The Sea Woman arrived on my doorstep, its glossy cover a photo of a mermaid-esque Inuit stone sculpture swimming through a superimposed underwater photo. I was hooked: what would these two scholars have to say about the relationship between Inuit shamanism and contemporary art, in their discussion of Sedna and her underwater realm?
I read the book from cover to finish in one very long, captivated, sitting. Accompanying the text are many gorgeous, full-color reproductions of modern Inuit art depicting various aspects of the book’s theme. The book is so handsome in its presentation that it could be at first mistaken for a trade market coffee-table book, yet the text is thoroughly scholarly. The engaging prose is measured, precise, and detailed. The authors’ expertise in their field of study becomes readily apparent in both their nuanced understanding of traditional Inuit culture and cosmology, and their excellent selections from various (especially classic) ethnographic works.
This book’s genesis is described in the preface as an invitation the authors received to study a vast private collection of modern Inuit carvings representing sea people, most of them referred to as Sedna. As the authors are quick to point out, however, “straightforward identification of an image with a particular being such as Sedna is usually a hopeless task” (vii) since “the images interpreted as Sedna or sea goddess often depict other beings such as mermaids or helping spirits.” The authors state they were nonetheless “struck by the fact that the same lack of fixed boundaries marked the sea woman in Inuit shamanic traditions.”
The story of Sedna varies considerably from place to place and from teller to teller. In the shortest form, Sedna is a woman who did not marry, who was cast to the bottom of the sea, where she resides as the keeper of ocean game. If such game is scarce, it would be the shaman’s duty to try to journey to her realm and appease her. The idea of an underwater female keeper of the game is widespread in the Arctic, and is in harmony both with the idea of hunting as an inherently moral and spiritual act (and hence performed in coordination with various spirit entities), and with the Inuit’s reliance on game from the ocean. The Sedna story evokes transformations, transitions, and liminality (a woman who refuses to marry, a human who lives underwater, a keeper of death and giver of life, etc.), and was often linked with the breaking of taboos, particularly that of women who miscarried and did not follow the resulting extensive ritual requirements.
The authors include many aspects that touch on the Sedna tradition, from the core stories themselves to Sedna feasts, spirit helpers, and shamanic practices. The variations on the Sedna theme are complex, numerous, and rich in detail and meaning. Unsurprisingly, the character has been known by many different names; one Inuit elder interviewed by the authors made this point explicitly, stating, “She has been given different names. She has been called Sanna. In my dialect she is called Nuliajuk. Among the Iglulingmiut she is called Takannaaluk” (21). Given such lack of fixity and absence of any canon, the authors have a large task in attempting to portray Sedna in a singular sense while at the same time giving testament to the wide variations of related traditions, including work of contemporary artists.
Building on what they perceive as a shared lack of fixity in both the artistic and shamanistic traditions, the authors then attempt to connect artistry and shamanism in a surprisingly direct fashion, stating that, “today, the development of art as a special category allows Inuit artists to replace angakkuit (shamans) as specialists in representing the world of these nonhuman beings” (4), and conclude their entire work by stating that “the shift from a shamanic context to the context of carving and art illustrates the flexibility and dynamics of Inuit culture and allows for continuity of ancient notions in new contexts” (134). Although certainly Sedna and related traditions continue to be a common motif of Inuit art, I am not sure that the conclusion that modern artists replace the shamans as the storytellers of Sedna is fully justified by their work. First, the Sedna tradition was never an exclusive domain of the shaman to begin with, but rather widely known and shared among the community. Further, neither shamanism nor traditional storytelling are quite dead yet (as the authors themselves point out), and still do influence the overall tradition. Also, in the contemporary world, Sedna is encountered in many other forms besides sculpture, which are unfortunately not covered by the authors, yet do contribute to the ongoing traditions. And, lastly, none of their ethnographic or informant quotes seem to support this view.
Their binary model of shamanism and art manifests instead as a strange disconnect running through the book, between a review of traditional ethnographic accounts of Sedna and Inuit shamanism (supplemented by some more recent examples, including the authors’ own), and the world of contemporary Inuit art. Although there are some attempts to connect the two, these seem underdeveloped and unconvincing. For the most part, it is if one were reading about two separate topics in one book. This is not to say that I would not recommend this book: I emphatically would, both as an excellent overview of Sedna and related traditions in the central and eastern Arctic, and as an impressive display and discussion of Sedna and related characters in contemporary Inuit art. The only thing missing, in the end, is a satisfying investigation of the connection between the two.
--------
[Review length: 928 words • Review posted on September 22, 2009]