The bringer of light: the raven in Inuit tradition (original) (raw)
Related papers
Spirituality and the Seamstress: Birds in Ipiutak and Western Thule Lifeways at Deering, Alaska
Arctic Anthropology, 2014
Zooarchaeological data from sites 49-KTZ-299 and 49-KTZ-300 at Deering, Alaska, and ethnographic and oral historical information from Inupiat, Yupiit, Inuit, and other northern Indigenous communities are brought together to examine Ipiutak and Western Thule reliance on birds. Cut-mark, elemental-representation, and aging data from bird bones suggest that Ipiutak and Western Thule living at Deering between ca. AD 700 and 1200 utilized birds not only as food, but also as raw materials for making needles and sewing garments. Bird-skin clothing manufacture is a gendered and spiritually charged activity for northern Indigenous peoples, and the antiquity of these associations is explored. Although circumpolar bird subsistence encompasses intertwining economic, sociocultural, spiritual, and symbolic components, the dynamism and multidimensionality of these practices have been underrecognized in academic discourse on subsistence.
Raven’s Work in Tlingit Ethno-geography
2019
Accounts of the supernatural being, Raven, are of singular cultural and historical importance within the oral tradition of Tlingit people, and indeed, among most Native societies of the Northwest Coast of North America. Raven is the foremost "trickster" and "transformer" in Tlingit oral tradition. Nearly universal in Native American cultures, transformer tales describe potent beings such as Raven or Coyote traveling across the land, shaping both the landscape and cultural conventions during a transitional and threshold period said to exist at the contact point between deep mythic time and the time of human history. Raven, through his activities, gives form to the present world: placing the sun, moon, and stars in the heavens, choreographing the flow of water and changes in the physical landscape, and providing key resources such as fresh water, fire, and food for life to prosper in the approaching time of humankind. Through these actions, Raven teaches key values and moral precepts that will apply in the time to come. Though endowed with supernatural powers and a quick wit, Raven is inherently flawed-a "trickster"-both hero and antihero, who can make mistakes, is full of mischief, and sometimes teaches by negative example as he moves across the land. The Tlingit recognize these Raven stories as tlaagú (eternal or epic stories of the long ago, or primordial period). As Frederica deLaguna observed, "These [stories are understood to be] true, but refer to a time so remote that one does not expect events to have the realistic qualities of the present, nor can one expect to understand clearly how or why things happened" (de Laguna 1972: 210). Elements remembered from distant time, such as geological change or the retreat of glaciers, are encoded within enduring Raven stories. As a trickster-transformer and world-maker, Raven is special in his capacity to both stimulate and respond to environmental change. Raven alternately struggles with or instigates profound disruptions in the natural order that are symptomatic of the geography in the North Pacific Rim, among the most dynamic and techtoncically active ISBN: 978-0-9973295-4-4 Raven's Work in Tlingit Ethno-geography 40 landscapes anywhere in the world. It is here that we find, most concentrated, "Raven's work. " Raven stories remain a cornerstone of Native identity and oral tradition along the whole of the Northwest Coast, recognized worldwide as being iconic of Northwest Coast cultures (Hymes 1990). Along the entire coast, these story cycles are recounted in Native stories, songs, regalia, carvings and other types of Native art made for ceremonial purposes, as well as for modern commercial purposes, even children's books and other mass media-all linked back to oral traditions and places associated with Raven's journeys on the southeast Alaska and northern British Columbia coasts. Contemporary Yakutat Tlingit leader, J.P. Buller, shares one example of Raven Lost in the Fog-a Raven cycle story that teaches the Tlingit values of working together, showing respect, and the dangers that come with an oversized ego. In this story, Raven insults his brother-in-law, who releases thick fog; Raven is lost and ultimately forced to retract his insults and engage his brotherand-law respectfully until the fog clears: "now they start talking to each other the right way. " Buller expands on the many levels of traditional knowledge that are suggested by that single episode, and the ways that the teachings of the Raven story cycle are still invoked by young Tlingit people today:
Uanga ("I"): Journey of Raven and the Revival of the Spirit of Whale
2016
'Uanga ("I"): Journey of Raven and the Revival of the Spirit of Whale' is a critical autobiographical essay. In this essay, I negotiate and reflect on my own coming to voice as a Danish-Inuit artist-researcher. It is a sustained meditation on how the (post-)colonial relations between Denmark and Greenland are entangled in my lived experiences as a mixedrace woman. The essay introduces the scholarly contentions (and possibilities) in decolonizing, mixed-race and Indigenous research by critically engaging with my personal conflicts and considerations. By writing 'the voiceless', I also engage the fragmentation and divisions that characterize the (post-)colonial world. It is my intent to build and create 'living memory', as a way of pressuring (neo)colonial narratives and pave way for new. It is told that Raven once saw a whale playing in the waves. He got very curious. So he flew into the mouth and hopped deep into the whale. In the dark, he heard a drum beat and soon he saw a beautiful woman dancing and singing by a fire. In love, he wished to be with her. The woman told him he was welcome at the age of fourteen. There, she studied for two years with about thirty other young Inuit. From here, the route was laid out for her: she was sent to Nuuk for two years of college and then to Denmark to complete a nursery school teacher's education. Likely, the Greenlandic ('post'-)colonial administration had expected ningiju would return to Greenland to become one of the young educated spearheads of a new westernized nation. This project 'failed'. Ningiju met my grandfather and stayed in Denmark. For many years, she was a housewife tending their home and four children, only returning to her childhood village in the summer vacations. With the intention of integrating her children fully into Danish society, ningiju did not speak Greenlandic to them. Yet, they did not avoid the bullying in school for being 'bastards', 'mongrels', 'fridge Indians' or 'krakemut Indians'. 