Tlingit indian Cosmology
The Tlingit Indians, once spread widely on the northwestern coast of North America, now mainly live in southeastern Alaska. According to the Tlingit, all living things, including humans and animals, have souls. The souls are designated the “inhabitants” (qwani) of certain kinds of bodies. Bears are called xuts, and the souls of bears are called xuts qwani. Anthropologist Frederica de Laguna, in an article called “Tlingit ideas about the individual” (1954, p. 179), says, “The physical body of an animal at times seems to be a covering for the soul or spirit, with which, however, the latter remains closely associated after death, as long as the flesh is ‘fresh,” or even longer.” Even the souls of animals are said to have human forms. The animals display these souls to each other in the wild, away from humans. Sometimes, however, animals also appear to humans in humanlike form, but de Laguna says it is not clear, from the myths, if the animal body transforms into a human body or the humanlike animal soul emerges from the animal body. The souls of the animals respond to human actions, punishing humans for wantonly harming animals and rewarding them for acts of kindness. De Laguna (1954, p. 179) says, “No sharp distinction separates animal from human souls, though the former would appear to be the more powerful.”
Plants as well as animals have spirits. If the Tlingit cut a tree for building a house or boat, they have to offer respect to its spirit. Even things we normally regard as lifeless have spirits.Emmons (1991,p.288) says,“Natural phenomena and inanimate objects all possessed something which made itself felt or became visible under certain conditions. The wind, whirlpool, thunder and lightning, or a glacier, were controlled by spirits.”
Emmons (1991, p. 288) provides a more extensive account of how the Tlingit view the soul and its relationship to the human body: “As explained by an old native of the Hootz-ah-ta tribe, the Tlingit recognize three entities in man: (a) the material body; (b) the spirit, a vital central force through which the body functions during life and which, leaving the body, causes death; and (c) the soul, a spiritual element that has no mechanical connection with the body, and is eternal, dwelling in spirit land or returning from time to time to live in different bodies.” The Tlingit also recognize a person’s mind, thoughts, and feelings as a kind of inner self (Emmons 1991, p. 289). Altogether, this is strikingly similar to the distinctions made between body, mind, vital force, and soul in our template Vedic cosmology.
The Tlingit also recognize a “a personal guardian spirit, Ka kin-ah yage or Ka-hen-a yake, ‘up above spirit’” (Emmons 1991, p. 368). This guardian spirit guides and protects a person. Sometimes the Tlingit will pray, “Watch over me carefully, my Spirit Above.” The Spirit Above resembles the Supersoul of the Vedic cosmology. The Supersoul, or Paramatma, accompanies each soul in the material world, overseeing its activities and guiding it according to its own desires.
According to an individual’s mode of death, there are different kinds of afterlives. There is a heaven for people who die of old age or disease. There is another such heaven for those who die from violence. Those who go to these heavens become the northern lights. They are then called “the people above.” De Laguna (1954, p. 191) says of departed persons, “They may appear after their funeral to greet their friends, on other occasions they prophesy war or that a relative will die by violence.” People who drown or become lost in the forest remain on this earth. They wander around as land-otter people. The Tlingit believe in reincarnation, although de Laguna noted (1954, p. 191) that in addition to the reincarnated self “there apparently remains a ghostly counterpart to be fed at potlatches, a dangerous presence still associated with the remains of the corpse, or something that may still be embodied in the form of the landotter or in the northern lights.”
The reincarnated self is the soul. Emmons (1991, p. 368) says: “After death, the ‘soul’ or ‘shadow’ (now a ‘ghost’) travels to a land of the dead, the place depending on the manner of death, and it may later be reincarnated in a living person.” The Tlingit believe the soul in a human body can only return to another human body, usually in the same family or clan (Emmons 1991, p. 288). The return of a human soul to a human family group is recognized by announcing dreams and birthmarks. Citing a Tlingit informant, Emmons (1991, p. 288) says: “A . . . woman during pregnancy had dreams of her [maternal aunt], a woman of high caste who had many perforations in the rims of her ears—a sign of her social standing. The child, when born, had a number of scars and holes about the edges of the ears, which at once indicated that the spirit of the aunt had returned and entered the child.” Another informant told of how a famous warrior returned in the body of his grandson. This warrior had suffered a fatal gunshot wound, the bullet entering the left breast and exiting through the back. The man’s grandson had two large birthmarks in the same places as the entry and exit wounds (Emmons 1991, p. 288).
Kan (1989, p. 110), making use of a report initially recorded by de Laguna (1972, pp. 767–769), tells of a Tlingit man named Askadut who recalled a rebirth experience. In his past life, he had died. He recalled seeing his body during a wake held by his relatives in his house. He tried to reenter his body but could not do it. The body was then cremated, and he journeyed to the land of the dead. After some time, he left there. He followed a river until he found a suitable tree on its bank. He sat beneath this tree, leaning against its trunk for nine days, after which the bank caved in and he fell into the water. Kan (1989, p. 110) says, “The next thing he saw was his own sister holding him as her newborn infant.”
The principal deity of the Tlingits is Yehl, the creator of the world. Frances Knapp and Rheta Louise Childe (1896, p. 153), commenting on the attitude of the Tlingit to their chief deity, stated: “He was their popular hero, and represented their ideal of wisdom and cunning. It mattered not that he was lazy and a glutton, or that he gained all his victories by fraud and knavery. Nor did it in the least conflict with their sense of the proprieties, that he should be a notorious thief and liar. They delighted in his cool impudence, his mad-cap pranks, the practical jokes he was continually playing on other spirits, and the miraculous means he employed to escape from the snares of his enemies.”
Kanukh, the war god, was born before Yehl, and thus his descendants, the warriors of the Wolf family, consider him to be superior to Yehl. The god Chetl usually remains invisible, but reveals his birdlike form in storms. At such times, his eyes flash with lightning and his wings send forth sounds of thundering. His sister Ahgishanakhou rests beneath volcanos, supporting the earth on her shoulders, while waiting for her brother to finally come and relieve her of this duty. In addition to these main gods, the Tlingit also believed in three kinds of lesser gods called Yekh: gods of the air (Khikyekh), gods of land (Tahkiyekh), and gods of the sea (Tekhiyekh). Disguised as birds or beasts, they would come near human settlements (Knapp and Childe 1896, pp. 153–154).