Traditional Alaskan Native religion involves mediation between people and spirits, souls, and other immortal beings. Such beliefs and practices were once widespread among Inuit (including Iñupiat), Yupik, Aleut, and Northwest Coastal Indian cultures, but today are less common. They were already in decline among many groups when the first major ethnological research was done. For example, at the end of the 19th century, Sagdloq, the last medicine man among what were then called in English, "Polar Eskimos", died; he was believed to be able to travel to the sky and under the sea, and was also known for using ventriloquism and sleight-of-hand.
The term "Eskimo" has fallen out of favour in Canada and Greenland, where it is considered pejorative and "Inuit" is used instead. However, "Eskimo" is still considered acceptable among some Alaska Natives of Yupik and Inupiaq (Inuit) heritage and is at times preferred over "Inuit" as a collective reference.
The Inuit and Yupik languages constitute one branch within the Eskimo–Aleut language family and the Aleut language is another. (The Sirenik Eskimo language is sometimes seen as a third branch but sometimes as one of the Yupik languages.)
Angakkuq and other spiritual mediators
Most Alaskan Native cultures traditionally have some form of spiritual healer or ceremonial person who mediate between the spirits and humans of the community. The person fulfilling this role is believed to be able to command helping spirits, ask mythological beings (e.g., Nuliayuk among the Netsilik Inuit and Takanaluk-arnaluk in Aua's narration) to "release" the souls of animals, enable the success of the hunt, or heal sick people by bringing back their "stolen" souls.
Among the Inuit this person is known as an angakkuq. The alignalghi () of the Siberian Yupiks is translated as "shaman" in Russian and English literature. While the word "shaman" comes from the Tungusic language, it is sometimes used by anthropologists when describing Alaskan Native beliefs. However, most traditional people prefer to use the terminology found in their own, traditional Native languages.
Traditional spiritual beliefs among the Alaskan Native peoples exhibit some characteristic features not universal in cultures based in animism, such as soul dualism (a dualistic or pluralistic concept of the soul) in certain groups, and specific links between the living, the souls of hunted animals and dead people. The death of either a person or a game animal requires that certain activities, such as cutting and sewing, be avoided to prevent harming their souls. In Greenland, the transgression of this "death taboo" could turn the soul of the dead into a tupilaq, a restless ghost who scared game away. Animals were thought to flee hunters who violated taboos. Chugach spiritual healers may begin their work after an out-of-body experience, such as seeing oneself as a skeleton, exemplified in Aua's (Iglulik) narration and a Baker Lake artwork
Special language
In some Alaskan Native communities, the spiritual people have used a distinctly archaic version of the community's normal language interlaced with special metaphors and speech styles. For example, "the shadow is ripening" means the healer is returning from his spiritual journey during a "seance". Expert healers have been said to speak whole sentences differing from vernacular speech. The shamans among the Siberian Yupik peoples had a special language that used periphrastic substitutions for names of objects and phenomena; they used it for conversation with the ('spirits'). These spirits were believed to have a special language with certain substitutes for ordinary words ("the one with a drum": "shaman"; "that with tusks": "walrus"). The Ungazighmiit (a Siberian Yupik people) had a special allegoric usage of some expressions.
Observing the angakkuq Sorqaq's seance in a community at Qaanaaq, Peter Freuchen explains the motivation in that case: In this case, the special language was understood by the whole community, not restricted to the angakkuit or a few "experts".
In some groups such variants were used when speaking with spirits invoked by the angakkuq and with unsocialised babies who grew into the human society through a special ceremony performed by the mother. Some writers have treated both phenomena as a language for communication with "alien" beings (mothers sometimes used similar language in a socialization ritual, in which the newborn is regarded as a little "alien" — just like spirits or animal souls). The motif of a distinction between spirit and "real" human is present in a tale of the Ungazighmiit.
Another interesting example of the special language and its contribution to relexicalization: