IMELDA ALMQVIST ART: JOURNEYS TO OTHER WORLDS, INNER WORLDS AND AROUND THE WORLD IN PAINTINGS
Ilimanaq, Greenland, Kalaallit Nunaat, Disko Bay, Icebergs, Moon Man, Wind Indweller, Seakeeper, Sedna, Neqivik, Inuit, Eskimos, Tuniiit: Ancient Ones, Ancestors, The First Humans, Visible World, Invisible World, Shaman, Angakok, Interpreter of the Unseen, Mermother, The Sacred Trust, Taimaigiakamaan, The Great Necessity, Spirit Soul, Inuktituut, Caribou, Animal Spirits, Christianity, Bible, Eve & The Serpent & The Animal Spirits, Iuit Tree of Life, Permafrost, Sled Dogs, Storytelling, Talking to Spirits, Sundog, Shaman's Hand Drum, Drum Birth Mark, Arctic Missionaries, Ilulissat, Kangerlussuaq, Life & Death, Perleroneq: Arctic Hysteria, Kivitoq, Arctic Hermit, Ice Cap, Land of the Dead, Moon Being, Aurora Boealis: Northern Lights, Stillborn Children, Transforming, Beach Spirits, Living Stone, Masks, Kinaroq, Inua, Seeing, Seer, Kiviuk, Fleetfooted Dog of Many Colours, Shaman's Helper, Antlers, Qeqertarsuk, Greenlanders, Shapeshifting, Point Hope Masks, Kiviuk, Arctic region, Spirit Soul, , Inuit Mythology, Inuit Art
Imelda Almqvist in an Inuit village called Ilimanaq in Greenland. In the background you can see the icebergs floating in Disko Bay. Being here was a dream come true! (August 2008)
MOON MAN AND WIND-INDWELLER (D 30cm) £95
INUIT SERIES
SEA KEEPER, or SEDNA I (80 x 100 cm) £495
In the Arctic region temperatures fluctuate between -60 and 30 degrees Celsius. The Inuit, formerly known as the Eskimos, have inhabited this vast area and survived for over 4000 years. They believe that the Tuuniit, or Ancient Ones (the first humans), prepared the land for future generations.
SEA KEEPER or SEDNA II (80 x 100 cm) £425
Inuit art and mythology reflects a precarious life lived close to the ocean, in a complex relationship with the souls of the animals they must hunt to nourish themselves. For them the Visible World around them depends on the Invisible World. They need to appease the spirits and treat the animals they kill with ceremony and respect. The Shamans (or Angakoks) are important interpreters of the Unseen for the tribe. They often need to embark on journeys and overcome certain barriers along the way. They have to atone for the tribe's trangressions and make peace with the Sea Keeper, to restore peace and balance in the Everyday or Visible World.
MERMOTHER or Sea Keeper III (80 x 100 cm) £525
SEA KEEPER or SEDNA IV (80x 100 cm) £450
UNTANGLING or SEA KEEPER V (80 x 100 cm) £395
The Inuit were obliged to obey many rules and taboos to keep the Sea Keeper happy. If these taboos were broken, Sedna responded by whipping up fierce storms and witholding food, which meant starvation for the community. One of the chief tasks of a Shaman was to appease the Sea Keeper and intercede with her in times of crisis. A Shaman could travel to the bottom of the sea and comb and braid Sedna's tangled hair to curry her favour
The Inuit possess a quality that has become alien to us: unganaqtuqnuna, 'a deep and total attachment to the land'. No Inuit hunter would ever kill disrespectfully, for fun or for no good reason. They have a word for this: taimaigiakaman, 'the Great Necessity' (to kill living things). Another English expression for this concept is 'The Sacred Trust'.
THE SACRED TRUST -
TAIMAIGIAKAMAAN (THE GREAT NECESSITY)
SOLD
For a detailed explanation of this painting, please visit the SHAMANISM PAGE, section I
They have complex rituals to ensure that they do not offend the animal they killed and they make sure its Spirit Soul can find its way home. If they kill a polar bear, for instance, they cut off the head, make it face inland to make sure it knows how to get home (to the Spirit World) and as a courtesy they drop fresh water in its mouth. (See the Siberian Series on the send-off a whale is given once killed!)
POLAR BEARS WELCOMING THE FIRST SNOW! (SOLD)
Here the Inuit Series touches the Language and Mark Making Series. As mentioned there: language does not only provide a means of communication. It provides a way of thinking, a way of seeing and interpreting the world. Please see THE ART OF LANGUAGE PAGE too.
INUKTITUT - the language of the Inuit (size?) £125
An important thing to bear in mind is that the Inuit language evolved around very different concepts from the ways of thinking we are used to. For instance, in the Arctic the Summer is divided into two seasons:
Siangiyaut 'when young ducks preen'
Saggat 'when caribou have short hair'
CARIBOU RIDE (30 x 30 cm) £110
The word for Spring is immaturpuq, 'when the earth receives its first water'.
