Inuit religion

Inuit religion is the traditional religion of the Inuit people. It is practiced within Inuit communities in parts of northeast Asia, Alaska, northern Canada, and Greenland. The tradition has no formal leadership or organizational structure and displays much internal variation.

Traditional Inuit theology encompasses a range of deities and spirits inhabiting the landscape. An important role was played by ritual specialists known as angakut (sing. angakoq), who mediated between humanity and the spirits. Their rituals were largely performed for the purposes of healing, although were otherwise conducted to find lost objects. Traditional stories, rituals, and taboos of the Inuit are often precautions against dangers posed by their harsh Arctic environment.

The Inuit were first exposed to Christian Europeans in the 16th century. By the mid-20th century, most Inuit communities had formally converted to Christianity. Today many Inuit follow Christianity (with 71 percent of Canadian Inuit identifying as Christian as of 2021);^[1] however, traditional Inuit spirituality continues as part of a living, oral tradition and part of contemporary Inuit society.

The Inuit have historically also been referred to as the Eskimo.^[2] Inuit religion has been characterised as being highly individualised.^[3] It has been informed by the difficult natural conditions in which the Inuit live.^[4]

Knud Rasmussen asked his guide and friend Aua, an angakkuq (spiritual healer), about Inuit religious beliefs among the Iglulingmiut (people of Igloolik) and was told: "We don't believe. We fear." Authors Inge Kleivan and Birgitte Sonne debate possible conclusions of Aua's words, because the angakkuq was under the influence of Christian missionaries, and later converted to Christianity. Their study also analyses beliefs of several Inuit groups, concluding (among others) that fear was not diffuse.^[5]

First were unipkaaqs : myths, legends, and folktales which took place "back then" in the indefinite past (taimmani).^[6]

Jakobsen noted that the Greenland Inuit's belief system "derives from a holistic view of the visible and the invisible existing side by side".^[7]

Among the Copper, the Sea Mother is called Arnakapshaluk.^[8] The veneration of the sea mother was spread from northern Alaska through to eastern Greenland.^[9]

Below is an incomplete list of Inuit deities believed to hold power over some specific part of the Inuit world:

• Agloolik: evil god of the sea who can flip boats over; spirit which lives under the ice and helps wanderers in hunting and fishing
• Akna: mother goddess of fertility
• Amaguq/Amarok: wolf god who takes those foolish enough to hunt alone at night
• Anguta: gatherer of the dead; he carries them into the underworld, where they must sleep for a year.
• Ignirtoq: a goddess of light and truth.^[10][11][12]
• Nanook: (Nanuq or Nanuk in the modern spelling) the master of polar bears
• Pinga: the goddess of strength, the hunt, fertility and medicine
• Qailertetang: weather spirit, guardian of animals, and matron of fishers and hunters. Qailertetang is the companion of Sedna.
• Aipaloovik, an evil sea god associated with death and destruction
• Sedna: the mistress of sea animals and mother of the sea. Sedna (Sanna in modern Inuktitut spelling) is known under many names, including Nerrivik, Arnapkapfaaluk, Arnakuagsak, and Nuliajuk.
• Silap Inua or Sila: personification of the air
• Tekkeitsertok: the master of caribou.
• Tarqiup Inua: lunar deity
• Pukkeenegak: Goddess of domestic life, including sewing and cooking.

Inuit religion holds that human illness can be caused by offending the spirits.^[13] Fear of retribution from spirits results in caution so as to avoid offending them.^[14] To help prevent causing offence, Inuit peoples have observed various rules and taboos, have offered prayers and songs, worn amulets, and consulted their angakut specialists.^[15] Scarcity of game animals is for instance often attributed to breaches in traditional observances and can be remedied through reconciliation with the animals or their indwellers.^[16]

• Ahkiyyini: a skeleton spirit
• Aningaat: a boy who became the moon; brother to Siqiniq, the sun; sometimes equated to the lunar deity Tarqiup Inua
• Aumanil: a spirit which dwelled on the land and guided the seasonal movement of whales^[17]
• Qallupilluit: monstrous human-like creatures that live in the sea and carry off disobedient children.^[18]
• Saumen Kar: also called Tornit or Tuniit are the Inuit version of the Sasquatch or Yeti myth. They may be the people of the Dorset culture who were said to be giants.
• Siqiniq: a girl who became the sun; sister to Aningaat, the moon
• Tizheruk: snake-like monsters.

Inuit cosmology provides a narrative about the world and the place of people within it. Rachel Qitsualik-Tinsley writes:

The Inuit cosmos is ruled by no one. There are no divine mother and father figures. There are no wind gods and solar creators. There are no eternal punishments in the hereafter, as there are no punishments for children or adults in the here and now.^[19]

Some people starring in unipkaaqtuat ("traditional stories"^[20]) or unikkaaqtuat ("to tell stories"^[21]) include:

• Kiviuq: a wandering hero.
• Uumarnituq and Aakulujjuusi: the first Inuit, who created childbirth, womanhood, and death.

In Inuit traditional belief, a human has two souls, one of which can leave the body at night.^[23] Among various Inuit groups, the free soul is referred to as a shadow.^[24] In many Inuit communities, when flying the free soul could be visible as fire; Merkur suggested that the widespread distribution of this belief suggests it was once a pan-Inuit notion.^[25] Inuit on Saint Lawrence Island and in northern Alaska for instance traditionally believed that the soul wandered during sleep, while among the Mackenzie Inuit was recorded the idea that the human eyes journey during sleep.^[26] The prolonged absence of the free-soul can result in bodily death.^[27]

Dreams are generally deemed to have religious significance, for instance sometimes having a prophetic quality.^[26] According to ethnographic accounts from the Polar and Labrador Inuit, a recurring belief was that ghosts and spirits may visit a person through their dreams.^[26]

Inuit religion maintains that a free soul travels to the afterlife after bodily death, but that if death taboos are not observed then their free soul may become a ghost and remain in the vicinity of the living.^[27] Ghosts were often thought to take the form of fire, sometimes perceived as a ball of fire.^[28]

Some spirits have never been connected to physical bodies. These are called tuurngait (also tornait, tornat, tornrait, singular tuurngaq, torngak, tornrak, tarngek) and "are often described as a shaman's helping spirits, whose nature depends on the respective angakkuq".^[29] Helpful spirits can be called upon in times of need and "are there to help people", as explained by Inuit elder Victor Tungilik.^[29]

Inuit traditional beliefs maintain that humans are interconnected with the broader natural world.^[7] This view impacts Inuit relations, especially with animals who provide them with food and garments.^[7] Hunters must propitiate their prey, ingratiating themselves with them and warding off their vengeance.^[7] The Iglulik angakoq Aua told the ethnographer Knud Rasmussen that "The greatest peril of life lies in the fact that human food consists entirely of souls."^[7]

The main ritual specialist in Inuit religion is termed the angakoq (plural angakut).^[30][a] These terms exist in slightly different forms across the various Inuit dialects,^[33] although their etymology is unclear.^[33] Certain regions also had other terms for these specialists, usually those which highlighted the importance of the angakoq's helping spirit.^[33] The Chugach for instance used the term kalalik, meaning a "possessor of a kalaq or kalagaq" helping spirit.^[33] Various Bering Sea Inuit referred to the tunghak, tunghalik, or tunralik, meaning "one who is furnished with a helping spirit".^[33]

Europeans devised their own terms for the angakoq. In Danish, which became dominant in Greenland, the angakoq was called an åndemaner (spirit-invoker).^[34] Various English-language sources refer to them as "shamans";^[35] introduced to English from the Tungusic languages at the end of the 17th century, the term "shamanism" has never received a commonly agreed definition and has been used in at least four distinct ways.^[36] An alternative English-language term is "medicine men", although has attracted criticism.^[37]

