> I would come back as an Inuit.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuit
>
> "The Inuit people inhabit the land stretching from southeast Alaska to
> Greenland, an environment that heavily influenced a mythology filled
> with adventure tales of whale and walrus hunts. Long winter months of
> waiting for caribou herds or sitting near breathing holes hunting
> seals gave birth to stories of mysterious and sudden appearance of
> ghosts and fantastic creatures. Some Inuit looked into the aurora
> borealis, or northern lights, to find images of their family and
> friends dancing in the next life, and they relied upon the angakkuq
> (shaman), while the nearest thing to a central deity was the Old Woman
> (Sedna), who lived beneath the sea. The waters, a central food source,
> were believed to contain great gods.
>
> The Inuit practiced a form of shamanism based on animist principles.
> They believed that all things had a form of spirit, just like humans,
> and that to some extent these spirits could be influenced by a
> pantheon of supernatural entities that could be appeased when one
> required some animal or inanimate thing to act in a certain way. The
> angakkuq of a community of Inuit was not the leader, but rather a sort
> of healer and psychotherapist, who tended wounds and offered advice,
> as well as invoking the spirits to assist people in their lives. His
> or her role was to see, interpret and exhort the subtle and unseen.
> Angakkuqs were not trained, they were held to be born with the
> ability.
>
> Inuit religion was closely tied to a system of rituals that were
> integrated into the daily life of the people. These rituals were
> simple but held to be necessary. According to a customary Inuit
> saying, "The great peril of our existence lies in the fact that our
> diet consists entirely of souls." By believing that all things,
> including animals, have souls like those of humans, any hunt that
> failed to show appropriate respect and customary supplication would
> only give the liberated spirits cause to avenge themselves.
>
> The harshness and randomness of life in the Arctic ensured that Inuit
> lived with concern for the uncontrollable, where a streak of bad luck
> could destroy an entire community. To offend a spirit was to risk its
> interference with an already marginal existence. The Inuit understand
> that they work in harmony with supernatural powers to provide the
> necessities of day-to-day survival."