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Shamanism among Eskimo peoples refers to those aspects of the various Eskimo cultures that are related to the Shamans’ role as a Mediator between people and spirits, souls, and mythological beings. Such beliefs and practices were once widespread among Eskimo groups, but today are rarely practiced.Merkur 1985, p. 4 The term ''Eskimo'' has fallen out of favour in Canada and Greenland, where it is considered Pejorative and the term ''Inuit'' has become more common. However, ''Eskimo'' is still considered acceptable among Alaska Natives of Yupik and Inupiaq (Inuit) heritage, and is preferred over ''Inuit'' as a collective reference. To date, no replacement term for ''Eskimo'' inclusive of all Inuit and Yupik people has achieved acceptance across the geographical area inhabited by the Inuit and Yupik peoples. The Inuit and Yupik languages together constitute one branch within the Eskimo-Aleut Language Family alongside the Aleut branch. (The Sireniki Language is sometimes proposed to form a third branch of the Eskimo,Linguist List's description about Nikolai Vakhtin 's book: ''The Old Sirinek Language: Texts, Lexicon, Grammatical Notes'' . The author's untransliterated (original) name is “ Н.Б. Вахтин ”.Representing genealogical relations of (among others) Eskimo-Aleut languages by tree: Alaska Native Languages (found on the site of Alaska Native Language Center ) Lawrence Kaplan: Comparative Yupik and Inuit (found on the site of Alaska Native Language Center ) Endangered Languages in Northeast Siberia: Siberian Yupik and other Languages of Chukotka by Nikolai Vakhtin but sometimes it is regarded as belonging to the Yupik languages). Ethnologue Report for Eskimo-Aleut CONNECTION TO SHAMANISM The term “shamanism” has been used for various distinct cultures. Classically, some indigenous cultures of Siberia were described as having Shamans , but the term is now commonly used for other cultures as well. In general, the shamanistic belief systems accept that certain people (shamans) can act as Mediators with the spirit world, contacting the various entities (spirits, souls, and mythological beings) that populate the universe in those systems. The word “shaman” comes from a and Takanaluk-arnaluk in Aua's narration) to “release” the souls of animals, enable the success of the hunt, or heal sick people by bringing back their “stolen” souls. ''Shaman'' is used in an Eskimo context in a number of English-language publications, both academicKleivan & Sonne 1985Merkur 1985 and popular,Vitebsky 2001 generally in reference to the Angakkuq among the Inuit . The of the Siberian Yupik s is also translated as “shaman” in both Russian and English literature.Rubcova 1954, pp. 203–19Menovščikov 1968, p. 442 Shamanism among the Eskimo peoples exhibits some characteristic features not universal in shamanism, such as a Dualistic concept of the Soul in certain groups, and specific links between the living, the souls of hunted animals and dead people.Vitebsky 1996:14 The death of either a person or a game animal requires that certain activities, such as cutting and sewing, be avoided to prevent harming their souls. In Greenland, the transgression of this ''death taboo'' could turn the soul of the dead into a ''tupilak'', a restless ghost which scared game away. Animals were thought to flee hunters who violated taboos.Kleivan & Sonne 1985:12–13, 18–21, 23 SHAMANIC INTIATION Unlike many Siberian traditions, in which spirits ''force'' individuals to become shamans, most Eskimo shamans ''choose'' this path.Diószegi 1962 Even when someone receives a “calling”, that individual may refuse it.Kleivan & Sonne 1985:24 The process of becoming an Eskimo shaman usually involves difficult learning and Initiation rites, sometimes including a Vision Quest . Like the shamans of other cultures, some Eskimo shamans are believed to have special qualifications: they may have been an animal during a previous period, and thus be able to use their valuable experience for the benefit of the community.Barüske, Heinz. 1969. “Die Seele, die alle Tiere durchwanderte,” in ''Eskimo Märchen'', 19–23 (tale 7). Düsseldorf: Eugen Diederichs.Vitebsky 1996, p. 106Rasmussen, Knud, ed. and coll. 1921 “The Soul that Lived in the Bodies of All Beasts,” in ''Eskimo Folk-Tales'', ed. and trans. W. Worster, with illustrations by native Eskimo artists, 100. London: Gyldendal. The initiation process varies from culture to culture. It may include:
