Spirits

The traditional belief is that everyone has two spirits, -z̲ul and -tsin. The former is the immortal soul which survives death. The latter normally disappears after death, but if the person dies by violence or in anger, it survives and becomes the natnilh, the angry ghost.

The -tsin can leave one's body while one is still alive. One situation in which this may happen is during sacred dreams or visions. In this case, it may fly around, allowing the person to see what is below it, in a kind of out-of-body experience. It may also leave one's body due to sickness or severe fright. This is a perilous situation. There is a ritual, still performed occasionally today in secret, for inducing this spirit to return to the body. The ritual is performed when psychological trauma is diagnosed as resulting from a windering -tsin.

Father Morice described a person's ephemeral spirit as:

invisible as long as he enjoyed good health, but appeared wandering about in one form or another whenever disease or death was imminent. in order therefore to prevent either the one or the other, their endeavours would be directed towards catching it back. with this end in view, they would hang up in the evening the patient's moccasins previously stuffed with feather down, and next morning, should the down be warm, they would with great care and silence put them back on his feet with his supposed shade therein. whenever the moribund lay unconscious they believed his double to have departed for the land of the shades or spirits.

The term used by both Catholic and Protestant Christians for the soul is -z̲ul.

-z̲ool is an alternative term, no longer in use, for the immortal soul, the -z̲ul.

Father Morice reverses the definitions of -z̲ul and -tsin. That is, for him -tsin is the immortal spirit and -z̲ul is the one that normally disappears on death. This appears to be an error as it conflicts with the testimony of multiple fluent speakers and makes it difficult to explain why Christians adopted -z̲ul as their term for the immortal soul.

The verb root de₂ is used for the motion of spirits, as in the verb for a spirit to move in a loop.

Some people use the term nanki nez̲ul-ne “two spirit” for people with non-canonical sexual orientation or identity. This is an innovation based on the use of “two-spirit” elsewhere. The two spirits referred to are male and female, not the traditional -z̲ul and -tsin.

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