INUIT RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS
- Relations between Men and Animals. According to eastern Inuit religious tradition, each animal had its own inua (its "man," "owner," or "spirit") and also its own "soul."
- Taboos, Amulets, and Songs. ...
- Rites of Passage. ...
- Shamans. ...
- The Deities. ...
- See Also. ...
- Bibliography. ...
What were the religious beliefs of the Inuit?
Religion. The dominant religion of the Inuit people is animism. Animism, a polytheistic religion, is the belief that all non-human entities, such as animals, plants, rivers, mountains, and any inanimate objects posses a spiritual soul. Animism is an ethnic religion that does not seek to convert others to the religion.
What are religious practices of the Inuit?
- 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.
What are the religious beliefs of the Inuit tribes?
- One of the most important spirits in Inuit culture was Sedna, the Goddess of the Sea.
- She lived at the bottom of the ocean and controlled the seal, whales and other sea animals.
- The belief was that if Inuit made her happy, she would continue to provide them with food.
Are Inuit people related to Native Americans?
The name they call themselves is Inuit, or "the people." Culturally and linguistically distinct from Native Americans of the lower 48 states, as well as from the Athabaskan people of Alaska, the Inuit are closely related to the Mongoloid peoples of eastern Asia.
What type of gods do the Inuit traditionally believe in?
Anirniit. The Inuit believed that all things have a form of spirit or soul (in Inuktitut: anirniq meaning "breath"; plural anirniit), just like humans. These spirits are held to persist after death—a common belief present in most human societies.
What rituals did the Inuit have?
The hunter showed respect for animals by singing songs in the boat and using freshly cleaned equipment. Whales were offered fresh water during a whale hunt, because they thought that the saltwater made it thirsty. After the hunt, the Inuit performed songs and rituals to thank the animal's spirit.
What do the Inuit believe about death?
After death, the Inuit believe that human souls go to either the upper or under world. In fact, the Inuit prefer the underworld as it is warm with abundant food while the souls that go to the upper world will suffer from cold and famine. The Greenland Inuit believe that after death the people can reappear as ghosts.
Do the Inuit believe in reincarnation?
ʹ For the most part both anthropologists and the general public have been unaware that some form of belief in rebirth or reincarnation is widespread among North American Inuit and Indians.
Did the Inuit have any special celebrations?
Quviasukvik is the Inuit winter feast that celebrates the coming year and placates the roaming spirits for good luck in the year to come.
What are some Inuit dances?
Yup'ik dance or Yuraq, also Yuraqing (Yup'ik yuraq /juʁaq/ sg yurak dual yurat pl) is a traditional Inuit style dancing form usually performed to songs in Yup'ik, with dances choreographed for specific songs which the Yup'ik people of southwestern Alaska.
Why did Inuits wear masks?
Inuit masks were used in ceremonies that honored or requested the presence of spirits. The objects that were painted on the masks were indicative of the spirit that the Inuit was trying to appeal to or the result that he was trying to achieve with his ceremony or dancing.
What is the Inuit coming of age tradition?
In North Baffin Island, Inuit boys have traditionally gone out to the wilderness with their fathers between the ages of 11 and 12 to test their hunting skills and acclimatize to the harsh arctic weather. As part of the tradition, a shaman would be called to open the lines of communication between men and animals.
What is the Inuit religion?
Inuit religion is the shared spiritual beliefs and practices of the Inuit, an indigenous people from Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. Their religion shares many similarities with some Alaska Native religions. Traditional Inuit religious practices include animism and shamanism, in which spiritual healers mediate with spirits.
What are the traditional practices of the Inuit?
Traditional Inuit religious practices include animism and shamanism, in which spiritual healers mediate with spirits. Today many Inuit follow Christianity, but traditional Inuit spirituality continues as part of a living, oral tradition and part of contemporary Inuit society.
What is an Inuit spiritual healer?
Among the Canadian Inuit, a spiritual healer is known as an angakkuq (plural: angakkuit, Inuktitut syllabics ᐊᖓᑦᑯᖅ or ᐊᖓᒃᑯᖅ) in Inuktitut or angatkuq in Inuvialuktun. 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 the Aua, an informant and friend of the anthropologist Rasmussen. Aua described the ability of an apprentice angakkuq to see himself as a skeleton, naming each part using the specific shaman language.
