“Medicine” as a Living Technology Gender Roles among Yukon First Nationʼs Spiritual Practices

Abstract

Since 2005, I have been researching the relationship between Yukon First Nations and animals, and through this research, it became clear that spiritual practices can be found in various situations as techniques to support people's lives. However, the significant differences have become clear between what has been seen when I first began to conduct fieldwork in Yukon and what is described in the literature from the 1900s. In particular, a significant difference is that people known as Medicine Men with strong spiritual powers used to be predominantly men, but in recent years they are more often women. Taboos against plants/animals and ideas about medicines made from plants and animals have also changed significantly, with some differences depending on the species and the method of catching and gathering them. In this article, I will focus on the background of these changes, and discuss how spiritual power is needed in different situations, and point out that social changes, particularly changes in gender roles and social relationships due to the shift toward sedentarization, have become a factor in these changes.