SPECIAL LANGUAGE In several groups, shamans utilized a distinctly )Rubcova 1954, p. 175 (34)–(38) SOCIAL POSITION The boundary between shaman and lay person was not always clearly demarcated. Non-shamans could also experience . In one extreme instance a Netsilingmiut child had eighty amulets for protection.Kleivan & Sonne:43Rasmussen 1965: 262 SOUL DUALISM See Also: Soul dualism The Eskimo shaman may fulfill multiple functions, including healing, curing Infertile women, and securing the success of hunts. These seemingly unrelated functions can be grasped better by understanding the concept of soul dualism which, with some variation, underlies them. ;Healing :It is held that the cause of sickness is ''soul theft'', in which someone (perhaps an enemy shaman or a spirit) has stolen the soul of the sick person. The person remains alive because people have multiple souls, so stealing the appropriate soul causes illness or a moribund state rather than immediate death. It takes a shaman to retrieve the stolen soul.Rasmussen 1965:177 According to another variant among Ammassalik Eskimos in East Greenland, the joints of the body have their own small souls, the loss of which causes pain.Gabus 1970:274 ;Fertility :The shaman provides assistance to the soul of an unborn child to allow its future mother to become pregnant.Merkur 1985, p. 4 ;Success of hunts :When game is scarce the shaman can visit a mythological being who protects all sea creatures (usually the Sea Woman Sedna ). Sedna keeps the souls of sea animals in her house or in a pot. If the shaman pleases her, she releases the animal souls thus ending the scarcity of game. It is the shaman's ''free soul'' that undertakes these spirit journeys (to places such as the land of dead, the home of the Sea Woman, or the moon) whilst his body remains alive. When a new shaman is first initiated, the initiator extracts the shaman's free soul and introduces it to the helping spirits so that they will listen when the new shaman invokes themMerkur 1985:121; or according to an another explanation (that of the Iglulik shaman Aua) the souls of the vital organs of the apprentice must move into the helping spirits: the new shaman should not feel fear of the sight of his new helping spirits.Rasmussen 1965:170 Animals may have souls that are shared across their species. A human child's developing soul is usually “supported” by a ''name-soul'': a baby can be named after a deceased relative, invoking the departed name-soul which will then accompany and guide the child until adolescence. This concept of inheriting name-souls amounts to a sort of Reincarnation among some groups, such as the Caribou Eskimos. SECRECY AND PUBLICITY It was believed in several contexts that Secrecy or Privacy may be needed for an act or an object (either beneficial or harmful, intended or incidental) to be effective, and that Publicity may neutralize its effects.
Some of the shaman's functions can be understood in the light of this notion of secrecy versus publicity. The cause of illness was usually believed to be soul theft or a breach of some taboo (such as miscarriage). Public confession (lead by the shaman during a public seance) could bring relief to the patient. Similar public rituals were used in the cases of taboo breaches that endangered the whole community (bringing the wrath of mythical beings causing calamities). SHAMANISM IN VARIOUS ESKIMO GROUPS See more details about Certain Relatedness Of Eskimo Cultures, Far From Homogeneity . Inuit Among the Canadian Inuit, the shaman was known as an Angakkuq 1 ( Inuktitut ) or Angatkuq2 ( Inuvialuktun ) ( Inuktitut Syllabics ᐊᖓᑦᑯᖅ). Iglulik According to Aua (an informant and friend of the anthropologist Rasmussen), one of the shaman's tasks among the Iglulik Inuit is to help the community in times when marine animals, which are kept by the Sea Woman (Takanaluk-arnaluk) in a pit in her house, are scarce. If taboo breaches that displease her lead to the failure of sea hunts, the shaman must visit her. Several barriers must be surmounted (such as a wall or a dog) and in some instances even the Sea Woman herself must be fought. If the shaman succeeds in appeasing her the animals will be released as normal. The Iglulik variant of a myth explaining the Sea Woman’s origins involves a girl and her father. The girl did not want to marry. However, a bird managed to trick her into marriage and took her to an island. The girl's father managed to rescue his daughter, but the bird created a storm which threatened to sink their boat. Out of fear the father threw his daughter into the ocean, and cut her fingers as she tried to climb back into the boat. The cut joints became various sea mammals and the girl became a ruler of marine animals, living under the sea. Later on her remorseful father joined her. This local variant differs from several others, like that of the Netsiliks, which is about an orphan girl mistreated by her community. Aua also passed on information about the ability of an apprentice shaman to see themself as a skeleton,Merkur 1985, p. 122 naming each part using the specific Shaman Language .Rasmussen 1965:170 Kugaaruk (Pelly Bay) Arviligyarmiut people make marital contacts with Netsiliks, but live apartRasmussen 1965:221. --> Inuit at Amitsoq Lake For the Inuit at Amitsoq Lake (a rich fishing ground) sewing of many items was seasonally prohibited. Boot soles, for example could only be sewn far away from settlements in designated places.Rasmussen 1965:244 Children at Amitsoq had a game called ''tunangusartut'' in which they imitated the adults behavior towards the spirits, including