Inuit

Inuit, a people inhabiting small enclaves in the coastal areas of Greenland, Arctic North America (including Canada and Alaska), and extreme northeastern Siberia. The name Inuit means “the people.” In 1977 the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, held in Barrow, Alaska, officially adopted Inuit as the replacement for the term “Eskimo.” There are several related linguistic groups of Arctic peoples, including the Kalaallit in Greenland, the Inuvialuit in Canada, and the Inupiat, Yupiget, Yuplit, and Alutiit in Alaska. Many of these groups prefer to be called by their specific “tribal” names rather than as Inuits. In Alaska the term “Eskimo” is still commonly used.

II

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS AND REGIONAL GROUPINGS

The Inuit vary within about 5 cm (about 2 in) of an average height of 163 cm (5 ft 4 in), and they display metabolic, circulatory, and other adaptations to the Arctic climate. Inhabiting an area spanning almost 5,150 km (almost 3,200 mi), Inuit have a wider geographical range than any other aboriginal people and are the most sparsely distributed people on earth. They fall generally into the following geographical divisions, moving from east to west: (1) Greenland Inuit, living on the eastern and western coasts of southern Greenland, who have adopted many European ways and are known as Greenlanders or Kalaallitt (Kalâtdlit); (2) Labrador Inuit, occupying the coast from a point opposite Newfoundland Island to Hudson Bay, with a few settlements on southern Baffin Island; (3) Central Inuit, including those of far northern Greenland and, in Canada, Baffin Island and western Hudson Bay; (4) Banks Island Inuit, on Banks Island, Victoria Island, and other large islands off the central Arctic coast; (5) Western Arctic Inuit or Inuvialuit, along the western Arctic coast of Canada; (6) Alaskan Inuit; (7) Alaskan Yuit; and (8) Siberian Yuit.

III

HISTORY

From archaeological, linguistic, and physiological evidence, most scholars conclude that the Inuit migrated across the Bering Strait to Arctic North America. A later arrival to the New World than most indigenous peoples, the Inuit share many cultural traits with Siberian Arctic peoples and with their own closest relatives, the Aleuts. The oldest archaeological sites identifiable as Inuit, in southwest Alaska and the Aleutian Islands, date from about 2000 bc and are somewhat distinct from later Inuit sites. By about 1800 bc the highly developed Old Whaling or Bering Sea culture and related cultures had emerged in Siberia and in the Bering Strait region. In eastern Canada the Old Dorset culture flourished from about 1000 to 800 bc until about ad 1000 to 1300. The Dorset people were overrun by the Thule Inuit, who by ad 1000 to 1200 had reached Greenland. There, Inuit culture was influenced by medieval Norse colonists and, after 1700, by Danish settlers.

IV

LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

The languages of the Inuit peoples constitute a subfamily of the Inuit-Aleut (Eskimaleut) language family. A major linguistic division occurs in Alaska, according to whether the speakers call themselves Inuit (singular, Inuk) or Yuit (singular, Yuk). The eastern branch of the subfamily—generally called Inupiaq in Alaska but also Inuktitut in Canada and Kalaallisut (Kalâdtlisut) in Greenland—stretches from eastern Alaska across Canada and through northern into southern Greenland. It forms a dialect chain—that is, it consists of many dialects, each understandable to speakers of neighboring dialects, although not to speakers of geographically distant dialects. The western branch, called Yupik, includes three distinct languages: Central Alaskan Yupik and Pacific Gulf Yupik in Alaska and Siberian Yupik in Alaska and Canada, each with several dialects (see Native American Languages). The Inupiaq dialects have more than 40,000 speakers in Greenland and more than 20,000 in Alaska and Canada. Yupik languages are spoken by about 17,000 people, including some 1,000 in the former Soviet Union. These various languages are used for the first year of school in some parts of Siberia, for religious instruction and education in schools under Inuit control in Alaska, and in schools and communications media in Canada and Greenland.

The Inupiaq and Yupik languages have an immense number of suffixes that are added to a smaller number of root words; these suffixes function similarly to verb endings, case endings, prepositional phrases, and even whole clauses in the English language. A root word can thus give rise to many derivative words, often many syllables long and highly specialized in meaning, and sometimes complex enough to serve as an entire sentence.

Because these languages are among the most complex and difficult in the world, few explorers or traders learned them; instead, they relied on a jargon composed of Danish, Spanish, Hawaiian, and Inupiaq and Yupik words. The Inupiaq and Yupik languages themselves have a rich oral literature, and a number of Greenland authors have written in Greenland Inupiaq. The first book in Inupiaq was published in 1742.

V

SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

The manners and customs of the Inuit, like their language, are remarkably uniform despite the widespread diffusion of the people. The family—including the nuclear family, nearby relatives, and relations by marriage—is the most significant social unit. In traditional culture, marriages, although sometimes arranged, are generally open to individual choice. Monogamy is the usual pattern, but both polygyny and polyandry also occur. Marriage, a virtual necessity for physical survival, is based on strict division of labor. Husband and wife retain their own tools, household goods, and other personal possessions; men build houses, hunt, and fish, and women cook, dress animal skins, and make clothing. Food sources such as game and fish are considered community property. The underlying social law is the obligation to help one’s kin. Community ridicule is the most common means of social control; in extreme cases, after lengthy deliberation, an offender may be socially ostracized or put to death. With the absence of any communal legal structure, harming someone from another group jeopardizes one’s own kinship group (which is held responsible for the offense) and raises the possibility of a blood feud. Provocative displays of emotion are strongly disapproved. Some groups control conflict by means of wrestling matches or song duels, in which the angry parties extemporize insulting songs; the loser might be driven from the community.

