Eskimo

Eskimo or Esquimau is a term used for a group of people who inhabit the circumpolar region (excluding circumpolar Scandinavia and all but the easternmost portions of Russia). There are two main groups of Eskimos: the Inuit of northern Alaska, Canada and Greenland and the Yupik of western Alaska and the Russian Far East (the latter group is known as Siberian Yupik or Yuit). The Eskimos are related to the Aleuts and the Alutiiq from the Aleutian Islands in Alaska as well as the Sug'piak from the Kodiak Islands and as far as the Prince William Sound in South Central Alaska. Inuit is sometimes wrongly used as a synonym for Eskimo.

Eastern Eskimo people - the Inuit - speak Inuktitut, and western Alaskan Eskimo communities - the Yup'ik - speak Yup'ik. There is something of a dialect continuum between the two, and the westernmost dialects of Inuktitut could be viewed as forms of Yup'ik. Kinship culture also differs between east and west, as eastern Inuit lived with cousins of both mother and father, but western Inuit lived in paternal kinship groups.

Eskimo or Inuit?

The word Eskimo in English is borrowed from the French word Esquimaux, but the French word is of uncertain origin. The name is widely but incorrectly believed to derive from a Cree word sometimes translated as "eaters of raw meat". A few have gone so far as to claim that the Cree, on first encountering the Eskimos, were disgusted by the Eskimo practice of eating meat raw and so called them, essentially, "sickening humans". Because this folk etymology is so tenacious, many Inuit consider the name "Eskimo" to be derogatory. (Minnie Aodla Freeman – "Life Among the Qallunaat" ISBN 0-88830-164-2).

However, this etymology is generally held to be false by philologists.

Another possibility of the origin of the name is the manner of lacing snowshoes.

Some Algonquian languages do call Eskimos by names that mean "eaters of raw meat" or something that sounds similar. The Plains Ojibwe, for example, use the word Ashkimo to refer to Eskimos. The word ashkin means "to be raw like raw meat", while amo means "to eat".

But, in the period of the earliest attested French use of the word, the Plains Ojibwe were not in contact with Europeans, nor did they have very much direct contact with the Inuit in pre-colonial times. It is entirely possible that the Ojibwe have adopted words resembling Eskimo by borrowing them from French, and the French word merely sounds like Ojibwe words that sound like "eaters of raw meat". Furthermore, since Cree people also traditionally consumed raw meat, a pejorative significance based on this etymology seems unlikely.

The Montagnais language, a dialect of Cree which was known to French traders at the time of the earliest attestation of esquimaux, does not have vocabulary fitting this etymological analysis. A variety of competing etymologies have been proposed over the years, including the possibility that the name derives from the Montagnais word for the way snowshoes are tied or as meaning "speaker of a foreign language". Since Montagnais speakers refer to the neighbouring Mi'kmaq people using words that sound very much like eskimo, many researchers have concluded that this is the more likely origin of the word. (Mailhot, J. L'étymologie de «Esquimau» revue et corrigée Etudes Inuit/Inuit Studies 2-2:59-70 1978.)

The term "Eskimo" is still used in Alaska to refer to the state's Arctic peoples in general, whether or not they are Eskimos culturally or linguistically. For example, while some Yupik people prefer to be called "Yup'ik", they do not generally object to being called "Eskimo", but they do not consider themselves "Inuit". [1]

Among many non-Eskimos, the word "Eskimo" is falling out of use to refer to the Eskimo peoples in favor of the term "Inuit", which leads to much confusion as to the relationship between the Inuit and the Yup'ik. Much of the impetus behind this change probably traces to the books of Farley Mowat, particularly People of the Deer and The Desperate People. However, in Canada at least, a belief in the pejorative etymology of the word and the rejection of the term by the Inuit peoples were a major factor.

Other uses

The term "Eskimos" is now used by some to refer to rugged and brave individuals who are able to deal with cold and ice even if they are not natives of the far North. For example, the Cambridge Eskimos, established in the 1930s and still active, are an ice hockey team based at the University of Cambridge in Britain. In somewhat the same vein, the Canadian Football League's Edmonton team is called the Eskimos.

See also

• Aleut
• Athabaskan
• Chukchi
• Nenets
• Sami people
• Yupik
• Inuit
• Inupiaq
• Eskimo kinship

External links

• Indigenous Arctic People
• the Asiatic (Siberian) Eskimos
• Eskimo Music