Both men and women have become angakut,^[38] although most have been male.^[34] On Saint Lawrence Island, Inuit communities were recorded as maintaining that "transvestite homosexuals" made the best angakuq.^[30] Transvestite angakuq have not been historically documented among other Inuit communities,^[30] however Merkur noted that legends of both male and female homosexual angakut across central and eastern Inuit groups suggests that "ritual transvestitism" was once widespread.^[39] In recorded history, the angakut were typically married,^[40] and throughout many Inuit societies, male angakut had the prerogative of demanding sex with other men's wives.^[41]

Angakut possess helper spirits,^[42] entities often residing in dolls or figurines that the angakut create for that purpose.^[40] It was the command of these spirits that distinguishes angakut from other individuals in Inuit society.^[43] Typically, they possess a secret language, using words, spells, or songs to control the spirits.^[40] In Eastern Greenland, these serving spirits were called tartoks.^[44] In this region, various spirit types were recorded. These included the tarajuatsiaks, shadow forms with pointed bald heads that could make the wind blow or to steal or retrieve souls; the timerseks, who live inland, were as tall as the length of a woman's boat, and who were also useful in stealing souls; and the inersuaks, spirits of the sea, who could assist in attracting marine animals to approach the shore.^[44] Historical records also indicate that many angakut had an amortok as a helper spirit; this was a being with black arms that could bring news and answer questions. It was dangerous and those who touched it were reputed to turn black and die.^[45]

The angakut's central function was healing,^[46] although they may also be employed to locate a lost object.^[47] Angakut have traditionally been paid in meat or other goods.^[40] This is typically not their primary income, but supplements their subsistence from a primary livelihood.^[40]

Patients will often approach the angaqot, who will then seek to determine the cause of their illness using divination.^[46] The most common divinatory method employed is qilaneq ('head-lifting').^[46] Most illnesses will subsequently be diagnosed as soul-loss caused by spirits, indwellers of nature, or witchcraft.^[46] The angakoq will commonly respond with a séance in which they send their helping spirit out to find the lost soul, or, if the angakoq is more experiences, to go on their own "spirit journey" to retrieve it.^[46] This spirit journeying is deemed an exceptional feat and only angakkut of considerable ability are thought capable of achieving it.^[48] If undertaking this journey, a common practice among many angakut is to cover their face.^[49] Among Inuit communities around the Bering Sea and in Eastern Greenland, there have also been examples of angakut seeking to render women fertile through these methods.^[50]

In stories of shamans there is a time of crisis and they are expected to resolve, alleviate, or otherwise give resolution or meaning to the crisis. These crises often involve survival against the natural elements or disputes between people that could end in death.^[51] In one such story, a hunter kidnapped a man's daughter and a shaman described in terms of belonging to the man. The shaman pulled the daughter back with a magic string.^[52] The shaman is also able to bestow gifts and extraordinary abilities to people and to items such as tools.^[53]

The angakut were historically important for their community's social life, its health, and its prosperity.^[15] Accordingly, Jakobsen noted that they could exert "a huge influence on their society".^[54] Reflecting an ambiguous relationship, Inuit people typically respected angakut,^[55] but also feared them;^[56] these specialists were deemed capable of using their spirits to harm as well as to heal, and efforts to help one family might bring misfortune to another.^[57] The angakut were also often attributed with the ability to steal all or part of a person's soul.^[58]

The particular practices of angakut could be highly individualised,^[59] with Merkur noting that no two seances were "ever quite the same".^[60]

An angakoq will often verbally ask their helping spirit a question, for instance the cause of a patient's illness, and then receive a visual image in their mind that provides them with an answer.^[61] In many cases, an angakoq will attribute a patient's illness to their breach of a taboo that has offended the spirits;^[62] often, given the small, close-knit nature of Inuit communities, the angakoq will already have been aware of any broken taboos due to community gossip.^[63] The angakoq seances typically involved them entering what Mekur called a "light trance".^[64]

