Goulet.pdf

Edmund Searles
In addition to tarniq and inuusia, there is another mystical pres-
ence, namely the inua, or owner of an object. Every object, animate
and inanimate, has an inua, a spirit-being that controls the destiny
of that object. A knife has an inua, a person has an inua, and so on.
A hunter is successful, it is thought, only when the animal’s inua is
complicit. In this way, hunting itself becomes a spiritual act, an act
of gift or grace on the part of the inua. Inua are sentient beings, and
they study the actions of hunters and their families; they can with-
hold their gifts from those who are selfish or disrespectful. According
to our host family, Kelli, Mary Ellen’s oldest brother-in-law, was ex-
periencing a streak of bad luck in hunting because he had grown self-
absorbed and lazy, unwilling to help his father or his younger brother.
The language and beliefs of the inua in the cycle of life and death, luck
and bad luck, are sensed within the language of the sacramental rites
of Holy Communion as practiced by Anglicans and Roman Catho-
lics. In the sacrament of the Eucharist, Jesus Christ’s inua, God, sac-
rifices his son to redeem a world of sinners, to make salvation a re-
ality for all. In much the same way that the inua of animals offer a
sacrifice to worthy and willing humans, so does Christ offer a sacri-
fice on behalf of willing and worthy followers, those who have been
baptized into the Christian faith.
This collection of spiritual entities, tarniq, inuusia, and inua, pro-
vide the Inuit with mystical ties to the past, present, and future, cre-
ating a living, breathing, embodied link to their ancestors. The Inuit
subject, reincarnated with name-souls and living in the shadow of
inua, provides a striking contrast to the figure of the modern self who
finds meaning not in reference to religion but to a world of individual
desires mediated by social conditions and cultural constructions. For
Levi Pisuktie, baptized into the Anglican Church several months after
his birth, and the recipient of several name-souls, including Jamasee,
the self lives in a much different register of meaning and agency. He
is intimately connected to other souls through his own soul, and he is
also a child of the living God, through faith and sacraments.
Ironically, because Levi is the reincarnation of deceased relatives, he
is treated as an elder in some contexts, as an individual whose tastes
and preferences are acknowledged, and when appropriate, indulged.