Inuit

Inuit

Inuit man
Regions with significant populations
Greenland, Canada, United States, Russia
Languages
Inuit language, Eskimo-Aleut languages
Religion
Christianity, Shamanism
Related ethnic groups
Aleuts, Yupiks

For other uses, see Inuit (disambiguation).

Inuit is a general term for a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Alaska, Greenland, and Canada. Until fairly recent times, there has been a remarkable homogeneity in the culture throughout these areas, which have traditionally relied on fish, marine mammals, and land animals for food, pets, transport, heat, light, clothing, tools, and shelter. The Inuit language is grouped under Eskimo-Aleut languages.

Inuit live throughout the Canadian Arctic: in Nunavut, the territory whose name means "the land of the Inuit"; in Nunavik, the northern third of Quebec; in Nunatsiavut, the coastal region of Labrador; in various parts of the Northwest Territories; and formerly in Yukon. Alaskan Inupiat live on the North Slope of Alaska and the Seward Peninsula. Greenland Kalaallit are citizens of Denmark and thus of the European Union.

Eskimo or Inuit?

Main article: Eskimo

The English word Eskimo is of uncertain origin, but most likely originates from an Algonquian language. Many Inuit consider Eskimo to be pejorative because it originated with non-Inuit and is widely believed to mean "eater of raw meat." However, linguists now believe the term is derived from an Ojibwa word meaning "to net snowshoes."

The term Eskimo is considered pejorative in Canada, where the preferred term is Inuit, which means "people" or "the people" in most Inuit languages. In the Eastern Arctic of Canada, the language is often called Inuktitut and in the Western Arctic it is called Inuvialuktun, though other local designations, such as Inuinnaqtun, may be used. The Inuit of Greenland refer to themselves as Greenlanders or, in their own language, Kalaallit, and to their language as Greenlandic or Kalaallisut.

The Inuit Circumpolar Conference, representing a circumpolar population of 150,000 Inuit and Yupik people of Greenland, Canada, Alaska, and Siberia, defines Inuit in its charter as including "the Inupiat, Yup'ik (Alaska), Inuit, Inuvialuit (Canada), Kalaallit (Greenland) and Yupik (Russia)." However, strictly speaking, Inuit refers only to the Inupiat of northern Alaska, the Inuit of Canada, and the Kalaallit of Greenland, but not to the Yupik peoples or languages of Alaska and Siberia. This is because the Yupik languages are linguistically distinct from the Inupiaq and other Inuit languages, and the peoples are ethnically distinct as well. The word Inuit does not occur in the Yupik languages of Alaska and Siberia. In Alaska, Eskimo continues to be acceptable, and is the preferred term when speaking of Inupiat and Yupik people collectively or to all Inuit and Yupik people of the world. The term Alaska Natives is also used in Alaska and the rest of the United States, though this term is also inclusive of Aleut and American Indian people of Alaska. This term has important legal usage as a result of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971.

The term "Eskimo" is also used in some linguistic or ethnographic works to denote the larger branch of Eskimo-Aleut languages, the smaller branch being Aleut. In this usage, Inuit (together with Yupik, and possibly also Sireniki), are sub-branches of Eskimo.

Inuit, Yupik, and First Nations People

Distribution of Inuit language variants.

The Inuit Circumpolar Conference, a United Nations-recognised non-governmental organization (NGO), defines its constituency to include Canada's Inuit and Inuvialuit, Greenland's Kalaallit people, Alaska's Inupiat and Yup'ik people, and the Siberian Yupik people of Russia. However, the Yupik of Alaska and Siberia are not Inuit in the sense of being descended from the Thule, and the Yupik languages are linguistically distinct from the Inuit languages. Yupik people are not considered to be Inuit either by themselves or by ethnographers, and prefer to be called Yupik or Eskimo.

Canadian Inuit do not consider themselves, and are not usually considered by others, to be one of the First Nations, a term which normally applies to other indigenous peoples in Canada. However, Inuit (and the Métis) are collectively recognised by the Constitution Act, 1982 as Aboriginal peoples in Canada.

The Inuit should not be confused with the Innu, a distinct First Nations people who live in northeastern Quebec and Labrador.

Some of the Inuit languages were written down a couple of centuries ago, but until the latter half of the twentieth century, most were not able to read and write in their own language. As long ago as the 1760s, Moravian missionaries arrived in Greenland, where they contributed to the development of a written system of language called Qaliujaaqpait, based on the Latin alphabet. The missionaries later brought this system to Labrador, from which it eventually spread as far as Alaska.

Anthropological analysis

Daily life for the Inuit included peril and hardship. With ferocious animals, hostile storms, deceptive ice, frigid waters, frequent hunting accidents, and endless bitter temperatures, the Inuit had much to endure and much to be weary of. The typical, historical Inuit would be lucky to live past 60.

Diet

The Inuit were traditionally hunters and fishermen, living off the Arctic animal life. They hunted, and still hunt, whales, walruses, caribou, seals, polar bears, muskoxen, birds, and in lean years any other less commonly eaten animals such as foxes. The Arctic has very little edible vegetation resulting in a carnivorous diet, although some Inuit did supplement their diet with seaweed and other plants. Lieb et al. (1926) published a case study of anthropologist Vilhjalmur Stefansson who lived with a group of Inuit. The study focused on the fact that the Inuit's extremely low-carbohydrate diet had not had adverse effects on Stefansson's health, nor that of the Inuit. This study and the Inuit in general have been cited as support for low-carbohydrate diets, but often without taking into account the climatic and metabolistic circumstances in which those results were observed.

Transport, navigation, and dogs

Sea animals were hunted from single-passenger, covered seal-skin boats called qajaq which were extraordinarily buoyant, and could easily be righted by a seated person, even if completely overturned. Because of this property, the Inuit design was copied, along with the Inuit word, by Europeans who still make and use them under the name kayak. Inuit also made umiak, larger, open boats made out of skins and bones for transporting people, goods and dogs. In the winter, Inuit would also hunt sea mammals by finding, or sometimes making, an aglu (breathing hole) in the ice and wait for the air-breathing seals and walruses to use them. According to Inuit tradition, they learned to do this by observing the polar bear, who hunts by seeking out holes in the ice and waiting nearby.

On land, the Inuit used dog sleds (qamutiit) for transportation. The husky dog breed comes from Inuit breeding of dogs for transportation. A team of dogs in either a tandem/side-by-side or fan formation would pull a sled made of animal bones and skins, and in some southern areas a bit of wood, over the snow and ice. They used landmarks to navigate, and possessed a comprehensive native system of toponymy. Where natural landmarks were insufficient, the Inuit would erect an inukshuk to compensate.

Dogs played an integral role in the annual routine of the Inuit. During the summer they became pack animals, sometimes dragging up to 20 kilos of baggage. In the winter they pulled the sled and yearlong they assisted with hunting by sniffing out seal's holes and pestering polar bears. They loyally protected the Inuit villages by barking at bears and strangers. The Inuit generally favoured and tried to breed the most striking and handsome of dogs, especially ones with bright eyes, healthy coat, and a curved tail. Common husky dog breeds used by the Inuit were the Samoyed, the Canadian Eskimo Dog (Qimmiq; Inuktitut for dog), the Greenland Dog and the Alaskan Malamute. When the dog was newborn, the Inuit would perform rituals on the dog to give the pup favourable qualities. Its legs were pulled to make it grow strong and its nose was poked with a pin to enhance its sense of smell. Overall, the dogs were not ideal sled-pullers. They were quarrelsome and often tangled the reins, causing the driver considerable trouble. There are numerous ethnographic reports as well as archaeological evidence which indicate in many Inuit groups there was a consistent pattern of extremely harsh treatment of their dogs, including beating and underfeeding them.

Industry, art, and clothing

Igloo

Inuit industry relied almost exclusively on animal hides and bones, although some tools were also made out of worked stones, particularly the readily-worked soapstone. Walrus ivory was a particularly essential material, used to make knives. Inuit living near the tree line also had native woodworking traditions. Art is a big part of Inuit history. Small sculptures of animals and human figures were made out of ivory and bone usually depicting everyday activities such as hunting and whaling.

Inuit made clothes and footwear from animal skins, sewn together using needles made from animal bones and threads made from other animal products. The anorak (parka) is in essence made in a similar fashion by Arctic peoples from Europe through Asia and the Americas, including by the Inuit. The hoods of Inuit women's parkas (amauti, plural amautiit) were traditionally made extra large, to protect the baby from the harsh wind when snuggled against the mother's back. Styles vary from region to region, from shape of the hood to length of the tails. Boots (kamik or mukluk) could be made of caribou or sealskin, and designs varied for men and women. Certain Inuit also lived in temporary shelters made from snow in winter (the famous igloo), and during the few months of the year when temperatures were above freezing, they lived in tents made of animal skins and bones.

Gender roles, marriage, and community

Inuit woman

The division of labour in traditional society had a strong gender component. The men were traditionally hunters and fishermen. The women took care of the children, cleaned huts, sewed and cooked. However, there are numerous examples of women who learned to hunt out of necessity and more recently as a personal choice. At the same time, men, who could be away from camp for several days, would be expected to know how to sew and cook.

The marital customs among the Inuit were not strictly monogamous: many Inuit relationships were implicitly or explicitly sexually open marriages; polygamy, divorce and remarriage were fairly common. Formal marriage and divorce required the approval of the community, and particularly the agreement of the elders. Marriages were often arranged, sometimes in infancy, and occasionally forced on the couple by the community. Marriage was expected for a man as soon as he could hunt for himself, and for women at puberty. Family structure was flexible: a household might consist of a man and his wife or wives and children; it might include his parents or his wife's parents as well as adopted children; or it might be a larger formation of several siblings with their parents, wives and children; or even more than one family sharing dwellings and resources. Every household had its head, an elder or a particularly respected man.

There was also a larger notion of community, generally several families who shared a place where they wintered. Goods were shared within a household, and to a lesser extent within a whole community in winter. As with most nomadic people, there was no real conception of ownership of land, if a spot was unoccupied, all were free to hunt or camp there. Animals belonged first to the hunter or trapper, then to his household.

Raiding

Nearly all Inuit cultures have oral traditions of raids by Indians and fellow Inuit, such as the Bloody Falls Massacre, and of taking vengeance on them in return. Although these tales are generally not regarded as entirely accurate historical accounts, but more as self-serving myths, violence against outsiders as justified revenge, it does make clear that there was a history of hostile contact between Inuit and other cultures. In Alaska, the Inuit became accomplished raiders through constant feuding. Given the narrow margins of survival, the advantages of supplementing one's hunt by stealing from one's neighbours seem obvious. Even within an Inuit band, breaching traditional justice and wronging another Inuit was routinely punished by murderous vengeance, as the story of Atanarjuat shows. Within a community, punishments were meted out by community decision, or by the elders, and a breach meant that the victim and his or her relatives could seek out restitution or revenge.

Suicide, murder, and death

There is a pervasive belief that the Inuit left their elderly on the ice to die. This is not generally true. However, sometimes elderly Inuit who could no longer hunt or do other useful work might choose, or be convinced to choose, a form of assisted suicide when food was very scarce. In a culture defined by independence and self-sufficiency, old age was seen as burdensome for the family and the individual, especially in the Arctic regions. Charity, even from one's own family was seen as insulting and hard to endure. They were not left to die on the ice, but rather were more directly dispatched. Often in such circumstances, a small snow house was built as both shelter and deathbed, little supplies were left and the group moved on without goodbyes. This practice was not universal among the Inuit, some bands never had such practices, and was only tolerated under truly desperate conditions. Another common suicide tactic among the elderly was that of hanging, which a favorite child may have even assisted with. Inuit communities were largely ruled by respected elders, and routine suicide did not take place.

A far more common response to desperate conditions and the threat of starvation was infanticide, which did sometimes entail abandoning an infant in hopes that someone less desperate might find and adopt it before the cold or the wildlife finished it off. All Inuit tribes practiced some form of infanticide, although it was most commonly performed on disabled or deformed babies. Female infanticide was especially prevalent among the Copper Inuit and its neighbors who simply could not keep them due to lack of resources. Also, it was thought that girls contribute less to the family's well being than a son, who could start hunting by age 10. The widespread female infanticide had a large impact on the population of the Inuit in the Central Arctic. Specifically, it decreased the number of women able to produce children, which slowed the population of the next generation. This shortage of women also affected the male population as well as the community dynamics since the males became very competitive for the few potential mates and often this competition led to murder.

The most common causes of death were old age, murder, infanticide, starvation, and accidents. During the 19th century, the Western Arctic suffered a population decline of close to 90% of their population resulting from foreign diseases including tuberculosis, measles, influenza, and smallpox. Autopsies near Greenland reveal that, more commonly pneumonia, kidney diseases, trichinosis, malnutrition, and degenerative disorders may have contributed to mass deaths among different Inuit tribes. The Inuit believed that the cause of the disease came from a spiritual origin, and cures were said to be possible through confession. (Information from "Inuit: Glimpses of an Arctic Past" by Morrison and Germain)

Traditional beliefs

See also:Inuit mythology and Shamanism among Eskimo peoples

Synopsis

Some Inuit believed that the spirits of their ancestors could be seen in the northern lights

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.

Analysis

The Inuit traditionally practised 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 not terribly complicated, but they were held to be absolutely 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 constantly in fear of the uncontrollable, where a streak of bad luck could destroy an entire community. To offend a spirit was to run the risk of having them interfere with an already marginal existence. The Inuit plead with supernatural powers to provide them with the necessities of day-to-day survival. As Knud Rasmussen's Inuit guide told him when asked about Inuit religious beliefs, "We don't believe. We fear!"

Early history

The Inuit are the descendants of what anthropologists call the Thule culture, a nomadic people who emerged from western Alaska around 1000 CE and spread eastwards across the Arctic, displacing the related Dorset culture (in Inuktitut, the Tuniit). Inuit legends speak of the Tuniit as "giants", people who were taller and stronger than the Inuit, but who were easily scared off and retreated from the advancing Inuit. Researchers believe that the Dorset culture lacked dogs, boats and other technologies that gave the expanding Inuit society a large advantage over them. By 1300, the Inuit had settled west Greenland, and finally moved into east Greenland over the following century.

The Tuniit survived in Aivilik, Southampton and Coats Islands, until the beginning of the 20th century. They were known as Sadlermiut (Sallirmiut in the modern spelling). Their population had been ravaged by diseases brought by contact with Europeans, and the last of them fell in a flu epidemic caught from a passing whaler in 1902. The area has since been resettled by Inuit. Genetic research suggests that there was little or no intermarriage between the Tuniit and the Inuit over the thousand years of contact in the Canadian Arctic.

The Inuit were a nomadic culture that circulated almost exclusively north of the timberline, the de facto southern border of Inuit society. To the south, Native American Indian cultures were well established, and the culture and technology of Inuit society that served them so well in the Arctic was ill-suited to the subarctic, so they did not displace their southern neighbours. Their relations with southerners were generally hostile, but at other times cordial enough to support trade.

Warfare, in general, was found only among the Inuit groups with sufficient population density, social structure, and political organisation. Inuit who inhabited the Mackenzie Delta area experienced common warfare whereas the Central Arctic Inuit lacked the internal structure to engage in warfare at all. Instead, the Arctic Inuit experienced common internal conflict, namely homicide which was usually provoked by competition for women or by jealousy. Among Arctic Inuit groups, there was an unspoken tradition to avenge the death of a family member, which led to endless murder, especially among the Copper Inuit. With no police, courts, or jails, the individual Copper Inuit depended on ones own definition of justice. Some of the most respected leaders in the community were murderers. Social crimes such as dishonesty, laziness, stinginess, and bossiness received more disapproval and condemnation than murder. Overall, in small Inuit communities, communal disapproval was especially isolating and humiliating. (Information from "Inuit: Glimpses of an Arctic Past" by Morrison and Germain)

Usually tensions between Inuit and Indians were common but raids were rare. One exception is the Copper Inuit who experienced frequent attacks from the Chipewyan and Yellowknives from the south. Motivated by revenge and glory, the Indians blamed Inuit magic for mysterious deaths or misfortunes within their tribes. The two races experienced a history of mutual hatred and suspicion. (Information from "Inuit: Glimpses of an Arctic Past" by Morrison and Germain)

