book chapter
The Chipewyan medicine fight in cultural and ecological perspective
Culture and the anthropological tradition : essays in honor of Robert F. Spencer • Lanham, Md. • Published In 1990 • Pages: 153-175
By: Smith, David Merrill.
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
In this paper, Smith discusses Chipewyan sorcery, or 'medicine fights' --the term he prefers--in context of a general Chipewyan understanding of power. The Chipewyans see all beings as repositories of power including animals. In fact animals are more powerful than humans, because they can survive without culture. The Chipewyan word for power is 'INKONZE,' meaning 'to know a little something.' Success is understood in terms of one's knowledge/power. Bad luck, i.e., the loss of power, is attributed to either a violation of a taboo or a jealous adversary. Smith recounts three stories of medicine fights in which envy is the prime motive between either a chief and his brother-in-law, or older and younger men. (Two other tales involve a bully and the misuse of INKONZE to kill animals.) According to Smith, the Chipewyan quest for power is a quest for control over the environment. Any social relation that undermines confidence in this quest is contested, even if the result is self-destructive.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Verbal arts
- Ethics
- Sorcery
- Sacred objects and places
- Revelation and divination
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Chipewyans
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2000
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- North America
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Arctic and Subarctic
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- book chapter
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Ethnologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 4: Excellent Secondary Data
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- Ian Skoggard ; 1999
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- 1968-1972
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- not specified
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- Great Slave Lake region, Northwest Territories, Canada
- NotesAdditional notes
- David M. Smith
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 172-175)
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 90033411
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Chipewyan Indians