Datasets:

---

tcltcl

/

inuit-wikipedia

like 0

Inuit religion

Inuit religion is the shared spiritual beliefs and practices of the Inuit, an indigenous people from Alaska, northern Canada, parts of Siberia, and Greenland. Their religion shares many similarities with some Alaska Native religions. Traditional Inuit religious practices include animism and shamanism, in which spiritual healers mediate with spirits. Today many Inuit follow Christianity (with 71 percent of Canadian Inuit identifying as Christian as of 2021); however, traditional Inuit spirituality continues as part of a living, oral tradition and part of contemporary Inuit society. Inuit who balance indigenous and Christian theology practice religious syncretism. Inuit cosmology provides a narrative about the world and the place of people within it. Rachel Qitsualik-Tinsley writes: The Inuit cosmos is ruled by no one. There are no divine mother and father figures. There are no wind gods and solar creators. There are no eternal punishments in the hereafter, as there are no punishments for children or adults in the here and now. Traditional stories, rituals, and taboos of the Inuit are often precautions against dangers posed by their harsh Arctic environment. Knud Rasmussen asked his guide and friend Aua, an angakkuq (spiritual healer), about Inuit religious beliefs among the Iglulingmiut (people of Igloolik) and was told: "We don't believe. We fear." Authors Inge Kleivan and Birgitte Sonne debate possible conclusions of Aua's words, because the angakkuq was under the influence of Christian missionaries, and later converted to Christianity. Their study also analyses beliefs of several Inuit groups, concluding (among others) that fear was not diffuse. First were unipkaaqs : myths, legends, and folktales which took place "back then" in the indefinite past (taimmani). == Inuit cultural beliefs == === Angakkuq === Among Canadian Inuit, a spiritual healer is known as an angakkuq (plural: angakkuit, Inuktitut syllabics ᐊᖓᑦᑯᖅ or ᐊᖓᒃᑯᖅ) in Inuktitut or angatkuq in Inuvialuktun. The duties of an angakkuq include helping the community when marine animals, kept by Takanaluk-arnaluk or Sea Woman in a pit in her house, become scarce, according to Aua, an informant and friend of the anthropologist Knud Rasmussen. Aua described the ability of an apprentice angakkuq to see himself as a skeleton, naming each part using the specific shaman language. === Inuit at Amitsoq Lake === The Inuit at Amitsoq Lake (a rich fishing ground) on King William Island had seasonal and other prohibitions for sewing certain items. Boot soles, for example, could only be sewn far away from settlements in designated places. Children at Amitsoq once had a game called tunangusartut in which they imitated the adults' behaviour towards the spirits, even reciting the same verbal formulae as angakkuit. According to Rasmussen, this game was not considered offensive because a "spirit can understand the joke." === Netsilik Inuit === The homelands of the Netsilik Inuit (Netsilingmiut meaning "People of the Seal") have extremely long winters and stormy springs. Starvation was a common danger. While other Inuit cultures feature protective guardian powers, the Netsilik have traditional beliefs that life's hardships stemmed from the extensive use of such measures. Unlike the Iglulik Inuit, the Netsilik used a large number of amulets. Even dogs could have amulets. In one recorded instance, a young boy had 80 amulets, so many that he could hardly play. One particular man had 17 names taken from his ancestors and intended to protect him. Tattooing among Netsilik women provided power and could affect which world they went to after their deaths. Nuliajuk, the Sea Woman, was described as "the lubricous one". If the people breached certain taboos, she held marine animals in the basin of her qulliq (an oil lamp that burns seal fat). When this happened, the angakkuq had to visit her to beg for game. In Netsilik oral history, she was originally an orphan girl mistreated by her community. Moon Man, another cosmic being, is benevolent towards humans and their souls as they arrived in celestial places. This belief differs from that of the Greenlandic Inuit, in which the Moon's wrath could be invoked by breaking taboos. Sila or Silap Inua, often associated with weather, is conceived of as a power contained within people. Among the Netsilik, Sila was imagined as a male. The Netsilik (and Copper Inuit) believed Sila was originally a giant baby whose parents died fighting giants. === Caribou Inuit === Caribou Inuit is a collective name for several groups of inland Inuit (the Krenermiut, Aonarktormiut, Harvaktormiut, Padlermiut, and Ahearmiut) living in an area bordered by the tree line and the west shore of Hudson Bay. They do not form a political unit and maintain only loose contact, but they share an inland lifestyle and some cultural unity. In the recent past, the Padlermiut took part in seal hunts in the ocean. The Caribou have a dualistic concept of the soul. The soul associated with respiration is called umaffia (place of life) and the personal soul of a child is called tarneq (corresponding to the nappan of the Copper Inuit). The tarneq is considered so weak that it needs the guardianship of a name-soul of a dead relative. The presence of the ancestor in the body of the child was felt to contribute to a more gentle behavior, especially among boys. This belief amounted to a form of reincarnation. Because of their inland lifestyle, the Caribou have no belief concerning a Sea Woman. Other cosmic beings, named Sila or Pinga, control the caribou, as opposed to marine animals. Some groups have made a distinction between the two figures, while others have considered them the same. Sacrificial offerings to them could promote luck in hunting. Caribou angakkuit performed fortune-telling through qilaneq, a technique of asking questions to a qila (spirit). The angakkuq placed his glove on the ground and raised his staff and belt over it. The qila then entered the glove and drew the staff to itself. Qilaneq was practiced among several other Alaskan Native groups and provided "yes" or "no" answers to questions. === Copper Inuit === Spiritual beliefs and practices among Inuit are diverse, just like the cultures themselves. Similar remarks apply for other beliefs: term silap inua / sila, hillap inua / hilla (among Inuit), ellam yua / ella (among Yup'ik) has