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Prophecy, Sorcery, and Reincarnation
new frame of mind, one less inhibited by the conceits and preoccu-
pations of a secular self and more open to embracing a world of reli-
gious pluralism and enchantment.
Conclusion
Following the insights of Johannes Fabian ( 2001 ), the best ethnogra-
phy is often done when the ethnographer is least self-conscious and
most free from internal controls. In this essay, I have tried to expose
the internal controls, conscious and unconscious, that made me un-
willing to take seriously spirituality and faith as expressed by my in-
formants. I analyzed and wrote about Inuit social experience as if
beliefs in reincarnation, extraordinary visions, and God were only
of secondary importance for understanding the people I was study-
ing. I assumed the world to be a disenchanted one, devoid of mys-
tical presence, and filled only with repressed desires, concealed mo-
tives, and historical conditions. I accepted the model of the secular
self, in which one’s identity and destiny is a matter of individual will
and sociocultural circumstances, not a product of divine or other su-
pernatural agents. My consciousness began to shift as I took on new
opportunities and new challenges, including marrying an anthropol-
ogist of religion, doing ethnography in Guinea-Bissau, West Africa,
and developing a greater appreciation for the power of sacraments
and faith in my life.
The various components of Inuit spirituality discussed in this es-
say, including prophecy and reincarnation, are just a small portion
of an enormous corpus of knowledge and thought about cosmol-
ogy and eschatology. I have given the reader a small glimpse of reli-
gious pluralism in the Arctic. Being open to varieties of faith and re-
ligious experience can both improve our ethnography and illuminate
the choices we have made in our lives and research, choices that open
doors to some avenues of thought and close the door on others. I am
not sure exactly where my faith life or interest in ethnographic re-
search will lead me, but I am confident that it will be neither boring
nor disappointing.
