A man became a shaman or claimed to have become one , as a result of a traumatic or visionary experience, sometimes also by inheritance from a relative ( a maternal uncle in matrilineal societies),usually followed by a period of apprenticeship to acknowledged shamans. The story of an Inuit ( or Eskimo ) shaman is characteristic. While running from a summer camping place to his village he saw a shaman who had died in the previous year descending from the moon in a boat . This shaman was then transformed into a grotesque figure with one large eye dancing towards the Inuit, who ran away but found he had been possessed by it and some months later was himself accepted by his fellow villagers as a shaman . Among the Tlingit a man who had inherited the possibility of becoming a shaman retired to the mountains, where he lived on nothing but roots and leaves until he met and obtained the help of a spirit, usually the soul of a sea-mammal or land animal, that of the land otter being the most powerful. His status as shaman was confirmed when he had effected a cure which depended on his faith in his own spiritual power combined with that of the sick person and the expectations of the group within which the relationship between the two was located . A shaman might also detect witches, foretell the movement of animals that were killed for food, accompany and advise war parties, and preside over rites of passage , birth , initiation and death. In addition to less durable ritual paraphernalia such as clothing and drums, the equipment used by the shamans of the settled North-West Coast communities included finely crafted sculpture in the form of carved wooden masks and ivory amulets. These objects, which powerfully express and record the shamanic ethos include some of the world’s most arresting works of sculpture. A mask was intended to transform its wearer, identifying the shaman with his spirit helper as he mediated between life on earth and the inscrutable powers around and above. This function would be best effected by mask that was skillfully carved and painted. He had a number of masks to be worn on different occasions . Some have lifelike human faces (18.22),other incorporate animal forms(18,24). Many are mainly animal , notably the Tsimshian mask of a sea spirit with the snout of a whale and five human heads emerging from its back (18.21).Such masks were made either by the shaman himself or by carvers working under his direction to represent the spirits with whom he had communed. Despite this personal origin they seem usually to have been passed on from one generation to the next.