What is the role of a shaman?
Shamans ( anatquq or angakkuq in the Inuit languages of northern parts of Alaska and Canada) played an important role in the religion of Inuit peoples acting as religious leaders, tradesmen, healers, and characters in cultural stories holding mysterious, powerful, and sometimes superhuman abilities.
What is the meaning of Sila in Inuit?
This belief differs from that of the Greenlandic Inuit, in which the Moon's wrath could be invoked by breaking taboos. Sila or Silap Inua, often associated with weather, is conceived of as a power contained within people. Among the Netsilik, Sila was imagined as male.
What was the impact of the harshness and randomness of life in the Arctic?
The harshness and randomness of life in the Arctic ensured that Inuit lived constantly in fear of unseen forces. A run of bad luck could end an entire community and begging potentially angry and vengeful but unseen powers for the necessities of day-to-day survival is a common consequence of a precarious existence.
Why is Tunangusartut not offensive?
According to Rasmussen, this game was not considered offensive because a "spirit can understand the joke.".
Why did the Inuit have rituals?
Historically, the Inuit held many observances to insure good hunting, and in the small and scattered hunting and fishing communities many local religious practices were observed. Generally, ritual life was more elaborate in Alaska than in Canada and Greenland.
Where do Inuit live?
The Inuit (Eskimo) live in the vast Arctic and sub-Arctic area that stretches from the eastern point of Siberia to eastern Greenland. Of the approximately 105,000 Inuit, 43,000 live in Greenland, 25,000 in Arctic Canada, 35,000 (plus 2,000 Aleut) in Alaska, and 1,500 (plus a small number of Aleut) in Russia. Language has been used as the basic ...
What is the common term used to designate themselves collectively by the members of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference?
Inuit , however, is the common term used to designate themselves collectively by the members of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, an organization established in 1977 by representatives from Greenland, Canada, and Alaska. Traditionally the Inuit are divided into many geographic groups.
What did the Inuit hunt?
The Inuit were hunters who adapted to the seasonal availability of various mammals, birds, and fish. Hunting sea mammals with harpoons was characteristic, but hunting inland during the summer was also part of the subsistence pattern of many Inuit.
How were the Inuit divided?
Traditionally the Inuit are divided into many geographic groups. The members of each group, or band, were connected through kinship ties, but the band was without formal leadership. The nuclear family was the most important social unit, but the extended family often cohabited and worked cooperatively.
What does the word "Inuit" mean?
The word Inuit means "people.". Inuit as a self-designation is used primarily in Canada and, to some extent, in Greenland (where the more common self-designation is Kalaallit ). Yupik means "a real person," just as Inupiat, which is the self-designation in northern Alaska, means "real people.".
Why were taboos important to the Inuit?
Most taboos were imposed to separate the game from a person who was tabooed because of birth, menstruation, or death.
Hunting and food
The Inuit were mainly hunters, and relied heavily on the animals of the Arctic as their main source of food.
Masks
Masks were made out of drift wood, animals skins bones and fathers- they were often painted in bright colors. Because of the cultural diversity its hard to tell the purpose of the masks
What was the purpose of the Inuit shaman?
He was supposed to drive out the evil spirits that made people sick. The Inuit believed that each person had several souls. If a person was sick or injured, the soul left the person's body. Then the shaman would try to draw the soul back into the body using songs, prayers, and rituals. Coming of Age :
Why did the Inuit let humans hunt?
The Inuit thought that the animals they hunted were actually superior to them, yet the animals let the humans hunt them, either because they felt sorry for them or the Inuit performed rituals which gave the hunters temporary control.
Why did the Inuit give whales fresh water?
Whales were offered fresh water during a whale hunt, because they thought that the saltwater made it thirsty. After the hunt, the Inuit performed songs and rituals to thank the animal's spirit.
What was the body of an Inuit surrounded by?
The body was covered with driftwood and small stones. The Inuit surrounded the body with a circle of stones.
What is the Inuit dance?
