Greenland's Inuits reclaim identity as independence debate grows and another US VIP visit looms

Aviaja Rakel Sanimuinaq is an Inuit Greenlander, a shaman, and a spiritual healer. She wears traditional Inuit facial tattoos and helps others reconnect with their ancestors to heal generational trauma.

“Growing up, it was natural for me to speak about the connection with the spirits,” Sanimuinaq recalls. “But my mom told me never to talk about it because it was dangerous. I never understood why, because I hadn’t experienced the suppression my ancestors had.”

Today, she is part of a growing movement of Greenlanders reclaiming their Inuit heritage and spirituality.

Explaining the significance of her tattoos, she says, “There are two lines at a time, which means our world and the spirit world. And the distance between those two lines is what we do not know.”

Although approximately 90% of Greenlanders identify as Inuit, most belong to the Lutheran Church, a faith introduced by Danish missionaries more than 300 years ago.

“The sacredness of Christianity is still sacred in my eyes, but so is Buddhism. So is Hinduism, and so is my work. And that's where I stand on this—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,” says Sanimuinaq.

In recent years, there has been a growing rejection of the colonial legacy left by European missionaries, who suppressed Inuit traditions by labelling them as pagan.

“The generations that you see in here today are the generations that actually believe that we can heal,” she says.

Greenland was a Danish colony until 1953, when it became a province. In 1979, it was granted home rule, and 30 years later, it became a self-governing entity. However, Denmark still controls the island’s foreign and defence affairs.

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