The first contact with Europeans came from the Vikings, who settled Greenland and explored the eastern Canadian coast. Norse literature speaks of skrælingar, most likely an undifferentiated label for all the native peoples of the Americas the Norse contacted, Tuniit, Inuit and Beothuks alike. Archaeological evidence suggests that the Tuniit had abandoned Greenland around 200 CE. They reoccupied areas in the far north of Greenland sometime around 1000, but the Norse settlements were in the south and southwest of the island. It is likely that the area of the Norse settlements was unoccupied at the time they arrived.

Sometime in the 13th century, Inuit began arriving from what is now Canada. Norse accounts are scant, and there is no Inuit oral history discussing contact with the Norse. However, Norse made items have been found at Inuit campsites in Greenland. It is unclear whether they are the result of trade or plunder. One old account speaks of "small people" with whom the Norsemen fought. Ívar Bárðarson's 14th century account mentions that one of the two Norse settlement areas, the western settlement, had been taken over by the skrælings. The reason why the Norse settlements failed is unclear, but the last record of them is from 1408, roughly the same period as the earliest Inuit settlements in east Greenland.

After roughly 1350, the climate grew colder during the Little Ice Age and the Inuit were forced to abandon hunting and whaling sites in the high Arctic. Bowhead whaling disappeared in Canada and Greenland (but continued in Alaska) and the Inuit had to subsist on a much poorer diet. Without whales, they lost access to essential raw materials for tools and architecture that were derived from whaling. Although the Inuit had always been nomadic, they were forced to move more and more often to maximise their return from hunting. In Greenland and the Canadian Arctic semi-permanent sod and whalebone dwellings were replaced by what has now become the symbol of the Inuit in many minds: temporary snow houses known as igloos.

The changing climate forced the Inuit to also look south, pressuring them into the marginal niches along the edges of the tree line that Indians had not occupied, or where they were weak enough to coexist with. It is hard to say with any precision when the Inuit stopped their territorial expansion. There is evidence that they were still moving into new territory in southern Labrador in the 17th century, when they first began to interact with colonial North American civilisation.

Since the arrival of Europeans

Canada

The lives of Paleo-Eskimos of the far north were largely unaffected by the arrival of visiting Norsemen except for mutual trade (McGhee 1992:194). Labrador Eskimo have had the longest continuous contact with Europeans (Kleivan 1966:9). After the disappearance of the Norse colonies in Greenland, the Inuit had no contact with Europeans for at least a century. By the mid 16th century, Basque fishermen were already working the Labrador coast and had established whaling stations on land, such as been excavated at Red Bay. The Inuit appear not to have interfered with their operations, but they raided the stations in winter for tools, and particularly worked iron, which they adapted to native needs.

Martin Frobisher's 1576 search for the Northwest Passage was the first well-documented post-Columbian contact between Europeans and Inuit. Frobisher's expedition landed on Baffin Island, not far from the town now called Iqaluit, but long known as Frobisher Bay. This first contact went poorly. Martin Frobisher, attempting to find the Northwest Passage, encountered Inuit on Resolution Island. Five sailors jumped ship and became part of Inuit mythology. The homesick sailors, tired of their adventure, attempted to leave in a small vessel and vanished. Frobisher brought an unwilling Inuk to England, doubtless the first Inuk ever to visit Europe. The Inuit oral tradition, in contrast, recounts the natives helping Frobisher's crewmen, whom they believed had been abandoned.

The semi-nomadic eco-centred Inuit were fishers and hunters harvesting lakes, seas, ice platforms and tundra. While there are some allegations that Inuit were hostile to early French and English explorers, fishers and whalers, more recent research suggests that the early relations with whaling stations along the Labrador coast and later James Bay were based on a mutual interest in trade (Mitchell 1996:49-62). In the final years of the 18th century, the Moravian Church began missionary activities in Labrador, supported by the British who were tired of the raids on their whaling stations. The Moravian missionaries could easily provide the Inuit with the iron and basic materials they had been stealing from whaling outposts, materials whose real cost to Europeans was almost nothing, but whose value to the Inuit was enormous and from then on contacts in Labrador were far more peaceful.