shamanizing, even reciting the same verbal formulae as shamans. This game was not considered offensive because a “spirit can understand the joke.”Rasmussen 1965:245 Netsilik Inuit The Netsilik Inuit (Netsilingmiut - People of the Seal) live in a region with an extremely long winter and stormy conditions in the spring, where starvation was a common danger. The cosmos of many other Eskimo cultures include protective guardian powers, but for the Netsilik the general hardship of life resulted in the extensive use of such measures, and even dogs could have amulets.Rasmussen 1965:268 Unlike the Igluliks, the Netsilik used a large number of amulets. In one recorded instance, a young boy had eighty amulets, so many that he could hardly play.Kleivan & Sonne:43Rasmussen 1965: 262 In addition one man had seventeen names taken from his ancestors that were intended to protect him.Kleivan & Sonne 1985:15 Among the Netsilik, Tattooing provided power that could affect which world a woman goes to after her death.Rasmussen 1965:2566–79 The Sea Woman was known as Nuliayuk “the lubricous one”.Kleivan & Sonne 1985:27 If the people breached certain taboos, she would hold the marine animals in the tank of her lamp. When this happened the shaman had to visit her to beg for game. The Netsilik myth concerning her origin stated that she was an orphan girl who had been mistreated by her community.Rasmussen 1965:278 Another cosmic being known as ''Moon Man'' was thought to be friendly towards people and their souls as they arrive in celestial places.Kleivan & Sonne 1985:30, Rasmussen 1965:?? This belief differs from that of the Greenland Eskimos, where the Moon’s anger was feared as a consequence of some taboo breaches. Sila was a sophisticated concept among Eskimo cultures (where its manifestation varied). Often associated with weather, it was conceived of as a power contained in people.Rasmussen 1965:106 Among the Netsilik, Sila was imagined as male. The Netsilik (and Copper Eskimos) held that Sila originated as a giant baby whose parents were killed in combat between giants.Kleivan & Sonne 1985:31 Caribou Eskimos “Caribou Eskimos” is a collective name for several groups of inland Eskimos (the Krenermiut, Aonarktormiut, Harvaktormiut, Padlermiut and Ahearmiut) living in an area bordered by the Tree Line and the west shore of Hudson Bay . They do not form a political unit and contacts between the groups are loose, but they share an inland lifestyle and exhibit some cultural unity. In the recent past, the Padlermiuts did have contact with the sea where they took part in seal hunts.Gabus 1970:145 The Caribou had a .Kleivan & Sonne 1985:18, Gabus 1970:212 Because of their inland lifestyle, the Caribou had no belief concerning a Sea Woman. Other cosmic beings, variously named Sila or Pinga, take her place, controlling Caribou instead of marine animals. Some groups made a distinction between the two figures, while others considered them the same. Sacrificial offerings to them could promote luck in hunting.Kleivan &Sonne 1985:31, 36 Caribou shamans performed Fortune-telling through ''qilaneq'', a technique of asking a ''qila'' (spirit). The shaman placed his glove on the ground, and raised his staff and belt over it. The qila then entered the glove and drew the staff to itself. Qilaneq was practiced among several other Eskimo groups, where it was used to receive "yes" or "no" answers to questions.Rasmussen 1965:108, Kleivan & Sonne 1985:26Gabus 1970:227–228 Yupik Like the Netsiliks, the Yupik also practised Tattooing . Tattoos of the early hunter-gatherers of the Arctic written by Lars Krutak Ungazigmit The variants, had s, who received presents for their shamanizing. These payments were known as . In the language spoken by Ungazigmit, there were many words to distinguish the different kinds of payments one might make or gifts one might give, depending on the nature and occasion (such as a marriage).Rubcova 1954:173 These included such fine distinctions as “thing, given to someone who has none”, “thing, given, not begged for”, “thing, given to someone as to anybody else” and “thing, given for exchange”.Rubcova 1954:62 As for a special shamanic language known in several Eskimo groups, also the Ungazigmit had a special Allegoric usage of some expressions.Rubcova 1954:128 Chugach The Chugach people live on the southern-most coasts of Alaska. Birket-Smith conducted fieldwork among them in the 1950s, by which time shamanism was already extinct. As among other Eskimo groups, Chugach apprentice shamans were not forced to become shamans by the spirits, but instead deliberately visited lonely places and walked for many days as part of a Vision Quest that resulted in the visitation of a spirit. The apprentice passed out, and the spirit took him or her to another place (like the mountains or the depths of the sea). Whilst there, the spirit instructed the apprentice in their calling, such as teaching them the shaman’s song.Merkur 1985, p. 125 NOTES REFERENCES
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