The Bladder Festival (Bladder Feast)
Culture: Yup’ik Eskimo Shamanism
Associated: Renewal
Celebrated: The Winter ceremonial season
an important annual seal hunting harvest renewal ceremony
and celebration held each year to honor and appease the souls of seals taken in
the hunt during the past season.
This occurred at the winter solstice by the Yup'ik of
western and southwestern Alaska.
In the Yup'ik Eskimo shamanism, while the hunter kills the
body of the animal, he does not kill the yua (spirit or soul), which resides in
the animal's bladder (nakacuk in Yup'ik).
The animal ultimately will be reincarnated in a new body.
The collected inflated bladders of sea mammals taken by hunters during the
previous year are honored.
The celebration of the Bladder Festival marked the opening
of the winter ceremonial season. At the time of the winter solstice, when the
sun "sat down" on the horizon, families inflated the bladders of
seals killed that year and brought them into the qasgiq sacred house. The
bladder festival is said to increase sexual activity and thus women or
prohibited from entering the sacred house. After several days the bladders are
returned to the sea.
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