The European arrival caused a great deal of damage to the Inuit way of life, causing mass death through new diseases introduced by whalers and explorers, and enormous social disruptions caused by the distorting effect of Europeans' material wealth. Nonetheless, Inuit society in the higher latitudes had largely persisted in isolation in the 19th century. The Hudson's Bay Company opened trading posts such as Great Whale River (1820), today the site of the twin villages of Whapmagoostui and Kuujjuarapik, where whale products of the commercial whale hunt were processed and furs traded. The British Naval Expedition (1821-3) led by Admiral William Edward Parry, which twice overwintered in Foxe Basin, provided the first informed, sympathetic and well-documented account of the economic, social and religious life of the Inuit. Parry stayed in what is now Igloolik over the second winter. Parry's writings with pen and ink illustrations of Inuit everyday life (1824) and those of Lyon (1824) were widely read (D'Anglure 2002:205). Captain Comer's Inuit wife Shoofly known for her sewing skills and elegant attire (Driscoll 1980:6) was influential in convincing him to acquire more sewing accessories and beads for trade with Inuit. A few traders and missionaries circulated among the more accessible bands, and after 1904 they were accompanied by a handful of policemen. Unlike most Aboriginal peoples in Canada, however, the lands occupied by the Inuit were of little interest to European settlers. While southerners consider the Arctic as a hostile hinterland, to the Inuit it is their homeland. Southerners enjoyed lucrative careers as bureaucrats and service providers in the north, but very few southerners chose to retire there. In the early years of the 20th century, Canada, with its more hospitable lands largely settled, began to take a greater interest in its more peripheral territories, especially the fur and mineral rich hinterlands. By the late 1920s, there were no longer any Inuit who had not been contacted by traders, missionaries or government agents. In 1939, the Supreme Court of Canada found in Re Eskimos that the Inuit should be considered Indians and were thus under the jurisdiction of the federal government.

Native customs were worn down by the actions of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who enforced Canadian criminal law on Inuit who often could not understand what they had done wrong, and by missionaries who preached a moral code very different from the one they were used to. Many of the Inuit were systematically converted to Christianity in the 19th and 20th centuries, through rituals like the Siqqitiq.

World War II and the Cold War made Arctic Canada strategically important for the first time and, thanks to the development of modern aircraft, accessible year-round. The construction of airbases and radar stations in the 1940s and 50s brought more intensive contacts with European society, particularly in the form of public education, which instilled and enforced foreign values disdainful of the traditional structure of Inuit society. By 1953, Canada's prime minister Louis St. Laurent publicly admitted, "Apparently we have administered the vast territories of the north in an almost continuing absence of mind." (Parker 1996:32) The government began to establish about forty permanent administrative centres to provide education, health and economic development services for Inuit (Parker 1996:32). Inuit from hundreds of smaller camps scattered across the north, began to congregate in these hamlets (Mitchell 1996:118).

Furthermore, regular visits from doctors and access to modern medical care raised the birth rate enormously. Before long, the Inuit population was beyond what traditional hunting and fishing could support. By the mid-1960s, encouraged first by missionaries, then by the prospect of paid jobs and government services, and finally forced by hunger and required by police, all Canadian Inuit lived year-round in permanent settlements. The nomadic migrations that were the central feature of Arctic life had for the most part disappeared. The Inuit, a once self-sufficient people in an extremely harsh environment, were in the span of perhaps two generations transformed into a small, impoverished minority lacking skills or resources to sell to the larger economy, but increasingly dependent on it for day to day survival.

Although anthropologists like Diamond Jenness (1964) were quick to predict that Inuit culture was facing extinction, Inuit political activism was already emerging as he wrote those words.

In the 1960s, the Canadian government funded the establishment of secular, government-operated high schools in the Northwest Territories (including what is now Nunavut) and Inuit areas in Quebec and Labrador along with the residential school system. The Inuit population was not large enough to support a full high school in every community, so this meant only a few schools were built, and students from across the territories were boarded there. These schools, in Aklavik Iqaluit, Yellowknife, Inuvik and Kuujjuaq, brought together young Inuit from across the Arctic in one place for the first time, and exposed them to the rhetoric of civil and human rights that prevailed in Canada in the 1960s. This was a real wake-up call for Inuit, and it stimulated the emergence of a new generation of young Inuit activists in the late 1960s who came forward and pushed for respect for the Inuit and their territories.