been used with some diversity among the groups. In many instances it refers to "outer space", "intellect", "weather", "sky", "universe": there may be some correspondence with the presocratic concept of logos. In some other groups, this concept was more personified ([sɬam juɣwa] among Siberian Yupik). Among Copper Inuit, this "Wind Indweller" concept is related to spiritual practice: angakkuit were believed to obtain their power from this indweller, moreover, even their helping spirits were termed as silap inue. === Greenland Inuit === Greenlandic Inuit believed that spirits inhabited every human joint, even knucklebones. == Anirniit == The Inuit believed that all things have a form of spirit or soul (Inuktitut: anirniq meaning "breath"; plural anirniit), just like humans. These spirits are held to persist after death—a common belief present in most human societies. However, the belief in the pervasiveness of spirits—the root of Inuit worldview—has consequences. According to a customary Inuit saying, "The great peril of our existence lies in the fact that our diet consists entirely of souls." Since all beings possess souls like those of humans, killing an animal is little different from killing a person. Once the anirniq of the dead animal or human is liberated, it is free to take revenge. The spirit of the dead can only be placated by obedience to custom, avoiding taboos, and performing the right rituals. The harshness and randomness of life in the Arctic ensured that Inuit lived constantly in fear of unseen forces. A run of bad luck could end an entire community and begging potentially angry and vengeful but unseen powers for the necessities of day-to-day survival is a common consequence of a precarious existence. For the Inuit, to offend an anirniq was to risk extinction. The principal role of the angakkuq in Inuit culture and society was to advise and remind people of the rituals and taboos they needed to obey to placate the spirits, since he was held to be able to see and contact them. The anirniit are seen to be a part of the sila—the sky or air around them—and are merely borrowed from it. Although each person's anirniq is individual, shaped by the life and body it inhabits, at the same time it is part of a larger whole. This enabled Inuit to borrow the powers or characteristics of an anirniq by taking its name. Furthermore, the spirits of a single class of thing—be it sea mammals, polar bears, or plants—are in some sense held to be the same and can be invoked through a keeper or master who is connected with that class of thing. In some cases, it is the anirniq of a human or animal who becomes a figure of respect or influence over animals things through some action, recounted in a traditional tale. In other cases, it is a tuurngaq, as described below. Since the arrival of Christianity among the Inuit, anirniq has become the accepted word for 'soul' in the Christian sense. This is the root word for other Christian terms: anirnisiaq means angel and God is rendered as anirnialuk, the great spirit. Humans were a complex of three main parts: two souls (iñuusiq and iḷitqusiq: perhaps "life force" and "personal spirit") and a name soul (atiq). After death, the iñuusiq departed for the east, but the other soul components could be reborn. == Tuurngait == Some spirits have never been connected to physical bodies. These are called tuurngait (also tornait, tornat, tornrait, singular tuurngaq, torngak, tornrak, tarngek) and "are often described as a shaman's helping spirits, whose nature depends on the respective angakkuq". Helpful spirits can be called upon in times of need and "are there to help people", as explained by Inuit elder Victor Tungilik. Some tuurngait are evil, monstrous, and responsible for bad hunts and broken tools. They can possess humans, as recounted in the story of Atanarjuat. An angakkuq with good intentions can use them to heal sickness and find animals to hunt and feed the community. They can fight or exorcise bad tuurngait, or they can be held at bay by rituals; However, an angakkuq with harmful intentions can also use tuurngait for their own personal gain, or to attack other people and their tuurngait. Though once tuurngaq simply meant "killing spirit", it has, with Christianisation, taken on the meaning of a demon in the Christian belief system. == Inuit shamanism == Shamans (anatquq or angakkuq in the Inuit languages of northern parts of Alaska and Canada) played an important role in the religion of Inuit acting as religious leaders, tradesmen, healers, and characters in cultural stories holding mysterious, powerful, and sometimes superhuman abilities. The idea of calling shamans "medicine men" is an outdated concept born from the accounts of early explorers and trappers who grouped all shamans together into this bubble. The term "medicine man" does not give the shamans justice and causes misconceptions about their dealings and actions. Despite the fact they are almost always considered healers, this is not the complete extent of their duties and abilities and detaches them from their role as a mediator between normal humans and the world of spirits, animals, and souls for the traditional Inuit. There is no strict definition of shaman and there is no strict role they have in society. Despite this, their ability to heal is nearly universal in their description. It has been described as "breathing or blowing away" the sickness but there is not set method any one shaman or groups of shamans perform their deeds. Even though their methods are varied, a few key elements remain in virtually all accounts and stories. In order to cure or remove an ailment from someone, the shaman must be skilled in their own right but must have the faith of those being helped. In stories of shamans there is a time of crisis and they are expected to resolve, alleviate, or otherwise give resolution or meaning to the crisis. These crises often involve survival against the natural elements or disputes between people that could end in death. In one such story, a hunter kidnapped a man's daughter and a shaman described in terms of belonging to the man. The shaman pulled the daughter back with a magic string. The shaman is also able to bestow gifts and extraordinary abilities to people and to items such as tools. Some stories recount shamans as unpredictable, easily angered, and pleased in unusual ways. This could be shown as illustrating that despite their