The Inuit dance at almost every gathering and ceremony. "Inuit drum dancing played a part in many special occasions such as births, marriages, an Inuit boy's first hunt, changing of seasons, greetings for visitors or to honor someone who had passed away.
Do Inuit have rituals?
Most Native American tribes in North America have special coming of age rituals. However, the Inuit do not have any set rituals about this stage of life. Boys usually have their lips pierced to insert decorative labrets. Girls might get their chin tattooed to show they are ready for marriage.
Overview
- Some spirits have never been connected to physical bodies. These are called tuurngait (also tornait, tornat, tornrait, singular tuurngaq, torngak, tornrak, tarngek). Helpful spirits can be called upon in times of need. Some tuurngait are evil, monstrous, and responsible for ba…
Inuit cultural beliefs
Anirniit
Tuurngait
Inuit shamanism
Inuit religion is the shared spiritual beliefs and practices of the Inuit, an indigenous people from Alaska, Canada, parts of Siberia and Greenland. Their religion shares many similarities with some Alaska Native religions. Traditional Inuit religious practices include animism and shamanism, in which spiritual healers mediate with spirits. Today many Inuit follow Christianity, but tradition…
Deities
Among the Canadian Inuit, a spiritual healer is known as an angakkuq (plural: angakkuit, Inuktitut syllabics ᐊᖓᑦᑯᖅ or ᐊᖓᒃᑯᖅ ) in Inuktitut or angatkuq in Inuvialuktun. 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 the Aua, an informant and friend of the anthropologist Rasmussen. Aua described the ability of an apprentice angakkuq to see himself …
Creatures and spirits
The Inuit believed that all things have a form of spirit or soul (in Inuktitut: anirniq meaning "breath"; plural anirniit), just like humans. These spirits are held to persist after death—a common belief present in most human societies. However, the belief in the pervasiveness of spirits—the root of Inuit worldview—has consequences. According to a customary Inuit saying, "The great peril of our existence lies in the fact that our diet consists entirely of souls." Since all beings possess souls l…
Notes
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". Helpful spirits can be called upon in times of need and "[...] are there to help people," explains Inuit elder Victor Tungilik. Some tuurngait are evil, monstrous, and responsible for bad hunts and broken tools. Th…
Relations Between Men and Animals
Shamans (anatquq or angakkuq in the Inuit languages of northern parts of Alaska and Canada ) played an important role in the religion of Inuit acting as religious leaders, tradesmen, healers, and characters in cultural stories holding mysterious, powerful, and sometimes superhuman abilities. The idea of calling shamans "medicine men" is an outdated concept born from the accounts of ea…
Taboos, Amulets, and Songs
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
Rites of Passage
• Qallupilluit or Qalupalik is a myth/legend told by Inuit parents and elders to prevent children from wandering to the shore. Qalupalik are human-like creatures with long hair, green skin, and long finger nails that live in the sea. They wear amautiit, in which they carry away babies and children who disobey their parents or wander off alone. They take the children underwater, where they adopt them as their own. Qalupaliks have a distinctive humming sound, and the elders have sai…
Shamans
• Kleivan, Inge; B. Sonne (1985). Eskimos: Greenland and Canada. Iconography of religions, section VIII, "Arctic Peoples", fascicle 2. Leiden, The Netherlands: Institute of Religious Iconography • State University Groningen. E.J. Brill. ISBN 90-04-07160-1.
• Laugrand, Frédéric; Jarich Oosten; François Trudel (2000). Representing Tuurngait. Memory and History in Nunavut, Volume 1. Nunavut Arctic College.
The Deities
- According to eastern Inuit religious tradition, each animal had its own inua (its "man," "owner," or "spirit") and also its own "soul." Within the western Inuit religious tradition, the inua seems to have been identical to the soul. The idea of inua was applied to animals and implements as well as to concepts and conditions (such as sleep). Lakes, currents, mountains, and stars all had their ow…
Bibliography
- Unlike cultic practices in connection with the deities, which had relatively minor significance, taboos, amulets, and songs were fundamentally important to the Inuit. Most taboos were imposed to separate the game from a person who was tabooed because of birth, menstruation, or death. A separation between land and sea animals was also important in m...