the Arctic
regions, one class of these being stones that have fallen from a
bird-rock. These the Eskimo attach to their dogs, proceeding upon the
theory that as these pieces of rock in falling from a great height have
traversed the air with tremendous rapidity, they will communicate the
quality of fleetness to the dogs.20 This transmission of an
acquired quality of the stone to the person wearing it is shown in
other instances, a favorite amulet with the Eskimos being a piece of an
old hearth-stone. This is believed to give strength to the wearer,
because the stone has so long endured the attacks of fire, the
strongest and fiercest element. Such fragments of stone are often worn
by Eskimo women, who wrap them up in pieces of seal-skin, making in
this way a decoration to be worn on the neck.21
Not
only does the medicine-bag of an Eskimo medicineman serve to guard his
trusted amulets and talismans, but some of these wonder-doctors claim
to be able to draw within it the soul of a sick child, so as to keep
this soul hidden away from all harm and danger. In fact, the opinion
has been expressed that many personal amulets have owed their repute
to their supposed power as soul-guardians, the owners' souls having
been transferred to the material body of the amulet, which is more
easily concealed and kept out of the way of injury than is the human
body, the tabernacle of the spirit. A trace of this belief has been
found by some in the term battè ha-nephesh, used by Isaiah (chap, iii, ver. 20). These feminine adornments are called "perfume boxes" in the
" Rasmussen, " The People of the Polar North," Philadelphia, 1908, p. 139. » Ibid., p. 139.