abilities and tune with nature and spirits, they are fickle and not without fault. There are stories of people attempting to impersonate shamans for their own gain by pretending to have fantastical abilities such as being able to fly only to be discovered and punished. A handful of accounts imply shamans may be feared in some cases for their abilities as they specify that someone did not fear being approached and talked to by a shaman. This leads to further ideas that the shaman's power was to be greatly respected and the idea that the shaman was not necessarily always a fair and good force for the people around them. The Christianization of the Inuit by both willing conversion and being forcefully pressured into converting to Christianity has largely destroyed the tradition of the shaman. Priests, pastors, and other Christian religious authorities replaced the shamans as the connection between the human world and the other world. == Deities == Below is an incomplete list of Inuit deities believed to hold power over some specific part of the Inuit world: Agloolik: evil god of the sea who can flip boats over; spirit which lives under the ice and helps wanderers in hunting and fishing Akna: mother goddess of fertility Amaguq/Amarok: wolf god who takes those foolish enough to hunt alone at night Anguta: gatherer of the dead; he carries them into the underworld, where they must sleep for a year. Ignirtoq: a goddess of light and truth. Nanook: (Nanuq or Nanuk in the modern spelling) the master of polar bears Pinga: the goddess of strength, the hunt, fertility and medicine Qailertetang: weather spirit, guardian of animals, and matron of fishers and hunters. Qailertetang is the companion of Sedna. Sedna: the mistress of sea animals and mother of the sea. Sedna (Sanna in modern Inuktitut spelling) is known under many names, including Nerrivik, Arnapkapfaaluk, Arnakuagsak, and Nuliajuk. Silap Inua or Sila: personification of the air Tekkeitsertok: the master of caribou. Tarqiup Inua: lunar deity Pukkeenegak: Goddess of domestic life, including sewing and cooking. == Creatures and spirits == Ahkiyyini: a skeleton spirit Aningaat: a boy who became the moon; brother to Siqiniq, the sun; sometimes equated to the lunar deity Tarqiup Inua Aumanil: a spirit which dwelled on the land and guided the seasonal movement of whales Qallupilluit: monstrous human-like creatures with that live in the sea and carry off disobedient children. Saumen Kar: also called Tornit or Tuniit are the Inuit version of the Sasquatch or Yeti myth. They may be the people of the Dorset culture who were said to be giants. Siqiniq: a girl who became the sun; sister to Aningaat, the moon Tizheruk: snake-like monsters. == See also == Inuit group, a set of satellites that orbit Saturn, many named after figures from Inuit religion == References == === Footnotes === === Bibliography === == Further reading == === Fiction ===

Inuit languages

The Inuit languages are a closely related group of indigenous American languages traditionally spoken across the North American Arctic and the adjacent subarctic regions as far south as Labrador. The Inuit languages are one of the two branches of the Eskimoan language family, the other being the Yupik languages, which are spoken in Alaska and the Russian Far East. Most Inuit people live in one of three countries: Greenland, a self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark; Canada, specifically in Nunavut, the Inuvialuit Settlement Region of the Northwest Territories, the Nunavik region of Quebec, and the Nunatsiavut and NunatuKavut regions of Labrador; and the United States, specifically in northern and western Alaska. The total population of Inuit speaking their traditional languages is difficult to assess with precision, since most counts rely on self-reported census data that may not accurately reflect usage or competence. Greenland census estimates place the number of Inuit language speakers there at roughly 50,000. According to the 2021 Canadian census, the Inuit population of Canada is 70,540, of which 33,790 report Inuit as their first language. Greenland and Canada account for the bulk of Inuit speakers, although about 7,500 Alaskans speak some variety of an Inuit language out of a total population of over 13,000 Inuit. An estimated 7,000 Greenlandic Inuit live in Denmark, the largest group outside of North America. Thus, the total population of Inuit speakers is about 100,000 people. == Nomenclature == The traditional language of the Inuit is a system of closely interrelated dialects that are not readily comprehensible from one end of the Inuit world to the other; some people do not think of it as a single language but rather a group of languages. However, there are no clear criteria for breaking the Inuit language into specific member languages since it forms a dialect continuum. Each band of Inuit understands its neighbours, and most likely its neighbours' neighbours; but at some remove, comprehensibility drops to a very low level. As a result, Inuit in different places use different words for its own variants and for the entire group of languages, and this ambiguity has been carried into other languages, creating a great deal of confusion over what labels should be applied to it. In Greenland the official form of Inuit language, and the official language of the state, is called Kalaallisut. In other languages, it is often called Greenlandic or some cognate term. The Inuit languages of Alaska are called Inupiatun, but the variants of the Seward Peninsula are distinguished from the other Alaskan variants by calling them Qawiaraq, or for some dialects, Bering Strait Inupiatun. In Canada, the word Inuktitut is routinely used to refer to all Canadian variants of the Inuit traditional language, and it is under that name that it is recognised as one of the official languages of Nunavut and the Northwest Territories. However, one of the variants of western Nunavut, and the eastern Northwest Territories, is called Inuinnaqtun to distinguish itself from the dialects of eastern Canada, while the variants of the Northwest Territories are sometimes called Inuvialuktun and have in the past sometimes been called Inuktun. In those dialects, the name is sometimes rendered as Inuktitun to reflect dialectal differences in pronunciation. The Inuit language of Quebec is called Inuttitut by its speakers, and often by other people, but this is a minor