Tuunraq [DOON-ghak] is Spirit Helper in Yugtun
Storyknife, September/October 2025 edition
Calista Education & Culture (CEC) presents the Yup’ik Teaching Moment in our Storyknife newsletter. CEC is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization with the mission to serve the people of the Calista Region by preserving culture, empowering education and facilitating Yuuyaraq, our traditional Way of Being, to ensure a vibrant and sustainable future. This Yup’ik Teaching Moment is provided by Alice Cucuaq Rearden. Rearden is a transcriber and translator for Calista Education and Culture and helps produce publications. She grew up in Napakiak and now lives and works in Bethel as a teacher at Bethel Regional High School.
Tuunraq [DOON-ghak] was a spirit helper that aided shamans communicating with the spirit world. Shamans are called angalkut [uhng-UH’th-goot] in Yugtun.
Shamans had tuunrat [DOON-ghat], or spirit helpers, that they used to carry out healing ceremonies, to request abundance during hunting, gathering and fishing, or to ensure the wellness of the community.
According to the Elders, there were both good and bad angalkut. Good shamans healed injuries and sicknesses and helped people with mental anguish. They also doctored babies in the womb to help them stay alive after birth. Through masked dancing, they also performed rituals requesting an abundance of animals, fish and other resources such as wood and good weather.
Shamans had tuunrat, or spirit helpers, that they used to carry out healing ceremonies, to request abundance.
Shamans had people construct masks representing their tuunrat and perform dances. People paid shamans in goods to carry out ceremonies where they often used seal gut rain garments and drums. The shamans saw into the future and were asked to look in on people traveling to distant places to see if they were safe. Malicious shamans on the other hand were said to be jealous and meddle in people’s lives. They would go into their dreams and attack them or try to injure or kill them. They also went after their fellow shamans and tried to take their tuunrat away, often ending their lives.
There are many stories told by Elders that depict shamans doing amazing things beyond the capabilities of an ordinary person. They were told to travel to the moon, fly through the sky, drown in the water, cook in large wooden pots in boiling water, perform surgeries and heal life-threatening injuries.
When Christian missionaries arrived and began ministering, they created and adopted the term tuunrangayak for the Devil derived from the term tuunraq. As people started converting to Christianity, shamans were shunned by missionaries, and they began having a negative reputation among the people. Some of the early Moravian missionary converts were once shamans including Uyaquq, also known as Helper Neck, who created his own Yup’ik writing system when helping to translate the Bible.
Despite being depicted in a negative way in recent times, angalkut are still the subject of many fascinating stories. Shamans were once an essential and vital part of Yup’ik life.
Angalkut/Shamans in Yup’ik Oral Tradition
Angalkut/Shamans in Yup’ik Oral Tradition is a collection of stories from Yup’ik Elders from the Region. The book covers shamans and their healing abilities, the ceremonies and performances they carried out, and their abilities and how they got them. The book is a testament to a time when shamans were a vibrant and necessary part of life and an integral part of the community.
