In
Inuit religion
Inuit religion is the shared spiritual beliefs and practices of the Inuit, an indigenous people from Alaska, northern Canada, parts of Siberia and Greenland. Their religion shares many similarities with some Alaska Native religions. Traditional I ...
, Pinga ("the one who is
p onhigh") is a goddess of the hunt and medicine.
She is heavily associated with the sky.
Caribou Inuit tradition
In
Caribou Inuit
Caribou Inuit ( iu, Kivallirmiut/ᑭᕙᓪᓕᕐᒥᐅᑦ), barren-ground caribou hunters, are Inuit who live west of Hudson Bay in Kivalliq Region, Nunavut, between 61° and 65° N and 90° and 102° W in Northern Canada. They were originally na ...
communities, Pinga had some authority over
caribou herds.
She became angry if people killed more caribou than they could eat, so Caribou communities were careful not to over-hunt.
Pinga is also a
psychopomp
Psychopomps (from the Greek word , , literally meaning the 'guide of souls') are supernatural creatures, spirits, entities, angels, demons or deities in many religions whose responsibility is to escort newly deceased souls from Earth to the afte ...
, receiving the souls of the newly deceased and preparing them for reincarnation. ''
Angakkuit'' (shamans) might see or communicate with Pinga or sometimes she'd send a spirit to speak with them.
Some Caribou Inuit viewed
Sila and Pinga as the same or similar while other communities differentiated between the two.
References
Animal goddesses
Death goddesses
Hunting goddesses
Inuit goddesses
Medicine goddesses
Psychopomps
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