variation in pronunciation. In Labrador, the language is called Inuttut or, often in official documents, by the more descriptive name Labradorimiutut. Furthermore, Canadians – both Inuit and non-Inuit – sometimes use the word Inuktitut to refer to all Inuit language variants, including those of Alaska and Greenland. The phrase "Inuit language" is largely limited to professional discourse, since in each area, there is one or more conventional terms that cover all the local variants; or it is used as a descriptive term in publications where readers can't necessarily be expected to know the locally used words. In Nunavut the government groups all dialects of Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun under the term Inuktut. Although many people refer to the Inuit language as Eskimo language, this is a broad term that also includes the Yupik languages, and is in addition strongly discouraged in Canada and diminishing in usage elsewhere. See the article on Eskimo for more information on this word. == Classification and history == The Inuit languages constitute a branch of the Eskimo–Aleut language family. They are closely related to the Yupik languages and more remotely to Aleut. These other languages are all spoken in western Alaska, United States, and eastern Chukotka, Russia. They are not discernibly related to other indigenous languages of the Americas or northeast Asia, although there have been some unsubstantiated proposals that they are distantly related to the Uralic languages of western Siberia and northern Europe, in a proposed Uralo-Siberian grouping, or even to the Indo-European languages as part of a Nostratic superphylum. Some had previously lumped them in with the Paleosiberian languages, though that is a geographic rather than a linguistic grouping. Early forms of the Inuit language are believed to have been spoken by the Thule people, who migrated east from Beringia towards the Arctic Archipelago, which had been occupied by people of the Dorset culture since the beginning of the 2nd millennium. By 1300, the Inuit and their language had reached western Greenland, and finally east Greenland roughly at the same time the Viking colonies in southern Greenland disappeared. It is generally believed that it was during this centuries-long eastward migration that the Inuit language became distinct from the Yupik languages spoken in Western Alaska and Chukotka. Until 1902, a possible enclave of the Dorset, the Sadlermiut (in modern Inuktitut spelling Sallirmiut), existed on Southampton Island. Almost nothing is known about their language, but the few eyewitness accounts tell of them speaking a "strange dialect". This suggests that they also spoke an Inuit language, but one quite distinct from the forms spoken in Canada today. The Yupik and Inuit languages are very similar syntactically and morphologically. Their common origin can be seen in a number of cognates: The western Alaskan variants retain a large number of features present in proto-Inuit language and in Yup'ik, enough so that they might be classed as Yup'ik languages if they were viewed in isolation from the larger Inuit world. == Geographic distribution and variants == The Inuit languages are a fairly closely linked set of languages which can be broken up using a number of different criteria. Traditionally, Inuit describe dialect differences by means of place names to describe local idiosyncrasies in language: The dialect of Igloolik versus the dialect of Iqaluit, for example. However, political and sociological divisions are increasingly the principal criteria for describing different variants of the Inuit languages because of their links to different writing systems, literary traditions, schools, media sources and borrowed vocabulary. This makes any partition of the Inuit language somewhat problematic. This article will use labels that try to synthesise linguistic, sociolinguistic and political considerations in splitting up the Inuit dialect spectrum. This scheme is not the only one used or necessarily one used by Inuit themselves, but its labels do try to reflect the usages most seen in popular and technical literature. In addition to the territories listed below, some 7,000 Greenlandic speakers are reported to live in mainland Denmark, and according to the 2001 census roughly 200 self-reported Inuktitut native speakers regularly live in parts of Canada which are outside traditional Inuit lands. === Alaska === Of the roughly 13,000 Alaskan Iñupiat, as few as 3000 may still be able to speak the Iñupiaq, with most of them over the age of 40. Alaskan Inupiat speak three distinct dialects, which have difficult mutual intelligibility: Qawiaraq is spoken on the southern side of the Seward Peninsula and the Norton Sound area. In the past it was spoken in Chukotka, particularly Big Diomede island, but appears to have vanished in Russian areas through assimilation into Yupik, Chukchi and Russian-speaking communities. It is radically different in phonology from other Inuit language variants. Inupiatun (North Slope Iñupiaq) is spoken on the Alaska North Slope and in the Kotzebue Sound area. Malimiutun or Malimiut Inupiatun, which are the variants of the Kotzebue Sound area and the northwest of Alaska . === Canada === The Inuit languages are official in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut (the dominant language in the latter); have a high level of official support in Nunavik, a semi-autonomous portion of Quebec; and are still spoken in some parts of Labrador. Generally, Canadians refer to all dialects spoken in Canada as Inuktitut, but the terms Inuvialuktun, Inuinnaqtun, and Inuttut (also called Nunatsiavummiutut, Labradorimiutut or Inuttitut) have some currency in referring to the variants of specific areas. ==== Western Canadian Inuit ==== Inuvialuktun (from west to east) Uummarmiutun (Canadian Iñupiaq) Siglitun (Sallirmiutun) Inuinnaqtun Natsilingmiutut Kivallirmiutut (Kivalliq) Aivilingmiutut (Ailivik) Iglulingmiut (Qikiqtaaluk Uannanganii) ==== Eastern Canadian Inuit ==== Inuktitut Qikiqtaaluk Nigiani Nunavimmiututut Inuttitut (Nunatsiavummiut) === Greenland === Greenland counts approximately 50,000 speakers of the Inuit languages, over 90% of whom speak west Greenlandic dialects at home. Kalaallisut, Greenlandic in English, is the standard dialect and official language of Greenland. This standard national language has been taught to all Greenlanders since