Inuit Religion

Inuit religion is the shared spiritual beliefs and practices of the Inuit, an indigenous people from Alaska, northern Canada, parts of Siberia and Greenland. Traditional Inuit religious practices include animism and shamanism, wherein spiritual healers mediate with spirits. Most Inuit currently identify themselves as Christians, but traditional Inuit spirituality persists as a living, oral tradition and remains an influence on contemporary Inuit society. Many Inuit holds beleifs that are a balance of indigenous and Christian theology. Inuit cosmology provides a narrative about the world and the place of people within it. Canadian writer Rachel Qitsualik-Tinsley states that "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." The traditional stories, rituals, and taboos of the Inuit are typically precautions against the dangers posed by their harsh Arctic surroundings. Spiritual beliefs and practices among Inuit, like the cultures themselves, are diverse. A spiritual healer is known as an angakkuq, whose duties include helping the community when marine animals, which are kept by Takanaluk-arnaluk (Sea Woman) in a pit in her house, become scarce because the people have violated certain taboos. Moon Man, another cosmic being, is benevolent towards humans and their souls after they arrived in celestial places. 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), is often associated with weather and is regarded as a power that resides within people. 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. The Caribou Inuit have a dualistic concept of the soul. The soul associated with respiration is called umaffia (place of life) and the personal soul of a child is called tarneq. 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. This belief is analogous to reincarnation. 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. Caribou angakkuit performed fortune-telling through qilaneq, a technique of asking questions to a qila (spirit). The Inuit believed that all animals and objects have a form of spirit or soul, just like humans. These spirits persist after death. Belief in the pervasiveness of spirits, the root of the Inuit worldview, has consequences. An Inuit saying admits that "The great peril of our existence lies in the fact that our diet consists entirely of souls." Since all beings possess souls like those of humans, killing an animal is little different from killing a person. Once the soul of a dead animal or human is liberated, it is free to exact its revenge. The spirits of the dead can only be placated by obedience to custom, avoiding taboos, and performing the proper rituals.