User:Physis/Eskimo shamanism

Dear Miskwito,

Thank You very much for Your time and work to raise the most important questions about the article I initiated a few hours before.

“Similarities and differences” can address key concerns
You have noticed, as I can see, that the section says general nothings.

Yes, it is a very unmature section. But it was not intended as a place-filling-stuff, it had a specific goal. As also Shamanism article mentions, it is a very important question whether the mere concept of “shamanism” is justified. Can we declare a set of key fetures which could be used as underlying concepts for joining the various cultures termed as “shamanistic”? I thought there are debates in such questions. Also in the case of Eskimos, it may be the most important to illustrate to the reader that there are things which join the Eskimo cultures to other shamanistic ones, but the careful examination of details is needed.

The main question which can be asked by the reader if he/she begins sees the title of the article: what is it about? Eskimo shamnism? Are Eskimo cultures shamanistic? At all? If so, is there any special in Eskimo shamanism? Are such questions settled or debated?

And the other side of the same coin (the “internal” view): do Eskimo groups have enough common fetures in their various belief systems, that would justify talking about “the Eskimo” shamanism, “the Eskimo” soul concept, etc… What I really do not know: is the culture of Asian Eskimos similar to other Eskimo groups? As far as I read the literature in this question, the answer is yes: also the Siberian Eskimos know an inua-concept, have a mediator figure etc. thus have several important similarities to other Eskimo groups. But I know only few on Asian Eskios yet.

The main thing I wanted express is an approach that, we always reassemble our notions piece by piece from a muddling mass of phenomes observed during the fieldwork. I read it in, I try to cite it as precisely as possible (I had to return the book to the library, I have only a Hungarian-language translation at hand, but I try to translate it back again): The anthropologist must reasseble the notion of social structure from a muddling mass of statements that he/she can hear from the Indians about contacts between relatives, names of groups, ancient genalogies, relatedness of languages, toponyms and many other things…

Recently I read Emic and etic article. If I understand it well, it is the main question whether we can use our etic notions (e.g. the mere concept “shamanism”), while the indigenous people use their emic notions, which rarely extend a smaller community. Yes, Eskimo use terms like angakoq or, but can we label them as "shaman" — a term used for lumping together various distinct cultures. What we see on the field is a muddling mass of phenomes — how should we grasp them?

Texts like “Differences and similarities” must be simply worked out supported massively with notable references. The main function of the lead text is to illustrate that Is the mere title of the article justified at all? and I intended “Differences and similarities”-like parts to be a kernel/embryo for this. You can see my beginning work-out on Shamanism.

Inanity
Yes, long part of the article sound inane. But the various Eskimo belief systems embrace a huge and sophistcated material. To write a good article about it, it does not go in one turn. It is not easy It is not easy to write interesting (eye-catching) things, but at the same time also warn the reader against too categorical statements on indigenous belief systems (which are very sophisticated and show many faces).
 * to keep the article well-structured,
 * but also at the same time avoid oversimplification.

Now I think I wrote the inane parts because I wanted to address the questions above, but I simply do not have the knowledge to answer them. I have just noticed this situaton while reading Your concerns. The complexity and variability of the Eskimo belief systems (and their place among other cultures) is far larger than I thought. I think now I should have to wait some more years with writing this article.

Is term “Eskimo shamanism” used at all?
Also You raised similar questions: "Eskimo shamanism" is not a term that's actually used by anyone; is this actually "shamanism"?

But the mere title of is “Becoming Half Hidden / Shamanism and Initiation among the Inuit”, it has been listed in the Notes section of the Eskimo shamanism article!

Most recent and notable online available
The most recent and notable, also online available material I could find is the abstract of Similar remarks apply for
 * Jarich Gerlof Oosten (2004): Shamanism and transition to Christianity in Nunavut (Canada). I have read only the abstract, thus I have only limited right to use it as supporting my opinion.
 * Blaisel X, Laugrand F, Oosten J (1999): "Shamans and leaders: Parousial Movements among the Inuit of Northeast Canada", Numen 46: 370-411.. I have read only the “My inspiration” part provided by the author, thus I have only limited right to use it as supporting my opinion.

A not online (but I think easily available) recent book is. It does use terms “shaman”, “shamanism”, “shamanistic” for Innu people.

Grouped by language and relevance
Now let us see whether there are any other English-language (and other) scientific (and popular) books mentioning “shamanism” among Eskimos! (I stress “shamanism” here. I shall address the other terminology problem “Eskimo vs Inuit“ independently in ).