schools were established, regardless of their native dialect. It reflects almost exclusively the language of western Greenland and has borrowed a great deal of vocabulary from Danish (in contrast the Canadian and Alaskan Inuit languages have tended to borrow from English, French or Russian). It is written using the Latin script. The dialect of the Upernavik area in northwest Greenland is somewhat different in phonology from the standard dialect. Tunumiit oraasiat, the Tunumiit dialect (or Tunumiisut in Greenlandic, often East Greenlandic in other languages), is the dialect of eastern Greenland. It differs sharply from other Inuit language variants and has roughly 3000 speakers according to Ethnologue. Inuktun (Or Avanersuarmiutut in Greenlandic) is the dialect of the area around Qaanaaq in northern Greenland. It is sometimes called the Thule dialect or North Greenlandic. This area is the northernmost settlement area of the Inuit and has a relatively small number of speakers. It is reputed to be fairly close to the North Baffin dialect, since a group of migratory Inuit from Baffin Island settled in the area during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It counts under 1000 speakers according to Ethnologue. Greenlandic was strongly supported by the Danish Christian mission (conducted by the Danish state church) in Greenland. Several major dictionaries were created, beginning with Poul Egedes's Dictionarium Grönlandico-danico-latinum (1750) and culminating with Samuel Kleinschmidt's (1871) Den grønlandske ordbog ('The Greenlandic Dictionary'), which contained a Greenlandic grammatical system that has formed the basis of modern Greenlandic grammar. Together with the fact that until 1925 Danish was not taught in the public schools, these policies had the consequence that Greenlandic has always and continues to enjoy a very strong position in Greenland, both as a spoken as well as written language. == Phonology and phonetics == Eastern Canadian Inuit language variants have fifteen consonants and three vowels (which can be long or short). Consonants are arranged with five places of articulation: bilabial, alveolar, palatal, velar and uvular; and three manners of articulation: voiceless stops, voiced continuants, and nasals, as well as two additional sounds—voiceless fricatives. The Alaskan dialects have an additional manner of articulation, the retroflex, which was present in proto-Inuit language. Retroflexes have disappeared in all the Canadian and Greenlandic dialects. In Natsilingmiutut, the voiced palatal stop /ɟ/ derives from a former retroflex. Almost all Inuit language variants have only three basic vowels and make a phonological distinction between short and long forms of all vowels. The only exceptions are at the extreme edges of the Inuit world: parts of Greenland, and in western Alaska. == Morphology and syntax == The Inuit languages, like other Eskimo–Aleut languages, have very rich morphological systems in which a succession of different morphemes are added to root words (like verb endings in European languages) to indicate things that, in languages like English, would require several words to express. (See also: Agglutinative language and Polysynthetic language) All Inuit words begin with a root morpheme to which other morphemes are suffixed. The language has hundreds of distinct suffixes, in some dialects as many as 700. Fortunately for learners, the language has a highly regular morphology. Although the rules are sometimes very complicated, they do not have exceptions in the sense that English and other Indo-European languages do. This system makes words very long, and potentially unique. For example, in central Nunavut Inuktitut: This sort of word construction is pervasive in the Inuit languages and makes them very unlike English. In one large Canadian corpus – the Nunavut Hansard – 92% of all words appear only once, in contrast to a small percentage in most English corpora of similar size. This makes the application of Zipf's law quite difficult in the Inuit language. Furthermore, the notion of a part of speech can be somewhat complicated in the Inuit languages. Fully inflected verbs can be interpreted as nouns. The word ilisaijuq can be interpreted as a fully inflected verb: "he studies", but can also be interpreted as a noun: "student". That said, the meaning is probably obvious to a fluent speaker, when put in context. The morphology and syntax of the Inuit languages vary to some degree between dialects, and the article Inuit grammar describes primarily central Nunavut dialects, but the basic principles will generally apply to all of them and to some degree to Yupik languages as well. == Vocabulary == === Toponymy and names === Both the names of places and people tend to be highly prosaic when translated. Iqaluit, for example, is simply the plural of the noun iqaluk "fish" ("Arctic char", "salmon" or "trout" depending on dialect). Igloolik (Iglulik) means place with houses, a word that could be interpreted as simply town; Inuvik is place of people; Baffin Island, Qikiqtaaluk in Inuktitut, translates approximately to "big island". Common native names in Canada include "Ujarak" (rock), "Nuvuk" (headland), "Nasak" (hat, or hood), "Tupiq" or "Tupeq" in Kalaallisut (tent), and "Qajaq" (kayak). Inuit also use animal names, traditionally believing that by using those names, they took on some of the characteristics of that animal: "Nanuq" or "Nanoq" in Kalaallisut (polar-bear), "Uqalik" or "Ukaleq" in Kalaallisut (Arctic hare), and "Tiriaq" or "Teriaq" in Kalaallisut (mouse) are favourites. In other cases, Inuit are named after dead people or people in traditional tales, by naming them after anatomical traits those people are believed to have had. Examples include "Itigaituk" (has no feet), "Anana" or "Anaana" (mother), "Piujuq" (beautiful) and "Tulimak" (rib). Inuit may have any number of names, given by parents and other community members. === Disc numbers and Project Surname === In the 1920s, changes in lifestyle and serious epidemics such as tuberculosis made the government of Canada interested in tracking the Inuit of Canada's Arctic. Traditionally Inuit names reflect what is important in Inuit culture: environment, landscape, seascape, family, animals, birds, spirits. However these traditional names were difficult for non-Inuit to parse. Also, the agglutinative nature of Inuit language meant that names seemed long and