Our Ice Is Vanishing Sikuvut Nunguliqtuq by Shelley Wright

Author:Shelley Wright
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: MQUP
Published: 2014-09-14T16:00:00+00:00

Religion

One factor of major importance in the establishment of a non-Inuit presence in the North, and one that is still playing an important role today, is the influence of Christian missionaries. Missionaries of both the Catholic and Anglican Churches began converting Inuit from the early twentieth century onward, and the trend continues with the rapid growth of Pentecostal and Evangelical Protestant churches. The old shamanistic religion has either disappeared or been submerged by overarching Christian practice. The Isuma feature film The Journals of Knud Rasmussen shows just such an abandonment of shamanism and adoption of Christianity in Iglulik. The great angakkuq (shaman) Awa travelled around the North Baffin region in the early twentieth century. His meeting in 1921 with Knud Rasmussen resulted in the preservation of much information about the role of shamans in traditional Inuit culture, but not long afterward, he gave way to pressure from some of his own people to abandon his helping spirits.

Both men and women could be shamans, and they could be more or less powerful. Some shamans were feared because they used their powers for evil, whereas others were loved and respected healers and leaders. Shamans healed the sick, repaired injuries, protected the souls of people from evil shamans, visited the Mother of the Sea to release seals and other animals for hunting, and generally ensured that traditional customs were observed and passed on. They relied on tuurngait (helping spirits) to guide them. These spirits might be animals, the souls of the dead, or other supernatural entities. As Awa told Rasmussen,

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