Angakut often made, or directed the manufacture, of their ritual paraphernalia.^[40] During rituals, they have often been naked or naked above the waist;^[65] alternatively they may wear a gutskin raincoat.^[46] The angakoq rites typically involved inducing a trance state as part of a séance engaging with the spirits.^[40] These have most commonly taken place at night, inside huts with the lights turned out, but sometimes have occurred outdoors during daylight hours.^[40] Merkur termed these techniques a "platform séance".^[66] In many cases, the angakoq has secreted themselves on a sleeping platform at the back of their hut, behind a curtain of skins, to perform their ceremony.^[67]

The arrival of spirits at the séance may be signalled by sounds of growling and scraping.^[68] During the séance, some angakut have produced noises, which others attending the ceremony must then interpret.^[69] Inuit observers often recognise that angakut employ ventriloquism and sleights of hand during their seances and other rites, but believe that there remains spiritual importance to this.^[70] These sleights of hand may be aided by assistants.^[71] To demonstrate that they have been in combat with spirits, the angakoq may present to their audience some of their town clothes or evidence that their hands or weapons have been reddened with blood.^[72] They may also present apparent wounds indicating that they have been stabbed, with these wounds evidently healing without trace.^[73]

There are also accounts of angakut performing versions of the shaking tent rite found among many North American Native communities.^[74] Inuit variants of this ritual often feature the angakoq being bound hand and foot, or sometimes with their neck to their knees, using cords.^[74] Sometimes, at the end of the rite, they are found to still be bound in the same manner, or alternatively to be free of all bondage.^[75] In East Greenland, those angakoq who performed these bound seances were called qimarraterssortugssat, and among them it was often considered the greatest of the angakoq feats.^[75]

Although there are no records of ethnographers observing an angakoq initiation, various accounts of such a process have been provided by angakoq and other Inuit.^[76] Initiation to become an angakoq is a secretive process, about which comparatively little is known by outsiders.^[77] There are various accounts of people becoming an angakoq on their own initiative,^[59] for instance as a response to some frustration or humiliation.^[78]

In eastern Greenland, it was thought that potentially anyone could become an angakkoq, but that to do so they needed to train with an existing practitioner.^[44] Among the Iglulik, Rasmussen recorded that prospective apprentices were expected to hand over some of their belongings to their instructor.^[79] On becoming an apprentice, a person was often prohibited from telling others about it and also had to follow certain taboos, for instance avoiding working with iron, and was expected to adhere to a specific diet.^[42]

The Inuit rarely hold to the idea of sick people subsequently becoming angakut – in this they differ from Siberian ethnic groups, who often believed that ill individuals became ritual specialists.^[80] Initiation required going to remote areas to seek out a spirit encounter.^[81] In a case from eastern Greenland recorded in the late 19th century, an apprentice traveled to a cleft or cave to rub a stone upon another stone in the direction of the sun for three days, at which point their first spirit was believed to appear.^[44] Another account, recorded by Rasmussen, involved an apprentice going to a lonely place and calling out for three days, each time hearing his echo. At the end of that period, another voice was reputed to be heard, which would be that of the apprentice's helping spirit.^[78]

Becoming an angakoq often took around ten years.^[82] During their training, an apprentice was expected to learn special terminologies that would be used to communicate with the spirits.^[83] To become skilled, a trainee was expected to gather as many Tartoks as possible.^[82] In the early stages of training, an angakoq exposes themselves to spirit possession with no control over the spirits.^[84] A recurring notion in these initiatory experiences was an encounter with a bear spirit, something that challenged the apprentice's strength and their ability to endure hardship.^[59] If an angakoq, having completed their apprenticeship, failed to alert their community of their new status then it was sometimes believed that they would become an ilisiitsoq.^[82]

