This entry records that Inuit religious tradition, developed across the Arctic regions of what are today Canada, Greenland, Alaska and the Russian Far East, historically involved prayer, song and ritual addressed to a range of spiritual figures including Sedna, sometimes called the mistress of the sea and marine animals in Canadian Inuit tradition, along with other spirits associated with weather, animals and the land, mediated significantly through the practice of a shamanic specialist, the angakkuq, without reproducing specific ritual or prayer content here.
Inuit spiritual practice historically emphasized maintaining proper relationship and respect with animal spirits in particular, given the central importance of hunting to Inuit survival across a demanding Arctic environment, and specific taboos, ritual observances and forms of address connected to hunting and the treatment of animal remains formed an important part of that broader religious framework. Because this material varies across the considerable geographic span of Inuit communities and was transmitted through specific angakkuq and community elders rather than through unified textual tradition, and because contemporary Inuit communities themselves hold varying and actively evolving relationships to this historical practice, this entry limits itself to recording its general existence and character.