Their language has words for things that take our language a whole sentence to describe. E.g. tautoquuq, 'the occurrence of light on the winter landscape'. Their language is as entwined with the landscape they inhabit and they animals they depend on to survive as is their way of life.
SHAMAN COMMUNICATING
WITH ANIMAL SPIRITS (SOLD)
Companion painting to Angakok (Shaman) Mother
The word used by shamans in seances are different from secular words. The shamanic word for 'sea' is aquitsoq, the soft one. The word silaniqtalerarput means 'working to obtain great wisdom'. Qarrtsiluni is a word that refers to the act of creation, the creative mind at work, literally: 'something waiting to burst'. In the secret language shamans once used, the word for 'shadow' meant 'man' and the word 'to ripen' meant to arrive. Stories are regarded as living things. In one Inuit dialect, the word for 'winter' also means 'a year'.
ANGAKOK (SHAMAN) MOTHER (SOLD)
Companion painting to Shaman Communicating with Animal Spirits
WORLDS WITHIN WOMAN (80 x 100 cm) £475
Another shaman sister joined the clan in 2010!
In Summer there are two months when the sun doesn't set (again, see the Siberian Series!) and in November the sun dips behind the horizon and stays there until January.
INUIT TREE OF LIFE (80 X 100 cm) £585
This painting was inspired by seeing prints made by contemporary Inuit women artists who incorporate images from christianity and the bible in their artwork. I was very much struck by the fact that they were willing to take on Christian concepts, while Christianity has not returned the favour and always rejected shamanism downright. Not only that, great efforts have been made by missionaries to wipe out indigenous teachings and pathways of thinking all over the planet. I rather like the notion of 'Eve and the Serpent and the Animal Spirits'.
I was also struck by the fact that the concept of a 'Tree of Life' seems to exist even in places on earth (such as the arctic) where no trees are found... (See the SACRED TREES SERIES for more about The Tree of Life and other trees) This particular 'tree' consists of polar animals.
INUIT SEAL TREE OF LIFE
And here is another Inuit Tree Of Life...
INUIT BOY IN ILIMANAQ, GREENLAND
Photograph by Imelda Almqvist, August 2008
This boy is sitting on the porch of his house. The house is on stilts because of the permafrost (i.e. extremely boggy ground). This Inuit family have nine sled dogs and their dogs (and puppies) live under the house! (see below)
"MOTHER SUN, FATHER MOON, DOLPHIN BROTHER"
PAINTING OF A CHILD SHAMAN - SOLD
SLED DOGS IN ILIMANAQ
These three puppies belong to the family of the boy in the photograph shown above
(21st Century) Greenlanders say that only the qanualliet (white people) are afraid of the dark. The Inuit like nothing better than long winter days of story-telling and talking to spirits!
SPIRIT WORLD FIGURES (30 x 30 cm) £110
(And nowadays, in the 21st century, there is television, for good and for bad...)
SHAMAN AND SUNDOG (80 x 100 cm) £450
A 'sundog' is a rainbow-like ring around the sun. Some Inuit say that it represents the hand drum used by a shaman to invoke spirits and other worlds. A child born with a birth mark resembling a drum is destined to be a shaman. It's an omen. Before being converted to Christianity by Arctic missionaries, East Greenlanders believed that a human being had many small souls the size of a thumb, that resided in every limb and joint, shaped like miniature people!
SUNDOG II
Flying from Ilulissat to Kangerlussuaq in Greenland - August 2008 -, I saw a 'sundog' projected onto the clouds below us. It framed the shadow of the airplane we were on, so our plane was flying 'inside a sundog' as it were... I have no explanation for this phenomenon but I feel this photogpraph just has to accompany the Sundog painting!
Life in the Arctic is harsh and difficult. Death is an everyday occurrence as animals must be killed for the Inuit to stay alive. Therefore their attitude to life and death is totally different from ours. They accept that life is risky and precarious, death does not come as an insult or surprise, the way we view death. Similarly Greenlanders have always known that the psyche is a difficult place ot negotiate, like ice. They practise tolerance to those in distress. And then there is perleroneq, Arctic Hysteria. It could affect dogs as well as human beings when, during the dark period, someone just 'lost it', to use an expression from our culture, and went crazy, berserk (to use a word from the Icelandic sagas!).
JUST OUTSIDE ILULISSAT,
Where the sled dogs live in summertime
KIVITOQ or ARCTIC HERMIT (80 x 100 cm) £395
Someone who abandons his family to live alone on the edge of the ice-cap. (The Inuit are used to doing things in a group. They see solitude as a sign of unhappiness!)
One of the remotest Inuit Tribes believed that when people died, the moon carried them up to the Land of the Dead, where the windows of their houses showed as stars. Aningat or Targeq was a Moon Being who lived with his sister in a double house up in the Land of the Dead. He regulated fertility, presided over the tides and currents of the sea and brought boys good luck.