were difficult for southern bureaucrats and missionaries to pronounce. Thus, in the 1940s, the Inuit were given disc numbers, recorded on a special leather ID tag, similar to a dog tag. They were required to keep the tag with them always. (Some tags are now so old and worn that the number is polished out.) The numbers were assigned with a letter prefix that indicated location (E = east), community, and then the order in which the census-taker saw the individual. In some ways this state renaming was abetted by the churches and missionaries, who viewed the traditional names and their calls to power as related to shamanism and paganism. They encouraged people to take Christian names. So a young woman who was known to her relatives as "Lutaaq, Pilitaq, Palluq, or Inusiq" and had been baptised as "Annie" was under this system to become Annie E7-121. People adopted the number-names, their family members' numbers, etc., and learned all the region codes (like knowing a telephone area code). Until Inuit began studying in the south, many did not know that numbers were not normal parts of Christian and English naming systems. Then in 1969, the government started Project Surname, headed by Abe Okpik, to replace number-names with patrilineal "family surnames". === Words for snow === A popular belief exists that the Inuit have an unusually large number of words for snow. This is not accurate, and results from a misunderstanding of the nature of polysynthetic languages. In fact, the Inuit have only a few base roots for snow: 'qanniq-' ('qanik-' in some dialects), which is used most often like the verb to snow, and 'aput', which means snow as a substance. Parts of speech work very differently in the Inuit language than in English, so these definitions are somewhat misleading. The Inuit languages can form very long words by adding more and more descriptive affixes to words. Those affixes may modify the syntactic and semantic properties of the base word, or may add qualifiers to it in much the same way that English uses adjectives or prepositional phrases to qualify nouns (e.g. "falling snow", "blowing snow", "snow on the ground", "snow drift", etc.) The "fact" that there are many Inuit words for snow has been put forward so often that it has become a journalistic cliché. === Numbers === The Inuit use a base-20 counting system. == Writing == Because the Inuit languages are spread over such a large area, divided between different nations and political units and originally reached by Europeans of different origins at different times, there is no uniform way of writing the Inuit language. Currently there are six "standard" ways to write the languages: ICI Standard Syllabics (Canada) ICI Standard Latin script (Canada) Nunatsiavut Latin script (Canada) Inuktut Qaliujaaqpait (Canada) Alaskan Inupiaq script (US) Greenlandic Though all except the syllabics use a Latin-based script, the alphabets differ in use of diacritics, non-Latin letters, etc. Most Inuktitut in Nunavut and Nunavik is written using a script called Inuktitut syllabics, based on Canadian Aboriginal syllabics. The western part of Nunavut and the Northwest Territories use a Latin-script alphabet usually identified as Inuinnaqtun. In Alaska, another Latin alphabet is used, with some characters using diacritics. Nunatsiavut uses an alphabet devised with German-speaking Moravian missionaries, which includes the letter kra. Greenland's Latin alphabet was originally much like the one used in Nunatsiavut, but underwent a spelling reform in 1973 to bring the orthography in line with changes in pronunciation and better reflect the phonemic inventory of the language. === Canadian syllabics === Inuktitut syllabics, used in Canada, is based on Cree syllabics, devised by the missionary James Evans based on Devanagari, a Brahmi script. The present form of Canadian Inuktitut syllabics was adopted by the Inuit Cultural Institute in Canada in the 1970s. Though presented in syllabic form, syllabics is not a true syllabary but an abugida, since syllables starting with the same consonant are written with graphically similar letters. All of the characters needed for Inuktitut syllabics are available in the Unicode character repertoire, in the blocks Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics. === Inuktut Qaliujaaqpait === The Canadian national organization Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami adopted Inuktut Qaliujaaqpait, a unified orthography for all varieties of Inuktitut, in September 2019. It is based on the Latin alphabet without diacritics. == Further reading == Alaa Elassar (19 Feb 2022). "This Inuk woman is teaching her Indigenous language online to help others reconnect with Inuit culture". CNN. == See also == Duncan Pryde Inuit Sign Language Yupik languages Uralo Siberian Inupiaq language == References == Alia, Valerie (1994) Names, Numbers and Northern policy: Inuit, Project Surname and the Politics of Identity. Halifax NS: Fernwood Publishing. Collis, Dirmid R. F., ed. Arctic Languages: An Awakening ISBN 92-3-102661-5 "Available in PDF via the UNESCO website" (PDF). (2.68 MB). Dorais, Louis-Jacques (2010) The Language of the Inuit. Syntax, Semantics, and Society in the Arctic. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press. Greenhorn, Beth Project Naming: Always On Our Minds, Library and Archives Canada, Canada. Mallon, Mick Inuktitut Linguistics for Technocrats. Mallon, Mick (1991) Introductory Inuktitut and Introductory Inuktitut Reference Grammar. ISBN 0-7717-0230-2 and ISBN 0-7717-0235-3. Okpik, Abe. Disk Numbers. (Okpik received the Order of Canada for his work on Project Surname) [1] Archived 2008-07-26 at the Wayback Machine Project Naming Website. Spalding, Alex (1998) Inuktitut: A Multi-dialectal Outline Dictionary (with an Aivilingmiutaq base). ISBN 1-896204-29-5. Spalding, Alex (1992) Inuktitut: a Grammar of North Baffin Dialects. ISBN 0-920063-43-8. == External links == === Dictionaries and lexica === Interactive IñupiaQ Dictionary Oqaasileriffik Language database "Inuktitut Morphology List" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2005-09-30. (133 KiB) Textbook === Webpages === A Brief History of Inuktitut Writing Culture Inuktitut Syllabarium Our Language, Our Selves Archived 2005-11-11 at the Wayback Machine Alt.folklore.urban on Eskimo words for snow. Report of the third Danish Chukotka expedition with information on the Chukotka Yupik === Unicode support === Code Charts