A widely used divinatory practice among the Inuit is qilaneq.^[85] This involves a sick person lying prone, with their face up; beneath their head will be fastened either the diviner's waistbelt or a line attached to a ceremonial stick. The diviner will then seek to move the patient's head up and down through the affixed fabric, asking questions while doing so. When the head is deemed to become heavy, particularly so heavy that it cannot be moved, then that is interpreted as an affirmative answer to a question.^[86] It is believed that the disease-causing spirit is the entity ultimately answering the questions the diviner is putting to it.^[87] Qilaneq may practiced by angakut but also by other individuals,^[85] for unlike the practices of an angakoq is does not require the involvement of a helping spirit.^[87] These sorts of divination using weight oracles is also found among various Siberian societies and the Sámi people.^[88]

Inuit society also contains various individuals deemed clairvoyant, and thus capable of seeing spirits, but these differ from angakut in not engaging in seances. They may nevertheless offer services for diagnosing illnesses, finding lost property, and prophesying.^[89] Among the Netsilik Inuit, for example, an individual called an angarkungaruk does not perform seances but is thought capable of seeing a disease-causing spirit and thus diagnosing a person's illness.^[87] The nerfalassok is a type of clairvoyant responsible for locating missing objects and diagnosing illness among the Inuit of Western Greenland.^[87]

In Alaska, the influence of neighboring indigenous communities has resulted in the extensive development of Inuit festivals.^[72] Angakuq have often been involved in feasts connected with the start and end of the hunting season.^[72]

Inuit have historically often employed amulets, the efficacy of which is attributed to its corresponding spirit.^[90] Amulets may be constructed by angakuq but also by lay Inuit too.^[72]

An angakoq might create an entity called a tupilaq that had the function of killing a person. To create this, an angakoq would craft an object using hair, grass, or moss, before ritually bringing it to life.^[91] Merkur described these beings as "witchcraft automatons".^[92] In Inuit belief, an angakoq was often thought capable of determining if a person was a witch.^[58] Due to a belief that witches were bloodless, accused witches might be stabbed to see if they bleed from the wound.^[58] If executed, the body of the witch would be carried onto a mountain and cut to pieces.^[58]

The duties of an angakkuq include helping the community when marine animals, kept by Takanaluk-arnaluk or Sea Woman in a pit in her house, become scarce, according to Aua, an informant and friend of the anthropologist Knud Rasmussen. Aua described the ability of an apprentice angakkuq to see himself as a skeleton,^[93] naming each part using the specific shaman language.^[94][93]

Inuit at Amitsoq Lake (a rich fishing ground) on King William Island had seasonal and other prohibitions for sewing certain items. Boot soles, for example, could only be sewn far away from settlements in designated places.^[95] Children at Amitsoq once had a game called tunangusartut in which they imitated the adults' behaviour towards the spirits, even reciting the same verbal formulae as angakkuit. According to Rasmussen, this game was not considered offensive because a "spirit can understand the joke."^[96]

The homelands of the Netsilik Inuit (Netsilingmiut meaning "People of the Seal") have extremely long winters and stormy springs. Starvation was a common danger.^[97]

While other Inuit cultures feature protective guardian powers, the Netsilik have traditional beliefs that life's hardships stemmed from the extensive use of such measures. Unlike the Iglulik Inuit, the Netsilik used a large number of amulets. Even dogs could have amulets.^[98] In one recorded instance, a young boy had 80 amulets, so many that he could hardly play.^[97][99] One particular man had 17 names taken from his ancestors and intended to protect him.^[97][100]

Tattooing among Netsilik women provided power and could affect which world they went to after their deaths.^[101]

Nuliajuk, the Sea Woman, was described as "the lubricous one".^[102] If the people breached certain taboos, she held marine animals in the basin of her qulliq (an oil lamp that burns seal fat). When this happened, the angakkuq had to visit her to beg for game. In Netsilik oral history, she was originally an orphan girl mistreated by her community.^[103]

Moon Man, another cosmic being, is benevolent towards humans and their souls as they arrived in celestial places.^[104][105] This belief differs from that of the Greenlandic Inuit, in which the Moon's wrath could be invoked by breaking taboos.^[104]

Sila or Silap Inua, often associated with weather, is conceived of as a power contained within people.^[106] Among the Netsilik, Sila was imagined as a male. The Netsilik (and Copper Inuit) believed Sila was originally a giant baby whose parents died fighting giants.^[107]