The Inuit began to emerge as a political force in the late 1960s and early 1970s, shortly after the first graduates returned home. They formed new politically active associations in the early 1970s, starting with the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami in 1971, and more region specific organisations shortly afterwards, including the Northern Quebec Inuit Association (Makivik Corporation) and the Labrador Inuit Association. These activist movements began to change the direction of Inuit society in 1975 with the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement. This comprehensive land claims settlement for Quebec Inuit, along with a large cash settlement and substantial administrative autonomy in the new region of Nunavik, set the precedent for the settlements to follow. The Labrador Inuit submitted their land claim in 1977, although they had to wait until 2005 to have a signed land settlement establishing Nunatsiavut.

In 1982, the Tunngavik Federation of Nunavut (TFN) was incorporated, in order to take over negotiations for land claims on behalf of the Northwest Territories Inuit from the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, which became a joint association of the Inuit of Quebec, Labrador and the Northwest Territories.

The TFN worked for ten years and, in September 1992, came to a final agreement with the government of Canada. This agreement called for the separation of the Northwest Territories into an eastern territory whose aboriginal population would be predominately Inuit, the future Nunavut, and a rump Northwest Territories in the west. It was the largest land claims agreement in Canadian history. In November 1992, the Nunavut Final Agreement was approved by nearly 85 percent of the Inuit of what would become Nunavut. As the final step in this long process, the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement was signed on May 25, 1993 in Iqaluit by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and by Paul Quassa, the president of Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated, which replaced the TFN with the ratification of the Nunavut Final Agreement. The Canadian Parliament passed the supporting legislation in June of the same year, enabling the 1999 establishment of Nunavut as a territorial entity.

The Inuvialuit are western Canadian Inuit who remained in the Northwest Territories when Nunavut split off. They live primarily in the Mackenzie River delta, on Banks Island, and in parts of Victoria Island in the Northwest Territories. They are officially represented by the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation and received a comprehensive land claims settlement in 1984, with the signing of the Inuvialuit Final Agreement.

With the establishment of Nunatsiavut in 2005, all the traditional Inuit lands in Canada are now covered by some sort of land claims agreement providing for regional autonomy.

Inuit communities in Canada continue to suffer under crushing unemployment, overcrowded housing, substance abuse, crime, violence and suicide. The problems Inuit face in the 21st century should not be underestimated. However, many Inuit are upbeat about the future. Arguably, their situation is better than it has been since the 14th century. Inuit arts, carving, print making, textiles and throat singing, are very popular, not only in Canada but globally, and Inuit artists are widely known. Indeed, Canada has, metaphorically, adopted some of the Inuit culture as a sort of national identity, using Inuit symbols like the inukshuk in unlikely places, such as its use as a symbol in the upcoming 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Respected art galleries display Inuit art, the largest collection of which is at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. Some Inuit languages such as Inuktitut, appears to have a more secure future in Quebec and Nunavut. There are a surprising number of Inuit, even those who now live in urban centres such as Ottawa, Montreal and Winnipeg, who have experienced living on the land in the traditional life style. People such as Legislative Assembly of Nunavut member, Levinia Brown (b. 1947) and former Commissioner of Nunavut and the NWT, Helen Maksagak (b. 1931) were born and lived the early part of their life "on the land". Inuit culture is alive and vibrant today in spite of the negative impacts of recent history.

Greenland

See also: History of Greenland

The Thule people arrived in Greenland in the 13th century. There they encountered the Norsemen, who had established colonies there since the late 10th century, as well as a later wave of the Dorset people.

Alaska

See also: List of Alaska Native Tribal Entities

The Inuit people of Alaska are known as the Inupiat.

