Pâhkahkos, the Flying Skeleton Spirit
Cree · numen · myth age and present · numen
Pâhkahk, often called by the diminutive Pâhkahkos, is a skeletal spirit of the Cree, a dried-up, bony being associated with starvation and disease. George Nelson's 1823 letter-journal from Lac la Ronge describes Pah-kack among the powerful beings of Cree cosmology, and among the Plains and western Woods Cree the being was honoured in feasts and the Give-Away Dance, in which goods were given away to win its favour; those who pleased it received striking good fortune, while those who offended it courted hunger and misfortune. Skeleton figures called pakakoos were among the tattoo designs David Mandelbaum recorded from Plains Cree men, a mark of the being's protective as well as fearsome character.
Domains
- starvation
- disease
Powers
- to appear as an animate, desiccated skeleton, a harbinger of famine and sickness
- to grant good fortune to those who honour it with feasts and gifts, and to afflict those who offend it with bad luck
Sources
- Brown, Jennifer S. H., and Robert Brightman. 'The Orders of the Dreamed': George Nelson on Cree and Northern Ojibwa Religion and Myth, 1823. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1988.
- Mandelbaum, David G. The Plains Cree: An Ethnographic, Historical, and Comparative Study. Regina: Canadian Plains Research Center, 1979 [1940].