SUGPIAQ SPIRITUALITY
It all begins with an idea.
"In the Sugpiaq Universe, Everything is Alive."
There was a time before contact when our ancestors walked the rocky shores of our homelands and believed that all things have a spirit. The mountains, the fish, the wind, and the rocks were alive, not hypothetical, but real conscious, intelligent beings.
They believed that a spirit dwells in all things, and the word for spirit is Sua which literally means "it's person." Our ancestors believed that to have a Sua was to have a person inside who could take on a human shape. It was thought that animal spirits could peer out from their bodies or remove their skins to show their human form.
The concept of an animal's human spirit can be seen in figures used during shaman rituals like the one below.
This figure is of a river otter, and inside the figure is hollowed out, and a man's face is affixed within two doors that can open or close. When closed, viewers saw only the river otter; if open, however, they saw the head of the human spirit of the otter. The river otter allowed the shaman to understand the speech of animals, birds, fish, plants, and other spirits.
Two spirits reigned supreme on earth: the person of the land, Nunam Sua, and the person of the sea, Imam Sua. In Birkkett Smiths' "Chugach Eskimo" and later "Chugach Legends," there are multiple accounts of our ancestor's interactions with both spirits. These spirits were thought to help with good luck in hunting and fishing.
Above the earth, it was believed that there were five sky worlds, and the number five is considered lucky in our culture. It's in these sky worlds that spirits dwell. The first sky world is a country with woods, mountains, and streams like the earth and contains the moon, stars, and northern lights. It's said that the stars were the eyes of spirits peering down through holes in the ground of the first sky world and that the Northern Lights are the souls of fallen warriors. It's the first sky world that we go to when we pass.
To our ancestors, one spirit reigned above all; Llam Sua, the creator, the spirit of the universe, the great mystic power that permeates the world.
Pre-contact, our people naturally understood the spirit of everything around them, an understanding that resulted in a deep respect and mutual relationship to all things. Post-contact and colonization, Russian Orthodox became the dominant religious practice of our people and remains a significant religion for our people today.
Llam Sua Pray for Us was created to explore the iconography and messaging of dominant religion while remembering our pre-contact beliefs and asking that the creator of our ancestors pray for us.
Much of the information above regarding our pre-colonial contact spiritual beliefs is from the sources cited below.
The Aluttiit/Sugpiat - A Catalog of the Collections of Kunstkamera by S.A. Korsun
Giinaquq- Like a Face- Sugpiaq Masks of the Kodiak Archipelago by Sven Haakanson Jr and Amy Steffian
The Chugach Eskimo by Kaj Birket Smith
Alutiiq Museum Online.