« Au-delà d’un simple divertissement » : les effets symboliques de la pratique des jeux de ficelle chez les Inuit

Abstract

Anthropologists and ethnographers who observed the making of string figures in various indigenous societies at the turn of the 20th century often described this practice as highly elaborate. String figure-making as performed in “Eskimo” (Inuit) societies was more particularly analyzed as a prime example of the “magical” or “religious” significance that could be attributed to such a practice in non-western contexts. Building both on the study of classical ethnography relating to different groups of the “Inuit area,” and on fieldwork carried out in Inuit communities of the eastern Canadian Arctic in the 2000s-2010s, this paper examines the forms of the ritual or symbolic efficacy ascribed to string figure-making in pre-Christian Inuit societies. Several modes of action involved in this practice are thus considered here in view of the idea of impacts on the cosmic order or meteorological system, and on the human relationships with game animals and with ancestors. They are further put in perspective with Inuit references to shamanic action.

Keywords

• shamanism
• symbolic efficacy
• string figures
• Inuit
• performativity