| Summary: | This entry focuses on the Copper Inuit around the time of 1915, which is prior to extensive contact with outsiders. "The people of the Canadian Arctic most often referred to as Copper Inuit had no name for themselves as a total group, but rather referred only to local groups" (Damas, 1996). The Copper Inuit, at the time this entry focuses on, were nomadic and inhabited the coastal regions of the Coronation Gulf, ranging from Victoria Island in the north and the opposite shores in the south, to the Kent Peninsula in the east and Stapylton Bay in the west. The Copper Inuit did not have official political leadership; power was fluid among these nomadic people. Their religious beliefs centered around non-human and human spirits, as well as strongly held taboos related to the separation of land and sea. Shamans were mediators between the living and supernatural, and their powers were due to control over spirits. Shamans had limited secular influence. Because the religious beliefs were tied up with many aspects and functions of the society, this entry considers the religious group to be coterminous with the society at large.
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