Greenlandic Inuit

The Greenlandic Inuit or Greenlanders (Greenlandic: kalaallit, Danish: Grønlandsk Inuit) are the indigenous and most populous ethnic group in Greenland. Most speak Greenlandic (Western Greenlandic, Kalaallisut) and consider themselves ethnically Greenlandic. People of Greenland are both citizens of Denmark and citizens of the European Union. Approximately 89 percent of Greenland's population of 57,695 is Greenlandic Inuit, or 51,349 people as of 2012. Ethnographically, they consist of three major groups: the Kalaallit of west Greenland, who speak Kalaallisut the Tunumiit of Tunu (east Greenland), who speak Tunumiit oraasiat ("East Greenlandic") the Inughuit of north Greenland, who speak Inuktun ("Polar Inuit") Historically, Kalaallit referred specifically to the people of Western Greenland. Northern Greenlanders call themselves Avanersuarmiut or Inughuit, and Eastern Greenlanders call themselves Tunumiit, respectively. Today, most Greenlanders are bilingual speakers of Kalaallisut and Danish and most trace their lineage to the first Inuit that came to Greenland. The vast majority of ethnic Greenlanders reside in Greenland or elsewhere in the Danish Realm, primarily Denmark proper (approximately 20,000 Greenlanders reside in Denmark proper). A small minority reside in other countries, mostly elsewhere in Scandinavia and North America. There are though a number of Greenlanders and Greenlandic families who today are multiracial, mostly due to marriages between Greenlanders and Danes as well as other Europeans. == Regions == The Inuit are descended from the Thule people, who settled Greenland in between AD 1200 and 1400. As 84 percent of Greenland's land mass is covered by the Greenland ice sheet, Inuit people live in three regions: Polar, Eastern, and Western. In the 1850s, additional Canadian Inuit joined the Polar Inuit communities. The Eastern Inuit, or Tunumiit, live in the area with the mildest climate, a territory called Tunu or Tasiilaq. Hunters can hunt marine mammals from kayaks throughout the year. == Language == Kalaallisut is the official language of Greenland. It is the western variety of the Greenlandic language, which is one of the Inuit languages within the Eskimo-Aleut family. Kalaallisut is taught in schools and used widely in Greenlandic media. == History == The first people arrived in Greenland from the Canadian island of Ellesmere, around 2500 to 2000 BCE, from where they colonized north Greenland as the Independence I culture and south Greenland as the Saqqaq culture. The Early Dorset replaced these early Greenlanders around 700 BCE, and themselves lived on the island until c. 1 CE. These people were unrelated to the Inuit. Save for a Late Dorset recolonisation of northeast Greenland c. 700 CE, the island was then uninhabited until the Norse arrived in the 980s. Between 1000 and 1400, the Thule, ancestors of the Inuit, replaced the Dorset in Arctic Canada, and then moved into Greenland from the north. The Norse disappeared from southern Greenland in the 15th century, and although Scandinavians revisited the island in the 16th and 17th centuries, they did not resettle until 1721. In 1814, the Treaty of Kiel confirmed Greenland as a territory of Denmark. The primary method of survival for the Thule was hunting seal, narwhal, and walrus as well as gathering local plant material. Archaeological evidence of animal remains suggests that the Thule were well adjusted to Greenland and in such a way that they could afford to leave potential sources of fat behind. European visitors to Northeast Greenland before the early 19th century reported evidence of extensive Inuit settlement in the region although they encountered no humans. In 1823, Douglas Charles Clavering met a group of twelve Inuit in Clavering Island. Later expeditions, starting with the Second German North Polar Expedition in 1869, found the remains of many former settlements, but the population had apparently died out during the intervening years. In 1979, the Greenlanders voted to become autonomous. There is an active independence movement. The population of Greenlandic Inuit has fluctuated over the years. A smallpox outbreak reduced the population from 8,000 to 6,000 in the 18th century. The population doubled in 1900 to 12,000 then steadily rose by around 100 people each year from 1883–1919. Tuberculosis caused a drop in the population, but after several decades of steady birth rates and commercial fishing over traditional hunting, the population reached 41,000 in 1980. == Society == Gender roles among Greenlandic Inuit are flexible; however, historically men hunted and women prepared the meat and skins. Most marriages are by choice, as opposed to arranged, and monogamy is commonplace. Extended families are important to Inuit society. Greenland Inuit diet consists of a combination of local or traditional dishes and imported foods, with the majority of Inuit, aged 18 to 25 and 60 and older, preferring customary, local foods like whale skin and dried cod over imported foods like sausage or chicken. That study also reveals that those who grew up in villages only consumed local, Inuit cuisine foods 31 times a month and those who lived in Danish areas would consume local, Inuit cuisine 17 times per month. The reasons for the lack of traditional food consumption varies, but 48 percent of respondents claim that they wanted to have variety in their diet, 45 percent of respondents said it was difficult to obtain traditional foods, and 39 percent said that traditional foods were too expensive. The kinds of whale that have been historically hunted and consumed are the Minke and Fin whales, both are under watch by the International Whaling Commission (IWC). Greenland Home Rule implemented IWC quotas on aboriginal whale hunting, reducing hunting of Minke whales to a maximum of 115 per year and Fin whales to 21 per year. == Art and spirituality == The Greenlandic Inuit have a strong artistic practice based on sewing animal skins (skin-sewing) and making masks. They are also known for an art form of figures called tupilait or "evil spirit objects". Sperm whale ivory (teeth) remains a valued medium for carving. Customary art-making practices thrive in Ammassalik Island. Ammassalik wooden maps are carved maps of the Greenlandic coastline, used in the late 19th century. Greenlandic Inuit believed that spirits inhabited every human joint, even knucklebones. == See also == List of features in Greenland named after Greenlandic Inuit Inuit Circumpolar Council Kayak angst == Notes == == References == Hessel, Ingo (2006). Arctic Spirit. Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre. ISBN 978-1-55365-189-5. == External links == Inuit Circumpolar Council: Greenland Culture and History of Greenland, Greenland Guide Colonialism in Greenland: An Inuit Perspective Archived 2017-10-31 at the Wayback Machine