Examining titles in bibliographies
Or let us see some bibliographies about the topic: online available Shamanism in North America -- A Comprehensive Bibliography on the Use of the Term by Peter N. Jones. May 2004, Bauu Institute. If we search in it, we can find many titles showing that both terms “Eskimo” and “shaman” are used (in relation to each other) in English-language academic literature. And not all of them are old papers:
 * Turner, Edith (1989). From shamans to healers: the survival of an Inupiaq Eskimo skill. Anthropologica, 31(1), 3-24. (It is cited also in .) I could not avail it yet, so I have not the right yet to say that this book supports any of my opinions in any way.
 * Fienup Riordan, A. (1997). Present Yup'ik recollections of past shamans. Etudes/Inuit/Studies, 21(1-2), 229-244. I could not avail it yet, so I have not the right yet to say that this book supports any of my opinions in any way.

Or let us examine the bibliography provided in :
 * Oosten, J.G: The Structure of the Shamanistic Complex among the Netsilik and Iglulik. Etudes Inuit Studies vol. 5 no.1, Québec 1981. I could not avail it yet, so I have not the right yet to say that this book supports any of my opinions in any way.
 * National Museums of Canada: Shamans and Spirits, Myth and Magical Symbolism in Eskimo Art. The Inuit Print/L'estampe inuit, Ottawa, 1977. I could not avail it yet, so I have not the right yet to say that this book supports any of my opinions in any way.

Times of publication
Now, let us return to books which I have read (which I can talk about). Let us examine the literature cited in Eskimo shamanism, in reversed time order:

Recent
As for recent notable anthropologists writing on shamanism, let us mention Piers Vitebsky's The Shaman. It presents many examples with Eskimos, especally with some Alaskan Eskimos.

Near past

 * English literature
 * Eskimo shaman ; Inuit shaman  . And was republished in 1992 with the same title in New York, thus it is not so marginal or old.


 * Russian literature
 * Rubcova's ethnographical work on Asian Yupik Eskimos (containing tales in original Ungasik language) translates the Ungazik Eskimo term as шаман (which is shaman in Russian).


 * Russian literature for which English translation exists
 * Menovshchikov's summary article on Asian Eskimo beliefs also translates as “shaman”, mentioning also that  fills in a mediator role. I mention that a general introductory book on shamanism (although not discussing Eskimo materials and written in Hungarian)  emphasizes the funtion of mediation as a very important function of the shaman.

Classicals
I do not know now whether the great classical anthropologists doing fieldworks among Eskimos (Knud Rasmussen, Peter Freuchen, Franz Boas, Vladimir Bogoraz) used term “shamanism” for Eskimo belief systems. I do not have their works in original (just some Hungarian translations).

Knud Rasmussen
Although the Hungarian translation of Knud Rasmussen's Thulefahrt (Thule Travel) does use the term shaman (e.g. for Aua, an important informant and friend of Rassmusen), but I must admit that the original works of Rasmussen, and also the English translations may avoid term shaman. I suppose that from the following online available, English-language Rasmussen-books: Eskimo Folk-Tales this book really avoids term “shaman”, it says “wizard” or “angakoq” instead (p. 100, tale “The soul that lived in the bodies of all beasts”). The same can be said about his Across Arctic America (also online available ).

A possible case study: Asian Eskimos (compared to others)
Having thought much on Your concerns, I have rewritten the intro text of the “entry point” (I mean, the text introducing the reader from Shamanism article to Eskimo shamanism article). The new parts are contained in Shamanism. I have replaced the too general parts with concrete data, mainly about Asian Eskimos. I tried to achive that generalities are conveyed by concrete data themselves.

I mentioned all this because perhaps some of Your concerns may be answered if we examine how similar/different Asian Eskimos are from other Eskimo groups. Maybe many concerns can be grasped centered around this possible case study.

“Alien” is a terminus technicus, no connotations
You mentioned the title suggests as if these Eskimo groups believed in a childish cult.

But the idea of grasping the phenomens around the notion of alien beings comes from. It is an academic paper, not a popular album. I have not rephrased it in an unfair way. To prove that, now I cite literarily the contents that I used, together with their entire context: Thus, I simply used a terminus technicus, far from any emotional connotations, judgement, etc. I do not really see why this terminology of the academic paper would suggest any connotations unrelated to the topic.
 * /General Observations about the Religion of the Eskimos (p. 6).
 * /Positive birth-rituals (p. 14).

