Yupik Religion

The Yupik people are an indigenous group who live in Alaska and far northeastern Russia. According to U.S. Census data, there are approximately 34,000 Yupik people currently living in Alaska, but probably fewer than 2,000 live in Russia. According to archaeological data, the Yupiit have been in Alaska for around three thousand years, They are descended from the Thule people, who originated in Siberia and later settled across much of the Arctic. The Yupik people share ancestry with the Inuit people and, more distantly, with the Aleut people. The traditional religious beliefs of the Yupik people is animistic, the concept that spirits inhabit everything in nature. Yupik believe that all living creatures go through a cycle of birth, death, and rebirth, so they give newborns the name of a recently deceased member of their community. Yupik practice rituals in which parts of animals killed for food are returned to the ocean so that the animal can be reborn. They practice shamanism, and beleive that there are both good and evil spirits. Shamans are able to communicate with these spirits. Those affected by evil spirits would suffer, often becoming sick. Shamans were compensated for intervening with the spirits to effect a cure. The spirits did not compel individuals to become shamans. Most Yupik shamans chose this path. The process of becoming a shaman usually involved difficult learning and initiation rites, and sometimes included a vision quest. The ability to command the spirits was characteristic of shamans, but non-shamans could also profit from spirit powers through the use of amulets which could protect an individual or an entire family. Since contact with the outside world was established relatively recently, the Yupik have been able to preserve many of their traditional ways of life. In the twentieth century, when Western schools and churches were built in Alaska, the Yupik stopped retelling their stories and traditional words of wisdom. As the last of the shamans died and no one arose to take their place, Yupik elders recognized that their lifestyle was about to become irretrievably lost. The elders chose to again share their wisdom with the next generation. Traditionally, hunter/gatherer Yupik families spent the spring and summer at fish camps, then rejoined other members of their tribe for the winter. These villages contained separate buildings for men and the women. The men's communal house, the qasgiq, was the community center for ceremonies and festivals which included singing, dancing, and storytelling. Carved wooden masks were utilized during ceremonies representing plants, animals, and composite representations of humans and animals. Qasgiq were also where the men taught the young boys survival and hunting skills and how to make tools and qayaqs (kayaks). The women's houses, the ena, were smaller and made of sod. They were usually located next to the qasgiq, and some were connected to it by a tunnel. Women taught the young girls how to sew, cook, and weave. Boys would live with their mothers until they were about five years old, then they would relocate to the qasgiq. Each winter for three to six weeks, the young boys and young girls would exchange residences. The men of the qasgiq would teach the girls survival and hunting skills and toolmaking and the women of the ena would teach the boys how to sew and cook. Presently, qasgiq have given way to modern houses, with electricity and plumbing, and churches and schools the center of communal events. Despite this, the Yupik still place emphasis on the extended family as the basis of society.