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.'[1] That the ghost is not always hostile appears from what Niels Egede[2] relates of a boy at
