Logistics

Spirituality 

Chukotka natives have a peculiar ideology and life perception. First of all they are in an absolute unity with nature. Here the man has never placed himself superior to nature, never tried to possess and control it, but only tried to live in it as its harmonious part. A symbolic image of a Chukot aboriginal: cold sea waves carry fragile fishing boats. Their boats furred with seal fur seem to look as harmonious as walruses that float beside them.

The system of religious beliefs of Chukotka natives is based on the understanding that the world is inhabited by numerous spirits. Every object in nature, whether alive or inanimate, possesses a certain life-force; this spirit can be either harmful or helpful. Chukchi have particular respect for such spirits as the masters of the forest, wild deer, all animals, and of the water.

Some of these people believe in three different life worlds: the medium world is the world of living people, the upper world is the world of people who died a natural death or who died willingly, and the lower world is the world of evil spirits and those who died from disease or illness. Some versions of this model may have up to five, seven, or even nine worlds.

Others believe in a different matrix of worlds: the upper world in inhabited by God and
angels-an influence from Christianity. The lower world, though inhabited by dead people, is not a place of suffering. There are enough reindeer and sea animals for everyone and nobody has to fish, as there are no poor people there.

The idea of one god is of no significant importance to the Chukot, though some do follow Christianity in the form of the Russian Orthodox religion. All Chukot do share the common belief of the soul's immortality and of reincarnation-the return of the soul to people in the form of a new life.

Despair, cynicism and melancholy are unusual for their Northern psychology. They are aware that it is useless to try to rule or control the Great Spirit - the Spirit of Northern lands. Maybe that is why, for thousands of years, they have been successfully coping with what not a single European civilization has yet managed to survive: dreadful frosts, eternal winter, the polar night, and the fragility and delicacy of Arctic life.

Source and image: courtesy of http://www.chukotka.org