Greenlanders in Nuuk are increasingly embracing pre-Christian Inuit traditions, including drum dancing and Inuit tattoos, as a way to reconnect with ancestors and reclaim their ancestral roots, according to Associated Press reporting. For many practitioners, the revival is also tied to rejecting a history in which European Christian missionaries colonized Greenland and suppressed Inuit traditions by labeling them “pagan.”
One example is Aviaja Rakel Sanimuinaq, who says she is proud to be part of a movement reclaiming Inuit traditions and spirituality. Sanimuinaq, an “angakkoq” shaman with Inuit facial tattoos, works with spiritual healing practices meant to help people connect with their ancestors and heal generational trauma. A sign outside her studio in Nuuk reads “Ancient knowledge in a modern world.”
In her studio, Sanimuinaq speaks in terms of multiple faiths while describing her own work in Inuit spiritual language. She said, “The sacredness of Christianity is still sacred in my eyes. But so is Buddhism, so is Hinduism, and so is my work,” adding that her practice supports “the other world,” which she described as “silam aappaa.” She also said, “That’s where I stand – that the arising of our culture, and us as a people, is also to get the equality within our culture, to acknowledge that our culture is legit; that it has to have a space here.”
Sanimuinaq’s approach reflects how the traditions she represents have been bound up with Inuit beliefs about the natural world for generations. The AP article cites authors Gill and Alistair Campbell, saying Inuit believe “every animal and bird, every stone and every piece of earth, the rain and the snow all have a spirit and a right to be respected,” as written in their travel book “Greenland.” The story also says Greenland’s Inuit traditional religion is animist.
About 90% of Greenland’s roughly 57,000 people identify as Inuit, the AP report says. It adds that most Inuit Greenlanders belong to the Lutheran Church, tracing that Christian branch’s arrival to Danish missionary work more than 300 years ago. Against that backdrop, the revival of Inuit traditions—spiritual practices and cultural customs like tattoos and drum performance—becomes not only a faith matter for some, but also a statement about cultural space and legitimacy.
Asta Mønsted, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, described how missionaries targeted elements of Inuit spiritual and social life. She said, “Drum songs and drum duels were central to Inuit spiritual and social life, but the missionaries viewed them as pagan practices and superstitions that needed to be replaced with Christian hymns and prayers.” Mønsted said drums were confiscated or destroyed in an effort to break connections to pre-Christian beliefs, while she noted that in some parts of Greenland, drum songs and knowledge of drum-making were preserved without the church’s knowledge.
Mønsted also tied the missionary suppression to Inuit practices around tattoos. She said tattoos were linked to Inuit cosmology and rites, but missionaries labeled them as pagan and especially viewed facial tattoos as a defilement of God’s creation. She said missionaries promoted “the European ideal, where the human body should remain unmarked.”
The AP story explains that “Tunniit,” the traditional Inuit tattoos, were etched by poking sod from soapstone lamps onto the skin with a needle or by dragging a sod-covered sinew thread underneath the skin. Mønsted said women generally received tattoos during menstruation and childbirth, seeing them as protection against illness and malevolent spirits. She also said resistance to tattoos deterred many Greenlanders over generations; some concealed facial tattoos to avoid repercussions.
Therecie Sanimuinaq Pedersen described how that concealment shaped her life. She recalled that her grandmother covered her facial tattoos in soot because she did not want to be alienated from her community, and that Therecie later received the tattoos that now cover her face after her daughter Aviaja got them in recent years. Therecie said in Greenlandic, translated by her daughter, “The tattoos I have goes from mother to daughter for thousands of years,” and “I have the same as my grandmother — that’s my heritage.”
In the present, Pedersen said she feels encouraged when she encounters tattoos in public, especially among young people. She said, “When I see them, it’s like we have a connection,” adding that people greet, hug, and say thank you.
The AP article also describes how Inuit drums historically carried roles beyond religious ceremony. It says the “qilaat” served three main functions—entertainment and socializing, as a tool for the shaman during seances, and as part of a pre-colonial juridical system. Mønsted said that in drum duels, opponents used songs, insults, and exaggerated body movements to argue before the community, which stood in a circle around them, and that the crowd’s collective laughter often determined winners without a formal ruling.
While some duels helped ease tensions, Mønsted said others ended in public humiliation that could force the losing party to leave the community and become a “qivittoq,” described in the article as a person living in nature outside of society. It says such exile could amount to something close to a death sentence in the frigid Arctic environment.
The article places this revival of traditions within Greenland’s political context as well. It describes Greenland as a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark and says Greenlanders increasingly favor full independence, a crucial issue in a recent parliamentary election. Some residents believe the independence movement gained momentum after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to take over Greenland, the AP report says.
Against that setting, the suppression of Inuit drums and facial tattoos is described as part of broader efforts to Christianize and assimilate Inuit people. The AP story says Greenlanders increasingly speak more openly about abuses by their former colonial ruler Denmark, including allegations that children were removed from families in the 1950s and that women were fitted with intrauterine contraceptive devices in the 1960s and 1970s.
Singer-songwriter Naja Parnuuna told the AP she wants to bring that cultural and spiritual tradition back. She said, “Our culture is very spiritual … I want to bring that back,” and said she wants to be part of a wave with young Greenlanders, saying she felt looked down on and that Greenlanders “really haven’t had a voice for a long time.” She also said, growing up, she learned that it was “cooler to be a Dane, or to speak Danish,” and that she was ashamed to be Greenlandic and follow Inuit traditions.
Parnuuna’s father, Markus Olsen, is described by the AP as a former Lutheran pastor who was dismissed from his church role in 2022 after he allowed drum dancing during a National Day service at Nuuk Cathedral. The article says Olsen wears a collar with a small qilaat and a crucifix and takes inspiration from liberation theology, Rastafari legend Bob Marley, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and civil rights activist Malcolm X. Parnuuna said that as she practiced her art—singing and writing songs—she realized how important it was “to accept … my roots,” and she said, “It’s important to bring that back, so that we can love ourselves again.”
Sanimuinaq framed her own work as part of that broader shift toward visibility and cultural space. She said, “We don’t have to walk silenced anymore,” and added, “That’s the change we see — that the voice we get out in the world has been forbidden even within our country. Now that we’re opening, we have more freedom.”