Talk:Shamanism among Eskimo peoples/Bidirectional approach to organize the beauty of tension between diversity versus unity of cultures

Dear Yksin,

Thank You very much for Your work and Your answer.

The unity versus diversity of Eskimo cultures seems to me as a fragrant balance. A certain beauty is conveyed by the tension between unity versus diversity.

Case studies illustrating beauty of tension between diversity vs unity

Maybe some examples can be shown centered around the following case studies:

The meaning of the tupilak-concept

Such distant groups like Caribou Eskimos, Greenland Eskimos, Igluliks knew the concept of tupilak. But the details differed:

Iglulik

tupilak was an invisible ghost. Only the shaman could notice it. It was the soul of a dead, which became restless because the breach of some death taboo. It scared game away from the vicinity. Thus, the shaman had to help by scaring it away with a knife.

Caribou Eskimo

tupilak was also an invisible being. Like at Iglulik, also the shaman was the only one who could see it. It was a chimera-like creature, with human head and parts from different species of animals. It was dangerous, it might attack the settlement. Then, the shaman had to combat it and devour it with his/her helping spirits.

Greenland

tupilak was manifested in real, human-made object. It was made by people to the detriment of their enemies. It was a puppet-like thing, but was thought of have magical power onto the victim. It might be made e.g. of mixtured parts of dead animals, dead child.

The name-soul concept concept: reincarnation or only guardian?

E.g. at Caribou Eskimos (but similar things were much more widespread), the "own" soul, "personal" soul of the newborn child was so weak, that it needed a guradianship of a more experienced soul. A naming ritual associated the "name" of a recently dead relative to the child. This name-soul took the guardianship over the child. This lead to a gentle behavior towards the child: if the child spoke, he/she spoke with the wisdom of the dead relative.Pryde also adds that the associating the name of the dead to a child was a necessity, so that the ghost of the dead do not turn into a restless being. At Perry Island, at least a newborn dog had to bear the name of the dead! If they forgot complely about this, it could result later in heavy illness.

Now the main point comes: this notion of name-soul can amount to a reincarnation-like thought. The dead comes alive in the body of the soul at Caribou Eskimos. At other groups, it is only a guardianship. (But in both cases, the parents treat the child in a gentle way.)

Maybe is it a spectrum? I do not know.

The child in the air

Naarsuk is often thought to be associated to weather (storms). Beyond this generality, also he shows several local variations:

Copper Eskimo and Netsilik

He was a baby, his parents were giant. They had died in a battle between giants. In this battle also people were involved. Naarsuk felt avenge towards people, went to heavens. It is his loosened diaper that makes rain and wind. And the shaman has to tie it tight again.

Iglulik

He decided not by himself to plague people. It was Sea Woman and Moon Man who let him loose if they wanted to punish people for transgression of taboo.

East Greenland

Also here, people imagined spirits in the air and tried to scare them away by stabbing with knife in the snowy or stormy air. They also imagined the child in the air. The child was married to another mythological being, Asiq, who had stolen this baby intentionally to marry him. Asiaq lived in the heaven. She could make rain. If people wanted rain, the shaman travelled to Asiaq and asked her for rain.

The image of Indians

A beautiful example: of course, Greenland Eskimos never met Indians. Despite of this, they had a world in their languages which is related to the same world the American Eskimos use for Indians. Of cause, the "Indians" of Greenland Eskimos are more like mythological beings.

Structure of the article

As the above examples show, we have to present the reader the beauty of tension between both diversity and unity of Eskimo cultures. This double, dialectical task also affects the way we should structure the article.

Eskimo article is one direction: as Labongo intended, it concentrates itself for the presentation of the distinct groups. The article does not aim to "factor out" a unity of them.

The other direction would be to write a general article about common or at least widespread things, discussing the various aspects of cultural life. The disadvantage: it is harder to illustrate the diversity.

Factorization analogy

It seems to me like a factorisation problem (which can manifest itself in may guises):

school algebra

${\sqrt {4\cdot 3}}=2\cdot {\sqrt {3}}$

formal languages

$X\to aZ_{1}$

$X\to aZ_{2}$

grammar describes the same language as

$X\to aY$

$Y\to Z_{1}$

$Y\to Z_{2}$

I mean that

• we identify the common things
• and lift them out
• while the "specific things" remain "scattered"

Notion of crosscutting

Thus, there are two main alternative approaches (standing in a duality relation). Both of them suffer a cross-cutting concern (the difference between them is that the "direction" of crosscutting is the opposite). The combination of the two approaches (thus, a "bidrectional" treatment) can solve the probem of cross-cutting concern.

