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Ice and Spirit
The enormous Arctic
region is surprisingly homogeneous. Tundra and reindeer are characteristic
features, the inhabitants are herders or hunters; both follow the animals and
thus live a nomadic existence. The reindeer provides them with everything they
need. The spiritual element also has many common aspects in the Arctic, for
example Animism and Shamanism. All living creatures, but also many landmarks
such as mountains and bays, have a soul. Only the Shaman understands the
language of non-humans and only he can undertake journeys to the other worlds
where he seeks the advice of the spirits. But the similarities should not
conceal the numerous differences, such as language, ethnic origin or economic
way of life. The Arctic is only sparsely populated: 100,000 Eskimo, 80,000 Lapps
and about 400,000 members of Siberian peoples. Today they all live in
settlements with post offices, telephones, schools and hospitals. The village
serves as a logistical base for those families still living as hunters or
livestock breeders. In the past ten to twenty years, the Arctic peoples have
been trying to reshape their identity. For linguistic reasons, however, there
has been little acceptance for new names, such as the word Inuit („the
people") as a synonym for Eskimo. Inuit is what Eastern Eskimos call
themselves, but people in the Western Arctic use different names: Inuvialuit,
Inupiaq, Yup'iki, Aleut, Chugach and Yuk. The Lapps have also changed their name
and now call themselves Saami. At first sight, some of the objects on display
here do not appear to have any link with the spiritual life of the Arctic
peoples. In traditional hunter and herder cultures, however, the spiritual world
was present in all aspects of life: a machine or a weapon may be technically
perfect but optimum efficiency cannot be achieved until the spirits make a
favourable contribution. Jean-Loup Rousselot
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