• Introduction
• Stories of Shamans
• Thunder House: the legend
• A Recollection: Bernadette Uttaq

A Recollection by Mary Ittunga

When we were on our way to Qikiqtaqtuuq by walking, I was being packed at times because I had injured my hip when I was about two years old. I remember when my mother and my grandmother were holding my hands while we were walking.

When we reached the thunder house my grandmother peeked into the thunder house. This was way before it was broken up. It was made very well. It had a good entrance and a ceiling. When we reached it my grandmother peeked in smiling. She said "I can hear it clearly". She then said "Atiqqaak (same namesake) peek in with your head". So I tried to go right inside, but my grandmother stopped me from going inside. She said, "Just peek in with your head". She asked me if I heard any sound, I told her I did. There was a skeleton head on the side that belonged to a powerful shaman named Kakooteenik.

When the anthropologists came to do research on the thunder house, they were going back and forth with the local people. From there the thunder house was broken. They were going to Netsilik Lake and Josephine Bay to do research. In those days we were not very organized, because jobs were hard to get and we did it to earn little bit of money. The thunder house was broken up and also the skeleton head was taken away, and put to the museum down south. They didn't even ask us if they can take the skeleton head. They might have brought it down to Toronto museum. People didn't want the anthropologists to take the human skeleton. It was the skeleton of the late powerful shaman named Kakooteenik.