Of course, the reader can always debate, whether the authors are right at all, as they introduce the notion of alien beings for grasping many phenomes of the Eskimo belief systems around this notion. (Emic and etic? Let us remember again the “muddling mass” analogy). But the athors have some very good arguments that support their approach. Let us see the following phenomen: people use a special distinct language (inside the community). What examples can be shown? What different examples for a similar phenomenon! And in both cases, this second language of the community comes the similar way (archaisms, metaphors). then it is a rather convincing argument. I found this and other examples convincing enough to allow the authors' approach mentioned in Wikipedia, I found the authors' introduction of the notion “alien being” is justified, because it is covered by various examples and have explanatory power.
 * The shaman (contacting spirits).
 * But also the mother (while performing eating ritual towards her baby).
 * If the mother really talks to her baby using a special language that consists of archaisms and metaphors
 * in a a similar way that the shaman's laguage consists of archaisms and metaphors while talking to helping spirits (this statement is supported also by other authors, see )

Emotional
What I really did not understand: You mentioned somethings like presenting these cultures as childish (instead of their nuancedness) and You wrote also some sort of feelings of native peoples against terming their belief systems as shamanism. I simply do not understand: Eskimo belief systems have a huge literature and is itself a very sophistcated and complex material, nd as I cited, contemporary English literature does use “shamanism” (thus, not only Russian and Hungarian literature does so). I knew that the term “Eskimo” is higly debated (although was used at least in the past few decades in English literature), but any presenting of native belief systems as simple (either under the term of shamanism or not) really surprises me. I have never heard of any assumptions that animistic belif systems may be simple (except for historical missionary literature, or other literature only of historical relevance)

Soul dualism
Yes, this section is almost unintellegible. The reason is simple: as I wrote above, cultures of Eskimo groups embrace a huge material. Besides small mentionings of soul dualism, a detailed treatment can be read in. I suppose also provides profound details, but I have not read it yet, I have just seen it in the bibliography which I found for answering You. Term “soul dualism” can be used for Eskimos, it is not a poularizing overgeneralization, let alone original research: the term is used literarily in academic source (p. 222 of ).

This is really an important section in the topic, and should be worked out. It will be a huge work.

For summary: the Eskimo shaman may fulfill multiple functions: What different (seemingly unassociated) functions! Are they associated in any way? If so, what underlying concepts join them? Understanding it can help to see the overall phenomenon of Eskimo shamanism better.
 * healing
 * achieve fertility for infertile women
 * secure success of hunt (in case of scarcity of game or long meteorological calamities hindering hunt, e.g. blizzard)

Such underlying concept is the soul concept. Variations occur at Eskimos, but in generally they are a special variant of soul dualism.


 * Healing
 * It is held that the cause of sickness is soul theft: somebody (a shaman, a spirit etc). has stolen the soul of the sick person. But why is the sick person still alive then? Because each person has more souls. Stealing the appropriate soul of the victim does not cause immediate death, only illness. It takes a shaman to bring back the stolen soul. The soul-thief can be an enemy shaman . Even the joints of our body have their own small souls. If such a small soul escapes, that is the explanation of pain.


 * Fertity
 * The shaman avails the soul of the future child to be born by the woman (p. 4 of )


 * Succes of hunt (e.g. sea animals)
 * The shaman visits a mythological being who protects all sea animals (usually, the Sea Woman). The Sea Woman keeps the souls of sea animals (in her house, or in a pot). If the shaman pleases her,she releses the animal souls. They rush out into the free. This finishes the scarcity of game.

It is the shaman's free soul that can take part in a spirit journey to far and dangerous places (land of dead, Sea Woman, Moon etc) while his body is still alive (p. 4 of ). At the initiation of the apprentice shaman, the initiator extracts the shaman's free soul and makes it familiar to the helping spirits so that they shall listen when the new shaman invokes them (, p. 121 of ).

Everything is more difficult than summarized here. Animals may have shared souls (shared across their species). Humans may have souls resposible for dreams, other one responsible for body functions, other ones whose lack causes pain, another one consists of our name, which we inherited from a dead relative. The latter concept of inheriting name-souls can amount to a kind of reincarnation at some groups (Caribu Eskimos).

I have begun already to work this topic out, see it in Shamanism.

Term “Eskimo” can be justified
Pros for term “Eskimo” exist also in the English-speaking word, not only in Hungary.

Threads of debates on talk pages
Reasons for using term “Eskimo” (both in the scientific literature and in a lexicon for common readers) are discussed in Talk:Eskimo in threads
 * Talk:Eskimo
 * Talk:Eskimo
 * Talk:Eskimo
 * Talk:Eskimo
 * Talk:Eskimo
 * Talk:Eskimo
 * Talk:Eskimo
 * Talk:Inuit

Wikipedia's naming conventions
As for Wikipedia conventions, the followings may apply:
 * use the most common name
 * Naming conventions


 * precision
 * Naming conventions (precision)


 * avoid offensive names if offensiveness is verified
 * Naming conventions (common names)

The situation is funny, beacuse:
 * Pro
 * In generally, “use the most common name” contradicts Naming conventions (precision). But not here! Here, both guidelines vote for “Eskimo”


 * Contra
 * Here, the contra vota is conveyed by Naming conventions (common names), which warns against names that are offensive. (But the same text also mentions that the offensiveness must be proven by verifyable resources.) The main problem is that maybe also the “Inuit” label can be felt as (at least) strange for a Yupik. But do we need a common name for Yupiks and Inuits at all? Yes, because linguistical comparisons make it necessary. Until now this is “Eskimo”, and any other term (known by me) would hurt both precision and “use the most common name”

Non-Aleut branch of the Eskimo-Aleut language family
From the above threads I took that despite of the contras, there is no real alternative scientific term for the non-Aleut branch of the Eskimo-Aleut language family.

