This stunning sculpture by Nancy Pukingrnak, Oonark’s youngest daughter, is as mysterious as it is compelling. Here is one possible explanation: a shamanic séance often involved the summoning of helping spirits by the angakok. One or more animal spirits would enter his/her body and transform it. This shaman might be using one of her several props to produce the effect of animal transformation, in this case teeth. Here is another: Jean Blodgett quotes from Knud Rasmussen’s Iglulik Eskimos in describing a shamanic disciple’s “lighting” or “enlightenment” as a 

“...mysterious light which the shaman suddenly feels in his body, inside his head, within the brain, an inexplicable searchlight, a luminous fire, which enables him to see in the dark, both literally and metaphorically speaking, for he can now, even with closed eyes, see through darkness and perceive things and coming events which are hidden from others...[1]

Pukingrnak’s Woman Shaman has eyes that are large yet apparently unseeing. But we are almost certain that she has “vision” beyond her surroundings. We are also curious regarding the hands at her shoulders. We’ve never seen a sculptural bust posed in this way. We wonder if they could be the guiding hands of this apprentice shaman’s teacher. Extraordinary.

1. Jean Blodgett, The Coming and Going of the Shaman, 1978, p. 36.

References: For fine sculptures by the artist see Winnipeg Art Gallery, The Zazelenchuk Collection of Eskimo Art, (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1978), cat. 31, p. 34; and Jean Blodgett, Grasp Tight the Old Ways: Selections from the Klamer Family Collection of Inuit Art, (Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 1983), cat. 22, pp. 60-61. A spectacular untitled drawing from 1978 by Pukingrnak, depicting a young couple on the land surrounded by Janus-faced “creatures,” is illustrated in Bernedette Driscoll, Inuit Myths, Legends, and Songs, (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1982), cat. 66, pp. 15 (colour) and 75. Some of these very human-looking creatures’ faces sprout fangs just like the ones on this sculpture.