Alliances between non-relatives are formed and maintained through gift giving and the showing of respect. The highest such form of gift giving occurs when a head of household offers the opportunity of a temporary sexual liaison with the most valued adult woman of his household. The woman maintains the power to refuse the liaison, in which case respect will be symbolized through the presentation of a different gift.

VI

PROVISION OF FOOD

The traditional Inuit diet consists mainly of fish, seals, whales, and related sea mammals, the flesh of which is eaten cooked, dried, or frozen. The seal is their staple winter food and most valuable resource. It provides them with dog food, clothing, and materials for making boats, tents, and harpoon lines, as well as fuel for both light and heat. In the interior of Alaska and Canada, caribou are hunted in the summer. To a lesser extent the polar bear, fox, hare, and Arctic birds, chiefly sea birds, also furnish important supplies. Large game such as whale, walrus, and caribou require bigger hunting expeditions than are possible for one kinship group. Many families follow a seasonal hunting and fishing cycle that takes them from one end to the other of their customary territory; trade with other groups often occurs along the way. Today many Inuit work for wages and buy commercially prepared food.

VII

HOUSING, TRANSPORTATION, AND CLOTHING

Inuit homes are of two kinds: walrus or sealskin tents for summer and huts or houses for winter. Winter houses are usually made of stone, with a driftwood or whalebone frame, chinked and covered with moss or sod. The entrance is a long, narrow passage just high enough to admit a person crawling on hands and knees. During long journeys some Canadian Inuit build igloos, winter houses of snow blocks piled in a dome shape (the term igloo comes from the Inuit iglu, meaning 'house'). Such snow houses, rare in Greenland and unknown in Alaska, were once permanent winter houses of the Inuit of central and eastern Canada. In the 20th century many Inuit moved into towns to live in government-built, Western housing.

The principal traditional means of conveyance are the kayak, the umiak, and the dogsled. The light, seaworthy kayak is a canoelike hunting boat made of a wood frame completely covered with sealskin except for a round center opening, where the single occupant sits. In Greenland and Alaska the skin around the hole can be laced tightly around the occupant, making the kayak virtually watertight. The umiak, a larger, open boat about 9 m (about 30 ft) long and 2.4 m (8 ft) wide, and made of a wooden frame covered with walrus skins, is used for whaling expeditions and, sometimes, to transport families and goods. The sled, drawn by a team of native dogs admirably adapted for the purpose, is common among all Inuit except those in southern Greenland. When iron was obtained through trade, iron runners largely supplanted ivory and whalebone runners. In the last half-century motorboats and snowmobiles have become important modes of travel.

Traditional Inuit dress for both men and women consists of watertight boots, double-layer trousers, and the parka, a tight-fitting double-layer pullover jacket with a hood, all made of skins and furs. An enlarged hood forms a convenient cradle for nursing infants.

VIII

RELIGIOUS BELIEFS

Traditional Inuit beliefs are a form of animism, according to which all objects and living beings have a spirit. All phenomena occur through the agency of some spirit. Intrinsically neither good nor bad, spirits can affect people’s lives and, although not influenced by prayers, can be controlled by magical charms and talismans. The person best equipped to control spirits is the shaman, but anyone with the appropriate charms or amulets can exercise such control. Shamans are usually consulted to heal illnesses and resolve serious problems. Communal and individual taboos are observed to avoid offending animal spirits, and animals killed for food must be handled with prescribed rituals.

Inuit rituals and myths reflect preoccupation with survival in a hostile environment. Vague beliefs of an afterlife or reincarnation exist, but these receive little emphasis. Most communal rites center on preparation for the hunt, and myths tend to deal with the relations that exist between humans, animals, and the environment. In arctic Canada, Greenland, Labrador, and southern Alaska, large numbers of Inuit have converted to Christianity.

IX

ARTS AND CRAFTS

From prehistoric times Inuit tools have been noted for their careful construction and the artistry of their carved ornamentation. Ivory from walruses and whales, the most accessible material for carving, is fashioned into figurines representing animals and people, and into decorated knobs, handles, and other tool parts. Driftwood and whalebone are carved into ceremonial masks, some small enough to be worn on women’s fingers during a ritual dance. After contact with European, Canadian, and United States traders began in the 18th century, the Inuit also made, as trade items, scrimshaw-carved tusks and ivory and whalebone objects such as canes and cribbage boards. After about 1950, the Canadian government, concerned with pressures that increasingly pushed the Inuit into a cash economy, encouraged the carving and sale of highly sophisticated soapstone sculptures. Sculpture and printmaking, marketed through cooperatives, have become mainstays of the Canadian Inuit economy and the best-known aspect of Inuit culture.

Inuit performing arts center on ceremonial songs and dances. Some magical songs are personal property and can be sold or traded. The principal musical instrument is the shallow, tambourinelike shaman’s drum.

X

ADJUSTING TO CHANGE

Since the late 20th century the Inuit have become more assertive, forming organizations to represent their interests, such as the Alaska Federation of Natives (1966). The organizations have been instrumental in resolving land claims since 1971 (see Native Americans of North America: Post-Contact History). In Greenland the 1970s and 1980s were marked by a campaign for home rule from Denmark. In 1991 the Canadian government, yielding to ongoing Inuit pressure, agreed to the creation of a new territory known as Nunavut (Inuktitut for 'our land') in eastern Northwest Territories. Approved by referendum in 1992, Nunavut came into being in 1999. The Inuit have political control and broad economic rights over the territory.

The international Inuit Circumpolar Conference, founded in 1977, meets every three years. It provides a forum for Greenland and North American Inuit to discuss common problems, lobby for an Inuit voice in the planning of economic development, and promote the preservation of the environment.