The Life of the Copper Eskimos

Record summary

Diamond Jenness’s study of the Copper Eskimos includes accounts of shamans, souls, helping spirits, prohibitions and supernatural explanations associated with travel, hunting and marine environments. The lead matters because it preserves a pre-Christian or partly Christianized Arctic religious vocabulary that can be compared with later accounts of watchers or protective beings. Its evidential status is documentary rather than paranormal: the source records reported beliefs and practices through an outsider’s fieldwork. Researchers should distinguish Jenness’s observations from informants’ narratives and consult later Copper Inuit scholarship for corrections.