International issues

In recent years, circumpolar cultural and political groups like the Inuit Circumpolar Conference have come together to promote the Inuit and other northern people and to fight against ecological problems, such as global warming, which disproportionately affects the Inuit population. Global warming may cause Arctic mammal populations to decline. However, a recent study by Mitch Taylor shows that, contrary to the dire predictions, eleven of thirteen polar bear populations have remained stable or increased. The study also shows that the number of polar bears in western Hudson Bay is decreasing due to the effect of global warming, while the decrease of the population in Baffin Bay is directly associated with the over hunting of the bears by Greenland hunters.

Culture today

Inuit women at Nain, Newfoundland and Labrador

Well-known Inuit politicians include Premier of Nunavut, Paul Okalik, and Nancy Karetak-Lindell, MP for the riding of Nunavut.

An important biennial event, the Arctic Winter Games, is held in communities across the northern regions of the world, featuring traditional Inuit and northern sports as part of the events. A cultural event is also held. The games were first held in 1970, and while rotated usually among Alaska, Yukon and the Northwest Territories, they have also been held in Schefferville, Quebec in 1976, in Slave Lake, Alberta, and a joint Iqaluit, Nunavut-Nuuk, Greenland staging in 2002. In other sporting events, Jordin Tootoo became the first Inuk to play in the National Hockey League in the 2003-04 season, playing for the Nashville Predators.

Visual and performing arts are strong. In 2002 the first feature film in Inuktitut, Atanarjuat, was released worldwide to great critical and popular acclaim. It was directed by Zacharias Kunuk, and written, filmed, produced, directed, and acted almost entirely by Inuit of Igloolik. One of the most famous Inuit artists is Pitseolak Ashoona. Susan Aglukark is a popular singer. Mitiarjuk Attasie Nappaaluk works at preserving Inuktitut and has written the first novel published in that language. In 2006, Cape Dorset was hailed as Canada's most artistic city, with 23% of the labour force employed in the arts. Inuit art such as soapstone carvings is one of Nunavut's most important industries.

Recently, there has been an identity struggle among the younger generations of Inuit tribes between their traditional heritage and the modern society which their cultures have been forced to assimilate into in order to maintain a livelihood. With current dependence on modern society for necessities, (including governmental jobs, food, aid, medicine, etc), the Inuit people have had much interaction with and exposure to the societal norms outside their previous cultural boundaries. The stressors regarding the identity crisis among teenagers have led to disturbingly high numbers of suicide. The cases are so frequent that unfortunately suicide has become a sort of cultural norm.

A series of publications has focused upon increasing myopia in the youngest generations of Inuit. Myopia was almost unknown prior to the Inuit adoption of western culture. This phenomenon is also seen in other cultures (for example, Vanatu). Principal theories are the change to a less nutritious western style diet, and exposure to over-illumination in intense early grade education.

Economy today

Today, Inuit work in all sectors of the economy, including mining, oil and gas, construction, government and administrative services. Many Inuit still supplement their income through hunting. Tourism is a growing industry in the Inuit economy. Inuit guides take tourists on dogsled and hunting expeditions, and work with outfitting organisations. About 30 percent of Inuit derive part-time income from their sculpture, carving and print making.

The settlement of land claims in the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Northern Quebec has given the Inuit money and a framework to develop and expand economic development activities. New emerging businesses include real estate, tourism, airlines and offshore fisheries.

See also

• Netsilik Inuit

References

• Jean Briggs. Never in Anger. ISBN 0-674-60828-3
• Ernest S. Burch Jr. The Eskimos
• Gontran De Poncins (1941). Kabloona. ISBN 1-55597-249-7
• Hans Ruesch. Top Of The World. ISBN 950-637-164-4 (Hebrew version)

External links

• Aboriginal Perspectives View National Film Board of Canada films on Canada's Aboriginal Peoples.
• Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, Canada's National Inuit Organization
• The Inuvialuit
• CBC Digital Archives - An Inuit Education: Honouring a past, creating a future
• A History of Aboriginal Treaties and Relations in Canada This site includes contextual materials, links to digitized primary sources and summaries of primary source documents.
• Interviewing Inuit Elders / Perspectives on Traditional Law, an online glossary of terms related to Inuit culture.
• Alaskool: Alaska Native Curriculum and Teacher Development Project