Illness and Wellness in Yup'ik Oral Tradition

本项目探讨土著Yup 'ik人对疾病和健康的概念，这些概念与生物医学对疾病的理解有何不同，以及过去和现在传统治疗师的作用。在阿拉斯加部落组织卡利斯塔教育和文化长老委员会的指导下，PI小组将在阿拉斯加的伯特利举行两次Yup ' ik长老聚会。在这些聚会中收集的记录将与过去二十年中记录的叙述相结合，以记录对疾病、流行病、治疗和萨满实践的态度。这项工作对抗传统知识的迅速流失，促进Yup 'ik语言的使用，这是该地区土著研究的两项重点。这个以社区为基础的项目旨在汇编和整合描述Yup 'ik对疾病和健康的理解的民族历史和个人叙述。两个特定主题的聚会将聚集来自阿拉斯加西南部各地的Yup 'ik长老，他们保留着传统习俗和土著关于疾病病因和治疗的概念的知识。讨论将侧重于对流行病和治疗的理解的连续性和变化，特别关注今天的传统治疗师和过去的萨满治疗师（或angalkut）的作用。这些聚会的记录将与档案记录结合在一起，形成一本双语书，其中包括长者的记录和介绍阿拉斯加和北极地区Yup ' ik传统的背景。选定的基于地点的帐户将被录制为播客，并与在线Yup ' ik地图集相连接，以保存老年人的知识，并使学者和公众广泛地访问这些知识。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project explores Indigenous Yup’ik concepts of illness and wellness, how such concepts differ from biomedical understandings of disease, and the roles of traditional healers past and present. The PI team, guided by the Elders’ Committee of Calista Education and Culture, an Alaska tribal organization, will conduct two gatherings of Yup’ik elders in Bethel, Alaska. Accounts collected during these gatherings will be integrated with narratives recorded over the last two decades to document attitudes toward disease, epidemics, healing, and shamanic practice. The work counters rapid loss of traditional knowledge and promotes use of Yup’ik language, two Indigenous research priorities in the region. This community-based project seeks to compile and integrate ethnohistorical and personal narratives describing Yup’ik understanding of illness and wellness. Two topic-specific gatherings will assemble Yup’ik elders from across Southwest Alaska who retain knowledge of traditional practices and Indigenous concepts of disease causation and curing. Discussions will focus on continuity and change in understanding of epidemics and healing, with special attention to the roles of traditional healers today and of shamanic healers, or angalkut, in the past. Accounts from these gatherings will be integrated with archival transcripts to generate a bilingual volume that includes elders’ accounts and an introduction that contextualizes Yup’ik traditions within Alaska and the Arctic more generally. Selected place-based accounts will be recorded as podcasts and linked to the online Yup’ik Atlas, preserving elders’ knowledge and making it broadly accessible to scholars and the public.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.