Core concern: locality, crosscutting concern: aspect of culture

If we structure our article according to local groups, then we have a list (or tree, if we organize them in the ToC herarchy according to the genalogical tree) of groups.In each group, we disscuss many things (local variation of soul dualism, whether the notion of name-soul entails reincarnation, or only a guardianship etc.).

Stub example (just for illustrating the structure, now not the contents is the main point, I admit it is not careful):

Caribou Eskimos

Environment: inland, rather uniquely at Eskimos. In the material culture, they built very complex and developed igloos. The reason for this may be the fact that they had neighter tree, driftwood nor oil of marine mammals for heating. As for spiritual life: Their soul dualism embraces adeq, tarneq… they believe that name-soul

Netsilik

Hard environment, fear of starvation. Excessive metaphysical measures against it: 80 amulets on a little boy, 17 names of a man. Sea Woman was believed to be an orphan mishandled by her community (not an unwilling-to-marry daughter of a father!), she releases marine animal from her pit if the shaman…

I express this approach like this: the article is organized according to the groups, and the various aspects of cultural life are scattered because they are repeated again (with some variation) for each local group.

For short, I shall use a terminology loaned from aspect-oriented programming:

• the core concern of the article is the locality (i.e., enumerating the local group, e.g. Ammassalik, Sirenik etc.),
• the cross-cutting concern is the aspect of the cultural life, i.e. its topical treatment (soul dualism, name-soul as reincarnation vs guardian, etc.).

I think such distinctions are present in all sciences, maybe not in this name.

Core concern: aspect, croscutting concern: locality

The structure presented above has an opposite (or dual) alternative. An article can be organized according to aspects of religious life, and then, in each aspect of religious life we mention, which groups think which way. Stub example:

Soul dualism

According to record taken at Ammassalik Eskimos, they believed that people have a soul of life (responsible fro body functions), another soul of dream (its departure causes dreaming), and many small souls residing in the joints of body whose departure causes pain. There is a name-soul inherited from the name of an ancestor, who guards the weak soul of the baby. After death, the name-soul loses the body and thus feels very cold. Thus the name-soul is happy if notices a name-giving ritual of a newborn baby: this means an invitation for intruding into the fine warm body of the newborn. Caribou and Copper Eskimos believe, that name-soul means the reincarnation of the dead in the body of the child. At most other Eskimos, name-soul is just a guardian.

Tupilak

In Greenland, a man-made magical puppet for detriment of others, made of different part of an animal or a dead child; among Caribou Eskimo, a dangerous invisible Chimera (mythology)-like being attacking the settlement, visible only for the shaman, the shaman had to devour it by his helping spirits; among Igluliks, a ghost of the dead, becoming restless because of the trasngression of deat taboo, also this being was visible only for the shaman , he had to combat it with a knife protected by a glove.

Solutions

I think the main point can be seen now. If we organize the article according to local groups, then the many aspects of religious life will crosscut the article. This is not a problem, but -- as #Certain unity of Eskimo cultures argues -- the many overlapping features can cause a certain slothfulness.

Maybe the opposite solution (which is widespread) is better -- we simply organize the article with sections discussing various aspects of shamanism, and take care of denominating the local group(s), from where the ethnographic record is observed.

Maybe the best is when we combine the two approaches.

Solutions

Locality-restricted	Aspect crosscut by locality	Locality (group) crosscut by aspect	Locality (tree) crosscute by apect	Many-many mixed combinations
Menovshchikov, Rubcova	Merkur, Kleivan&Sonne Gabus	Rasmussen

Locality-restricted is not ourcase now. In the followings, I shall omit it.

Maybe a scheme capable of finer distinctions (by analysing category "mixed" better):

	Aspect crosscut by locality	Locality crosscut by aspect
		group	tree
Merkur
Kleivan&Sonne
Rasmussen
Gabus
Ours	?	?	?

I suggest for ours the following alernatives:

Suggested alternatives for ours

	Aspect crosscut by locality	Locality crosscut by aspect
		group	tree
Merkur, Kleivan&Sonne, Gabus
A bidirectional solution + structuring groups by tree

with the latter preferred. As can bee seen, I think "Aspect crosscut by locality" must not lack. Beacuse of #Certain unity of Eskimo cultures makes many overlapping things.

