Ellam Yua

Ellam Yua, 'the Person of the Universe', is the supreme being of Yup'ik cosmology: at once the creator who set the world in order and the aware presence saturating ella, the interlocked domain of world, weather, outdoors and consciousness. Rather than an anthropomorphic sky god, Ellam Yua is conceived as an all-encompassing force that perceives human conduct and holds people accountable for their treatment of animals, the dead and one another. Every animal and object is said to possess its own yua, an inner person or owner, and Ellam Yua is the yua of the totality. Sources differ on how the universal person relates to Raven: some accounts make Raven the active shaper of the visible world while Ellam Yua remains the encompassing awareness, and others treat the two as complementary aspects of creation.

Domains

• cosmos universe
• creation cosmic order
• moral awareness

Powers

• pervade and animate the whole universe
• regulate the relations of humans and animals

Sources

• Ellam Yua, 'the Person of the Universe', is the Yup'ik creator and supreme being, an omnipresent power identified with ella (the world, weather and awareness).: Oscar Kawagley, A Yupiaq Worldview: A Pathway to Ecology and Spirit (Waveland Press, 1995) (secondary); Ann Fienup-Riordan, Boundaries and Passages (University of Oklahoma Press, 1994) (secondary)
• Ellam Yua is understood as an impersonal yet aware universal force regulating animal-human relationships through subsistence activity.: Ann Fienup-Riordan and Alice Rearden, Ellavut / Our Yup'ik World and Weather (University of Washington Press, 2012) (secondary)