3 After a few years out of school, my mother entered teacher's college in 1980 in another Danish citya year after Greenland's Home Rule was established 4. At this time, my ningiju had grown bitter with her and her children's experiences of racism towards Greenlanders in Denmark, and had developed a likening for beer. Meanwhile, the summer vacations in Greenland became fewer towards the end of the 1970sperhaps because my mother and her sister had experienced acts of anger towards them. The Greenlandic nationalist movement and an awakened Inuit political awareness brought a greater emphasis on ethnic distinctiveness (Dahl 1986; Graugaard 2008: 15-16). As a result, my mother and her siblings experienced that speaking Danish and being 'half-breed' in Greenland were looked down upon. In 1980, my mother visited my great-grandmother in Greenland for her eightieth birthday, and did not return to Greenland until decades later. My father moved away from his hometown at an early age, tired with the mentality of the 'petit bourgeoisie' and the Christian values imbued in western Jutland, Denmark. In 1980, he entered teacher's college, where he met my mother. Three years later, my brother was born and then came I. As I grew up, my father read many bedtime stories for me, but the only stories I remember are the Inuit stories my mother told me. These were stories about
Return of the 'White Raven': Postdiluvial reconnaissance motif A2234.1.1 reconsidered
Journal of American Folklore, 2006
The aim of this paper is to reveal patterns of areal spread of folklore motifs in Eurasia and to understand their rationale. The distribution of 615 motifs related to adventures and tricks according to 339 Old World traditions was statistically processed using factor analysis. Tendencies in the areal spread of motifs are interpreted as proxies for the intensity of information exchange between people. Two regularities in distribution of motifs deserve attention. Western Europe and the Mediterranean with adjacent Africa are contrasted with the Caucasus, Central Asia and Mongolia with adjacent Siberia. Finnish, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Byelorussian and Ukrainian traditions are strongly "European", the folklore of the Crimea Tatars and especially of the Bashkir is strongly "Asiatic", the folklore of the Gagauz, Volga Tatars, Mari, Udmurts and Komi moderately "Asiatic", the Russians, the Setu, the Karelians and the Mordvinians are slightly on the "European" side while the Chuvash are slightly on the "Asiatic" side. Other set of motifs contrasts Siberian, Eastern European and Baltic traditions with the Mediterranean -South Asian ones. The northern set of motifs seems to have origins as deep in time as the early Holocene. The southern one largely correlates with the spread of Islam but can have some roots in the early civilizations of Western Eurasia.
Qupirruit: Insects and Worms in Inuit Traditions
Arctic Anthropology, 2010
Although small heings such as the qupirruit (insects and worms) appear in many different contexts in Inuit culture, they have not received much attention from scholars. In this paper we examine the symbolism associated with these small animals. We show that their small size makes them suitable to operate on the level of the tarniq, a miniature image of a being. We discuss how insects often connect different scales and easily transform into other beings. We first deal with the perceptions of insects as they take shape in narratives and practices, and their roles in the manufacture and use of amulets. Then we move to a more specific analysis of the distinctive features of the various qupirruit.
Birds in ritual practice of eastern European forest hunter-gatherers
Foraging Assemblages Volume 2 Edited by Dušan Borić, Dragana Antonović, and Bojana Mihailović. Vol 2. Belgrade-New York, 2021
The paper focuses on small sculptural pendants representing different bird species of the Late Stone Age forest hunter-gatherers of the Russian Plain (c. 3500–2700 cal BC). They are supposed to have been frequently worn in everyday life, and their symbolic meaning might have been mostly connected mostly with totemism. A second type of finds, that of unmodified bird bones of large waterfowl wing parts were investigated at the Shagara burial ground (some 150 km away from Moscow). These bones originated from burials dated to c.2700–2000 cal BC, though sculpted pendants are also known from the same burial ground and the materials of neighboring settlements. The main point of the discussion here is the probable connection of both find types with the same worldview and ideological background.
Qupirruit : Insects and Worms in Inuit Traditions
Arctic Anthropology, 2010
Although small heings such as the qupirruit (insects and worms) appear in many different contexts in Inuit culture, they have not received much attention from scholars. In this paper we examine the symbolism associated with these small animals. We show that their small size makes them suitable to operate on the level of the tarniq, a miniature image of a being. We discuss how insects often connect different scales and easily transform into other beings. We first deal with the perceptions of insects as they take shape in narratives and practices, and their roles in the manufacture and use of amulets. Then we move to a more specific analysis of the distinctive features of the various qupirruit.