SHI publishes book on Tlingit shamanism, exhibit set for April 2027

Sealaska Heritage Institute published a book documenting Tlingit shamanism, a practice persecuted by Russian and American settlers in the 1800s and never fully gone.

The book, The Íx̱t': Tlingit Shamanism, was written by Tlingit anthropologist and SHI President Rosita Worl, Ph.D. It is part of SHI's Box of Knowledge series covering Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian culture and is available through the Sealaska Heritage Store.

Before Western contact, the íx̱t' served as healers, battle strategists, and spiritual conduits for their clans. Russians and Americans who arrived in the 1800s viewed the practice as paganistic and persecuted shamans, hunting and torturing them to suppress it.

Worl documents a specific irony in that history. "In the minds of the Tlingit, it was ironic that witches who were viewed as practitioners of evil were protected by the American officials while shamans who were responsible for the general welfare of the Tlingit were persecuted," she writes.

The book also records an early prophecy. Sometime between 1841 and 1866, a geographer's account of a séance concluded with a shaman predicting the arrival of Western settlers and the diseases they would bring. Those diseases, combined with repression, drove the decline.

The practice did not disappear entirely. "The beliefs that all beings in the natural realm have spirits and interrelationships between humans and the spirit world continue to serve as the core themes of shamanism. These beliefs persist among traditional Tlingit today," Worl writes.

The Exhibit

SHI will open a shamanism exhibit in April 2027. University of Alaska Southeast Professor of Alaska Native Languages X̱'unei Lance Twitchell of the Tlingit Lukaax̱.ádi clan will serve as curator.

The exhibit required deliberation before it could move forward. SHI's Council of Traditional Scholars initially restricted shamanism exhibitions because of the spiritual weight of the subject. After reconsidering SHI's mission to promote cross-cultural understanding, the council adopted a resolution establishing protocols to protect traditional culture and the Indigenous peoples connected to it. The resolution also calls on museums to return shamanic objects to their clan owners. SHI's exhibit will follow those protocols.