American Indian Religions::

The Koyukon Athapaskans

The Koyukon Indians inhabit a huge expanse of wild country in northwestern interior Alaska, extending well to the north and south of the Arctic Circle. They belong to the Athapaskan linguistic family.

Unlike the Lakota Sioux, the Iroquois and the Ojibwa, for example, the Koyukon have no conception of a single, all-powerful creator or 'deity' - the Koyukon universe is bound together by a tightly-woven web of spirits that abide within animals, plants, humans, and other living things.

According to Koyukon oral history, at the beginning of time - called the Distant Time by the Koyukon - all beings were human: they had human forms, lived in human societies and spoke a human language. At some point during the Distant Time some humans died and were transformed into animal or plant beings, though to this day they have retained a residue of their original human qualities and personality traits. Even such ephemeral things as thunderstorms have their origins in human form - in this case human spirit.

As such, all living things have a shared consciousness that can be manipulated in various ways by those who know how. So a Koyukon shaman can turn away a thunderstorm because he understands how to communicate with it, or a hunter can lure an animal towards him for the same reason. Furthermore, animals can understand human language and motives. The Koyukon talk, for example, of a watchful world - a world that is always aware and conscious and watching a Koyukon's every move.

Despite this commonality of consciousness and origins, each living thing is bound by the moral and cultural code of the group to which it belongs. So animals, for example, have their own taboos to abide by. Moreover, each living form has its own 'soul' or spirit which defines it as unique - individualism is an important quality within Koyukon philosophy.

Within a Koyukon philosophical system, random chance or luck has no place. Scarcity of food or rain, for example, is probably caused by the Koyukon's disrespectful behaviour to an element of the natural world. Good luck and fortune is caused by proper moral conduct within the social and natural environment. There is a, usually spiritual, reason underlying all good fortune and bad luck and everything that happens is part of a grand, spiritual design. Spirits can be as much highly sensitive, vindictive and dangerous as benevolent and as such must be treated with respect and care. As such, life has its 'good' and 'evil' aspects.