Of course it can be questioned: why we should split off the Eskimo branch from the Eskimo-Aleut family at all, and contrast the Eskimo branch them with the Aleut branch? Because there are good comparative linguistical arguments for it: Aleut language asserts that such important features of Eskimo languages as incorporation and ergativity and are less present in Aleut.

In fact, in many cases Eskimo languages consist dialect continuums (as stated in: online ). I shall mention later an analogy of an anthropologist: we reassamble our notion (“social structure”) from a muddling mass of phenomens. I thought a similar analogy here: we cut out the classification of Eskimo languages from a muddling mass of language chains.

All that lead me to think is justified.
 * a good comprehensive name over Inuit versus Yupik
 * which (at the same time) contrasts them to Aleuts

Humanistic arguments
As for the more humanistic arguments against term Eskimo: I took from the threads that I cannot verify if this is true at all, but I regarded it as an argument for using the scientific term in a rigid way, and bother less with feelings until a consensus is reached among the Eskimo people.
 * although several Inuits dislike term Eskimo,
 * but the same time, also some Asian Eskimos dislike the term Inuit.

An anthropologist (who writes about herself that she belongs to the humanistic anthropology approach) also uses the term Eskimo in the title of her paper
 * Turner, Edith (1989). From shamans to healers: the survival of an Inupiaq Eskimo skill. Anthropologica, 31(1), 3-24. (It is cited also in .) I could not avail it yet, so I have not the right yet to say that this book supports any of my opinions in any way. Because I do not know the context how she uses the words.

Modernity of used literature
Although I do not know the most recent publications in English-language anthropological literature, but term “Eskimo” was used yet in the last few decades. Let us examinine the years of publication among the English-language literature mentioned in the article:


 * Pro (Eskimo is used)
 * 1985
 * 1988


 * Contra (Eskimo is avoided in favor of Inuit)
 * 1985
 * 1998
 * 2000 (admitting “In Alaska, the parallel term Inupiaq is used, although there has been a much stronger tendency to hold on to the word Eskimo”, p. 317 of Canadian publication)

Burch&Froman and Hessel&Hessel wrote popular albums, but Kleivan&Sonne is an academic paper. Also the more recent is an academic paper, but I could not avail it yet, so I cannot say more about it than its title says.
 * Edith Turner (1990) - "The Whale Decides: Eskimos' and Ethnographer's Shared Consciousness on the Ice." Études/Inuit/Studies 14(1-2):39-54.

Caption of the image
Of course, it can be expected, that I should prefer terms “Inuit” and “Yupik” to “Eskimo”, but only in cases where we can know exactly this detail. But in many cases, we simply do knot know that. Let us see for example the caption of the image. Seeing the information provided on the Wikicommons place of the image, is an Alaskan shaman. But in Alaska, many groups exist which should not termed as Inuit (online ). If I do not know the details of the image (and that is the case), I have not the right to label it as an Inuit shaman.

Let us see a counterexample for contrast. In the case of Vision quest article, I did not mind that someone has renamed all “Eskimo” occurrences to “Inuit”. Because really, the majority of the examples cited in the article were really Inuit ones. But we cannot say the same in the case of Eskimo shamanism.

I think I must be as specific as possible — but no more as possible!
 * not too general
 * when we know more details, e.g. not saying e.g. “Arctic” shaman, when we know that he is an Eskimo one


 * nor to too specific
 * to the amount that the provided information may turn to be false, e.g. not to say “Inuit” shaman about an Alaskan one, if it may turn out later that he is a Yupik one.

Expression tricks like “Inuit or Yupik”
Saying “Inuit or Yupik” in all aoccurrences instead of Eskimo is
 * distracting,
 * msy hurt Wikipedia's covention use the most common name
 * and may hurt Wikipedia's precision too, because it is debated whether the Eskimo branch (of Eskimo-Aleut family) consists of only Yupiks and Inuits: the Sirenik language is sometimes proposed to form a third branch of the Eskimo (online , or for short the image of the genealogical tree). But I must admit Sirenik language has become extinct in 1997.

Have a very happy Easter,

Physis 20:25, 7 April 2007 (UTC)