ABSTRACT
A man may festoon his person with amulets, he may have the most efficacious formulas at his command, and scrupulously observe the necessary regulations and taboos on all occasions - yet he is never sure of remaining clean, that is, he is not certain that he may not be under some evil influence. Some unexpected and inexplicable misfortune suddenly reveals the fact that an evil influence is being exerted upon those it has smitten - in other words, that they have become unclean, and they ask themselves how this uncleanness can have come about, and whether it be by their own fault, unknown to themselves. It is perhaps among the Eskimos studied by Rasmussen and Steansson that we most clearly perceive the significance and the importance of this confession of misdeeds. When it is a case of having relations or thing that is new to them, primitives as a rule maintain the same suspicious attitude as when encountering new foods.