Caribou Inuit is a collective name for several groups of inland Inuit (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 maintain only loose contact, but they share an inland lifestyle and some cultural unity. In the recent past, the Padlermiut took part in seal hunts in the ocean.^[108]

The Caribou have a dualistic concept of the soul. The soul associated with respiration is called umaffia (place of life)^[109] and the personal soul of a child is called tarneq (corresponding to the nappan of the Copper Inuit). The tarneq is considered so weak that it needs the guardianship of a name-soul of a dead relative. The presence of the ancestor in the body of the child was felt to contribute to a more gentle behavior, especially among boys.^[110] This belief amounted to a form of reincarnation.^[109][111]

Because of their inland lifestyle, the Caribou have no belief concerning a Sea Woman. Other cosmic beings, named Sila or Pinga, control the caribou, as opposed to marine animals. Some groups have made a distinction between the two figures, while others have considered them the same. Sacrificial offerings to them could promote luck in hunting.^[112]

Spiritual beliefs and practices among Inuit are diverse, just like the cultures themselves. Similar remarks apply for other beliefs: term silap inua / sila, hillap inua / hilla (among Inuit), ellam yua / ella (among Yup'ik) has been used with some diversity among the groups.^[113] In many instances it refers to "outer space", "intellect", "weather", "sky", "universe":^{[113][114][115][116][117]} there may be some correspondence with the presocratic concept of logos.^[114][118] In some other groups, this concept was more personified ([sɬam juɣwa] among Siberian Yupik).^[119]

Among Copper Inuit, this "Wind Indweller" concept is related to spiritual practice: angakkuit were believed to obtain their power from this indweller, moreover, even their helping spirits were termed as silap inue.^[120]

Greenlandic Inuit believed that spirits inhabited every human joint, even knucklebones.^[121]

European ships first began encountering Inuit in what became northeast Canada in the 16th century.^[122] When Christianity was introduced to the Inuit, they often displayed what Jakobsen called "an openness" to incorporating Christian elements into their "existing spirit world".^[15] In Greenland, angakut continued to practice, sometimes secretly, following Christianity's introduction.^[54] In 1746, the Danish King Christian VI wrote a formal letter to Greenlanders complaining about the continued activities of the angakut.^[54]

The 19th century saw substantial population decline among the Inuit of continental North America, largely due to the introduction of new diseases.^[123] Increasingly, Inuit were employed by whalers, economic changes that contributed to cultural change.^[123] Ethnographic accounts from the period highlight the decline in many traditional Inuit customs, such as the tattooing of women.^[124] Europeans generally perceived the demise of Inuit culture to be inevitable,^[122] with white ethnographers like Franz Boas and Knud Rasmussen hoping to document Inuit culture before it disappeared.^[124]

In Canada, the first Anglican mission post among Inuit was established in 1894 at Uumanarjuaq, with the first Roman Catholic post created at Igluligaarjuk in 1912.^[125] Christianity subsequently spread rapidly among Canada's Inuit population.^[126] Often, the Christian missionaries were interested in recording Inuit traditions.^[126] In the 20th century, the Canadian government pursued a policy of deliberately settling the Inuit in permanent communities.^[126]

The Polar Inuit of Northwest Greenland were all baptised by 1934, and the angakut were extinct among them by the mid-20th century.^[127] In Eastern Greenland, the angakut remained in operation, largely unhindered by Christianity, until the early 20th century.^[128]

During the 1970s, the emergence of a pan-Inuit ideology contributed to a growing appreciation of old Inuit traditions.^[129] The Inuit Cultural Institute launched in 1975.^[129] In 1999, the Nunavut government was established in Canada, something that assisted research into traditional Inuit culture.^[129]

In 1991, Merkur noted that Inuit religion was varyingly "extinct, obsolescent, and persisting", depending on the community in question.^[2]

• Inuit group, a set of satellites that orbit Saturn, many named after figures from Inuit religion