Certain unity of Eskimo cultures

Closing section ("Farewell") of , p. 2 of , , .

Even if Rasmussen could not see all Eskimo groups, his travels seem to spread across the whole area from Greenland to Bering strait:

The route of Rasmussen's travel (I scanned it from the Hungarian publication of his Thulefahrt)

He wrote the following, (for me) astonishing statements, as closing his book with the following words:

In the last (XXIII.) section ("Farewell") of his book "Thulefahrt":

“ I am happy that it has been granted me to travel from settlement to settlement in times when the ancient soul was still alive. That is why we could see the wonder that on the wast area reaching from Greenland to the pacific Ocean, we did not meet only a people with unity in their language, but also a unity in the culture, which remains forecer the memento of human susceptibility, power and beuty ”

Made after Hungarian publication. Citing is surely not literal

Chapter XIII, "Talking to shamans":

“ The common language and natural environment joins all Eskimo peoples in such an intimateway, that the identity manifesting in their mythology and religious concepts permeates also their mythology. The memories of the past overlap astonishingly, may we listen to story-tellers of the Arctic landsacpes of either Greenland or Canada. These myths (provided that they are not about local events), elaborate the identical events of the common ancient past, and their structure reveals the same ability -- which ability grants these people the fame that they are magnificent observers. ”

I do not know, how far was the linguistical unity meant. For me, Sirenik language and Ungazik variant of Siberian Yupik seem rather different, although I found also welcome similarities in them.

Now, let us see the concrete details how Rasmussen might mean this cultural unity:

“ No utensil of the inland Eskimos reveals, that their ancestors have ever lived on the seashore.

It turned out also that not only many of their traditions is common with those of Greenland Eskimos, but also many of their myths, both in their form and contents. Out of the fifty-two myths I recorded at Padlermiuts by Hikoligjuaq, thirty is identical with myth heard in Greenland. And since thousands of years, there is no contact between the two tribes!

”

Section "the ancient Eskimos" (a subsection of "VIII. Among Caribou Eskimos"). Made after Hungarian publication. Citing is surely not literal

Maybe that's why I'd like to structure the article in a way that both diversities and unity can be treated in a natureal way, while showing the beauty in their tension. --Physis 21:25, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Diversity

“ Rhe sources from different localities at different ties provide anything but a homogenous picture of the Eskimos' notions of the universe ”

References

• Duncan Pryde: Most már te is eszkimó vagy! Gondolat (Világjárók), Budapest, 1976. Hungarian translation of the original: Nunaga. Ten years of Eskimo life. Mac Gibbon & Kee, London, 1972.

• Gabus, Jean (1970). A karibu eszkimók. Budapest: Gondolat Kiadó. Translation of the original: Vie et coutumes des Esquimaux Caribous. Libraire Payot Lausanne. 1944.

• Menovščikov, G. A. (Г. А. Меновщиков). Popular Conceptions, Religious Beliefs and Rites of the Asiatic Eskimoes. Translated into English and published in: Diószegi, Vilmos (1996) [1968]. Folk Beliefs and Shamanistic Traditions in Siberia. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

• Merkur, Daniel (1985). Becoming Half Hidden: Shamanism and Initiation among the Inuit. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. {{cite book}}: Text "series: Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis / Stockholm Studies in Comparative Religion" ignored (help)

• Rasmussen, Knud (1926). Thulefahrt. Frankfurt am Main: Frankurter Societăts-Druckerei.

• Rasmussen, Knud (1965). Thulei utazás. Világjárók (in Hungarian). transl. Detre Zsuzsa. Budapest: Gondolat. Hungarian translation of Rasmussen 1926.

• Rubcova, E. S. (1954). Materials on the Language and Folklore of the Eskimoes (Vol. I, Chaplino Dialect). Moscow • Leningrad: Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Original data: Рубцова, Е. С. (1954). Материалы по языку и фольклору эскимосов (чаплинский диалект). Москва • Ленинград: Академия Наук СССР.

• Vitebsky, Piers (2001). The Shaman: Voyages of the Soul - Trance, Ecstasy and Healing from Siberia to the Amazon. Duncan Baird. ISBN 1-903296-18-8.

• Vitebsky, Piers (1996). A sámán. Budapest: Magyar Könyvklub • Helikon Kiadó.. Translation of the original: The Shaman (Living Wisdom). Duncan Baird. 1995.