ADLERPARMIUT (80 x 100 cm) £395
(The Land of the Dead)
When it comes to relationships, an Inuit-style marriage involves no ceremony and no rings Just an unspoken vow to live 'so as not to injure each other's minds'.
AURORA BOREALIS (80 x 100 cm) £625
Greenlanders used to believe that the aurora borealis represented the souls of stillborn children kicking their umbilical cords
The Inuit believed that people lived on after death. Shamans knew this and ordinary people believed it too, because dead people appeared to them often. The Afterlife had three domains:
Anerlartarfik, 'the place one can always return to', a happy place far up in space. Clever hunters went there as well as women who had allowed themselves to be tattooed so they would be beautiful. It is a beautiful place with berries growing and huge herds of caribou grazing
Nugumiut, 'those who always sit huddled up with hanging heads' (a place for lazy hunters and slothful women. They are always hungry because their only food is butterflies!)
Aglermiut, a place deep in the bowels of the earth, where the seasons are reversed and where famous hunters and shamans reside. A happy place where the seasons are reversed. The residents can transform into sea-gulls and fly!
TRANSFORMING (Aglermiut) £145
The following paintings show more Inuit concepts:
INNERSUIT or BEACH SPIRITS (80 x 100cm) £395
These creatures were shaman's helpers. They looked like humans but had no nose and grew out of lumps of sand. Some were tiny and some were huge. They could transform themselves into giants and cover immense distances in a few strides.
LIVING STONE (80 x 100 cm) £485
One Inuit Spirit was a living stone that loved to frighten people!
TAKING WING, TALKING WING (80 x 100 cm) £450
Shamans communicated with the spirits of animals. On their travels in the spirit realm they often had an animal guide or they might take on the disguise or characteristics of an animal themselves.
KINAROQ or Wolf Mask (80 x 100 cm) £485
The Inuit at point Hope used masks in their ceremonies called Kinaroq. The masks were only made after the shaman had journeyed to the Land of the Spirits and returned with fresh impressions of their faces. He would then begin to carve.
Each Inuit mask had its own life. It came with its own songs, sung by the wearer in the dance house. The wolf mask had a sea horse in its mouth. (Many people have asked me why, I have no idea!)
The songs they sang while making and wearing the masks came directly from the mask's Inua (spirit) and so, while they sang the wolf song, the sea horse's song or the polar bear's song, they gave expression to things that came directly from that animal's heart.
Seeing was the ultimate act of the shamans or angakoks (Inuit word for shaman). Some wore masks and others hid their faces behind seal-skins. The idea was to banish the obstructions of ego, greed and self-importance (see also the SHAMANISM PAGE for more about this)
People live on after death. The dead become fully alive again in dreams. Sleep and dreams are the allies of the spirits. When someone sleeps, their soul is turned upside down and they hang on to their body by the big toe! Life is tenuous and can slip away any time.
SHEGULLS (80 x 100 cm) £485
There is an Inuit legend of a village whose women were magically transformed into seagulls while their husbands were away hunting
CHILDREN WELCOMING THE FIRST SNOW! (SOLD)
This painting now lives with a family in Helsinki where three children welcome the first snow every winter, looking exactly like this in their parkas!
BOARING! (30 x 30 cm) £110
KIVIUK (80 x 100 cm) £595
The legend cycle about Kiviuk has been compared to Homer's Odyssey as it involves an immortal hero's exploits during a long journey through strange and faraway lands. The story mirrors the traditional Inuit belief in the constant intersection of the human and animal worlds. Kiviuk is an outcast who is carried off to a distant land by a storm. He encounters a murderous mother-in-law, a Spider Woman, a Bee Woman, giant caterpillars, a female cannibal and many others. He marries a fox who transforms into a beautiful woman and has a great many adventures. Eventually he returns home and is reunited with his original family.
I also wholeheartedly recommend the books 'This Cold Heaven' and 'Inuksuit' (details below). I enjoyed these so much, I can't wait to re-read them!
A FLEETFOOTED DOG OF MANY COLOURS
( A SHAMAN'S HELPER) (size?) £299
ANTLERS IN QEQERTARSUK ON DISKO ISLAND
FISH DRYING IN ILIMANAQ, GREENLAND August 2008
Imelda Almqvist, April 2006 (Last Updated August 2010)
Postscript Added June 2008
Our family has just returned from Vancouver Island. To see a lot of First Nations art was mindboggling. I particularly recommend The Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver! Now see how all these experiences will come out in paintings!
Our boys listening to a Native Cowichan (Quw'utsun') Storyteller on Vancouver Island in June 2008 He took them on a tour of totempoles and told them the stories behind the figures on the totempoles. He said he heard these traditional Cowichan stories from his own grandmother when he was a child!
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