Inuit Religion

A faith of the Arctic, where respect for animals and the sea goddess Sedna made survival possible.

c. 1000 CE → · The Arctic · Indigenous & Animist

Inuit tradition, spread across the Arctic with the Thule migration around 1000 CE, holds that animals have souls and must be treated with respect. When people break taboos, Sedna keeps the seals from hunters until a shaman journeys to the sea floor to calm her.

Key figures

• Sedna, mother of sea animals
• The angakkuq, shaman
• Sila, the spirit of the air

Texts

• Oral tradition
• Songs and stories

Beliefs

• Animals have souls and must be respected
• Sedna withholds sea animals when taboos are broken
• Breath and weather are one spirit, Sila

Rituals

• Shamanic journeys to Sedna
• Respect rites for hunted animals
• Drum dances

Grew from

• Animism & Shamanism

Connections in the atlas

• Knud Rasmussen
• Inuksuk
• Tupilaq
• ? Why did the Franklin expedition die?
• The master or mistress of animals
• The Maiden (Kore)
• Into the Americas
• The Norse
• Franz Boas
• ? Where does shamanism come from?
• The cosmic hunt
• The first humans made from clay