Traditional Alaskan Native religion involves mediation between people and spirits, souls, and other immortal beings. Such beliefs and practices were once widespread among Inuit (including Iñupiat), Yupik, Aleut, and Northwest Coastal Indian cultures, but today are less common.Merkur 1985: 4 They were already in decline among many groups when the first major ethnological research was done.Merkur 1985:132 For example, at the end of the 19th century, Sagdloq, the last medicine man among what were then called in English, "Polar Eskimos", died; he was believed to be able to travel to the sky and under the sea, and was also known for using ventriloquism and sleight-of-hand.Merkur 1985:134
The term "Eskimo" has fallen out of favour in Canada and Greenland, where it is considered pejorative and "Inuit" is used instead. However, "Eskimo" is still considered acceptable among some Alaska Natives of Yupik and Inupiaq (Inuit) heritage and is at times preferred over "Inuit" as a collective reference.
The Inuit and Yupik languages constitute one branch within the Eskimo–Aleut language family and the Aleut language is another. (The Sirenik Eskimo language is sometimes seen as a third branchLinguist 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 as one of the Yupik languages.Ethnologue Report for Eskimo–Aleut)
Angakkuq and other spiritual mediators
Most Alaskan Native cultures traditionally have some form of spiritual healer or ceremonial person who mediate between the spirits and humans of the community. The person fulfilling this role is believed to be able to command helping spirits, ask mythological beings (e.g., Nuliayuk among the Netsilik Inuit 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.
Among the Inuit this person is known as an angakkuq. The alignalghi () of the Siberian Yupiks is translated as "shaman" in Russian and English literature.Menovščikov 1968:442Рубцова 1954:203–19 While the word "shaman" comes from the Tungusic language,Voigt 2000:41–45 it is sometimes used by anthropologists when describing Alaskan Native beliefs.Kleivan & Sonne 1985Merkur 1985Freuchen 1961: 32Vitebsky 2001 However, most traditional people prefer to use the terminology found in their own, traditional Native languages.
Traditional spiritual beliefs among the Alaskan Native peoples exhibit some characteristic features not universal in cultures based in animism, such as soul dualism (a dualistic or pluralistic concept of the soul) in certain groups, and specific links between the living, the souls of hunted animals and dead people.Oosten 1997: 86Vitebsky 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 tupilaq, a restless ghost who scared game away. Animals were thought to flee hunters who violated taboos.Kleivan & Sonne 1985:12–13, 18–21, 23 Chugach spiritual healers may begin their work after an out-of-body experience, such as seeing oneself as a skeleton, exemplified in Aua's (Iglulik) narration and a Baker Lake artwork.Kleivan & Sonne 1985:38, plate XXIIIVitebsky 1996:18
Special language In some Alaskan Native communities, the spiritual people have used a distinctly archaic version of the community's normal language interlaced with special metaphors and speech styles.Freuchen 1961: 227, 228, 277Merkur 1985:7Kleivan & Sonne 1985:14Freuchen 1961:277 For example, "the shadow is ripening" means the healer is returning from his spiritual journey during a "seance".Freuchen 1961:228 Expert healers have been said to speak whole sentences differing from vernacular speech. The shamans among the Siberian Yupik peoples had a special language that used periphrastic substitutions for names of objects and phenomena; they used it for conversation with the ('spirits'). These spirits were believed to have a special language with certain substitutes for ordinary words ("the one with a drum": "shaman"; "that with tusks": "walrus").Bogoraz 1913: 437, 442, 444, 446, 448–449 The Ungazighmiit (a Siberian Yupik people) had a special allegoric usage of some expressions.Rubcova 1954:128
Observing the angakkuq Sorqaq's seance in a community at Qaanaaq, Peter Freuchen explains the motivation in that case: In this case, the special language was understood by the whole community, not restricted to the angakkuit or a few "experts".Freuchen 1961: 227
In some groups such variants were used when speaking with spirits invoked by the angakkuq and with unsocialised babies who grew into the human society through a special ceremony performed by the mother. Some writers have treated both phenomena as a language for communication with "alien" beings (mothers sometimes used similar language in a socialization ritual, in which the newborn is regarded as a little "alien" — just like spirits or animal souls).Kleivan & Sonne 1985:6, 14, 33 The motif of a distinction between spirit and "real" human is present in a tale of the Ungazighmiit.
Another interesting example of the special language and its contribution to relexicalization:
Techniques Techniques and ceremonies vary among cultures.Kleivan & Sonne: 25 Sleight-of-hand, ventriloquismRasmussen 1965: 176 might be used to impress the audience. In some cultures the angakkuq was pinioned before the séance,Kleivan & Sonne: Pl XXX, XXXIII or the angakkuq might hide behind a curtain. Holding the séance in the dark with lamps extinguished was not obligatory, but the setting was familiar and widespread.
