and so forth, were magical appliances, potent for curing disease, protecting against want, and ensuring good fishery and other advantages; not to mention that conversion and a little appearance of contrition often bore immediate fruits in the shape of small rewards from the eager missionaries. Accordingly they said of them: 'They are good people, they gave us food when we believed and looked sorrowful.' A father whose son was dangerously ill, after having had recourse to various angekoks, took counsel with an old and experienced one 'as to whether he should not seek help from the priest at the Colony;' whereupon the old man calmly answered: 'You may do as you please; for I am of opinion that the Word of God and the words of skilful angekoks are equally powerful.' This gradually became the general opinion; and as it fortunately chanced in several cases that the Word of God seemed more effectual than that of the angekoks, it was natural that some should let themselves be baptised. The example once given, there were plenty to follow it, especially when distinguished hunters led the way.
But if the Greenlanders nominally went over to Christianity, they held, and still hold in a greater or less degree, to their old faith as well. It was at first very difficult to convince them of the falsity of the grotesque inventions of their angekoks. When