Some authors suggest that an angakkuq could be honest in his tricks, believing in the phenomena he himself mimicked, moreover, he could consciously cheat and honestly believe at the same time. Knud Rasmussen mentioned Arnaqaoq, a young Netsilik Inuit living in King William Island. He smeared himself with the blood of a seal or reindeer, telling people that he had a battle with spirits. Rasmussen conjectured that he could honestly believe in this spirit battle experience which he mimicked with smearing blood. The personal impression of Rasmussen about this man was that he believed in the forces and spirits. As Rasmussen asked him to draw some pictures about his experiences, even his visions about spirits, Arnaqaoq was first unwilling to do so (having fear of the spirits). Later he accepted the task, and he spent hours to re-experience his visions, sometimes so lucidly that he had to stop drawing when his whole body began to quiver.Rasmussen 1965: 165–166
Social position The boundary between angakkuq and lay person has not always been clearly demarcated. Non-angakkuq could experience hallucinations,Merkur 1985:41–42Gabus 1970:18,122 and almost every Alaskan Native can report memories of ghosts, animals in human form, or little people living in remote places.Merkur 1985:41 Experiences such as hearing voices from ice or stones were discussed as readily as everyday hunting adventures.Gabus 1970:203 Neither were ecstatic experiences the monopoly of angakkuit (reverie, daydreaming, even trance were not unknown by non-angakkuitMerkur 1985c), and laypeople (non-angakkuit) experiencing them were welcome to report their experiences and interpretations.Freuchen 1961: 210–211 The ability to have and command helping spirits was characteristic of angakkuit, but laypeople could also profit from spirit powers through the use of amulets. In one extreme instance a Netsilingmiut child had 80 amulets for protection.Kleivan & Sonne:43Rasmussen 1965:262 Some laypeople had a greater capacity than others for close relationships with special beings of the belief system; these people were often apprentice angakkuit who failed to complete their learning process.Kleivan & Sonne 1985:24
Role in community In some of the cultures, angakkuit may fulfill multiple functions, including healing, curing infertile women, and securing the success of hunts. These seemingly unrelated functions can be understood through the soul concept which, with some variation, underlies them.
Healing It is held that the cause of sickness is soul theft, in which someone (perhaps an enemy, whether human or a spirit) has stolen the soul of the sick person. It takes a spiritual healer to retrieve the stolen soul.Rasmussen 1965:177 The person remains alive because people have multiple souls, so stealing the appropriate soul causes illness or a moribund state rather than immediate death. According to another variant among Ammassalik in East Greenland, the joints of the body have their own small souls, the loss of which causes pain.Gabus 1970:274
Fertility The angakkuq provides assistance to the soul of an unborn child to allow its future mother to become pregnant.
Success of hunts When game is scarce the angakkuq can visit (in a soul travel) a mythological being who protects all sea creatures (usually the Sea Woman), who keeps the souls of sea animals in her house or in a pot. If the angakkuq pleases her, she releases the animal souls thus ending the scarcity of game.
Soul dualism is held in several cultures (including Eskimo, Uralic, Turkic peoples).Hoppál 2005: 27–28Hoppál 1975: 225 There are traces of beliefs that humans have more than one soul. The details have variations according to the culture. In several cases, a "free" soul and a "body" soul are distinguished: the free soul may depart body (during life), the body soul manages body functions. In several Alaskan Native cultures, it is the "free soul" of the angakkuq 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.Oosten 1997: 92 According to an explanation, this temporal absence of the healer's free soul is tackled by a substitution: the healer's body is guarded by one of his/her helping spirits during the spirit journey. A tale contains this motif while describing a spirit journey undertaken by the free soul and his helping spirits.Barüske 1969: 24 (= Tale 8: "Das Land der Toten im Himmel")
When a new angakkuq is first initiated, the initiator extracts the free soul of the new angakkuq and introduces it to the helping spirits so that they will listen when the new angakkuq invokes them;Merkur 1985:121 according to another explanation (that of the Iglulik angakkuq, Aua) the souls of the vital organs of the apprentice must move into the helping spirits: the new angakkuq should not feel fear of the sight of his new helping spirits.Rasmussen 1965:170
Animals Although humans and animals are not traditionally seen as interchangeable, there are diachronical notions of unity between human and animal: imaginations about an ancient time when the animal could take on human form at will — it simply raised its forearm or wing to its face and lifted it aside at the muzzle or beak, like a mask.Oosten 1997: 90–91Barüske 1969: 7, 9 Ceremonies may help preserve this ancient unity: a masked person represents the animal and, as s/he lifts the mask, the human existence of that animal appears. Masks among Alaskan Natives could serve several functions. There are also transformation masks reflecting the mentioned unity between human and animal.Thomas 2008 : +4 (= third page after the opening page of the article)