Inuktitut

Inuktitut ( ih-NUUK-tə-tuut; Inuktitut: [inuktiˈtut], syllabics ᐃᓄᒃᑎᑐᑦ; from inuk, 'person' + -titut, 'like', 'in the manner of'), also known as Eastern Canadian Inuktitut, is one of the principal Inuit languages of Canada. It is spoken in all areas north of the North American tree line, including parts of the provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec, to some extent in northeastern Manitoba as well as the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. It is one of the aboriginal languages written with Canadian Aboriginal syllabics. It is recognized as an official language in Nunavut alongside Inuinnaqtun and both languages are known collectively as Inuktut. Further, it is recognized as one of eight official native tongues in the Northwest Territories. It also has legal recognition in Nunavik—a part of Quebec—thanks in part to the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, and is recognized in the Charter of the French Language as the official language of instruction for Inuit school districts there. It also has some recognition in NunatuKavut and Nunatsiavut—the Inuit area in Labrador—following the ratification of its agreement with the government of Canada and the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The 2016 Canadian census reports that 70,540 individuals identify themselves as Inuit, of whom 37,570 self-reported Inuktitut as their mother tongue. The term Inuktitut is also the name of a macrolanguage and, in that context, also includes Inuvialuktun, and thus nearly all Inuit dialects of Canada. However, Statistics Canada lists all Inuit languages in the Canadian census as Inuktut. == History == === Inuktitut in the Canadian school system === Before contact with Europeans, Inuit learned skills by example and participation. The Inuktitut language provided them with all the vocabulary required to describe traditional practices and natural features. Up to this point, it was solely an oral language. However, European colonialism brought the schooling system to Canada. The missionaries of the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches were the first ones to deliver formal education to Inuit in schools. The teachers used the Inuktitut language for instruction and developed writing systems. In 1928 the first residential school for Inuit opened, and English became the language of instruction. As the government's interests in the north increased, it started taking over the education of Inuit. After the end of World War II, English was seen as the language of communication in all domains. Officials expressed concerns about the difficulty for Inuit to find employment if they were not able to communicate in English. Inuit were supposed to use English at school, work, and even on the playground. Inuit themselves viewed Inuktitut as the way to express their feelings and be linked to their identity, while English was a tool for making money. In the 1960s, the European attitude towards the Inuktitut language started to change. Inuktitut was seen as a language worth preserving, and it was argued that knowledge, particularly in the first years of school, is best transmitted in the mother tongue. This set off the beginning of bilingual schools. In 1969, most Inuit voted to eliminate federal schools and replace them with programs by the General Directorate of New Quebec (Direction générale du Nouveau-Québec, DGNQ). Content was now taught in Inuktitut, English, and French. === Legislation === Inuktitut became one of the official languages in the Northwest Territories in 1984. Its status is secured in the Northwest Territories Official Language Act. With the split of the territory into the NWT and Nunavut in 1999, both territories kept the Language Act. The autonomous area Nunatsiavut in Labrador made Inuktitut the government language when it was formed in 2005. In Nunavik, the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement recognizes Inuktitut in the education system. == Languages and dialects == === Nunavut === Nunavut's basic law lists four official languages: English, French, Inuktitut, and Inuinnaqtun. It is ambiguous in state policy to what degree Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun can be thought of as separate languages. The words Inuktitut, or more correctly Inuktut ('Inuit language') are increasingly used to refer to both Inuinnaqtun and Inuktitut together, or "Inuit languages" in English. Nunavut is the home of some 24,000 Inuit, over 80% of whom speak Inuktitut. This includes some 3,500 people reported as monolinguals. The 2001 census data shows that the use of Inuktitut, while lower among the young than the elderly, has stopped declining in Canada as a whole and may even be increasing in Nunavut. The South Baffin dialect (Qikiqtaaluk nigiani, ᕿᑭᖅᑖᓗᒃ ᓂᒋᐊᓂ) is spoken across the southern part of Baffin Island, including the territorial capital Iqaluit. This has in recent years made it a much more widely heard dialect, since a great deal of Inuktitut media originates in Iqaluit. Some linguists also distinguish an East Baffin dialect from either South Baffin or North Baffin dialect, which is an Inuvialuktun dialect. As of the early 2000s, Nunavut has gradually implemented early childhood, elementary, and secondary school-level immersion programs within its education system to further preserve and promote the Inuktitut language. As of 2012, "Pirurvik, Iqaluit's Inuktitut language training centre, has a new goal: to train instructors from Nunavut communities to teach Inuktitut in different ways and in their own dialects when they return home." === Nunavik === Quebec is home to roughly 15,800 Inuit, nearly all of whom live in Nunavik. According to the 2021 census, 80.9% of Quebec Inuit speak Inuktitut. The Nunavik dialect (Nunavimmiutitut, ᓄᓇᕕᒻᒥᐅᑎᑐᑦ) is relatively close to the South Baffin dialect, but not identical. Because of the political and physical boundary between Nunavik and Nunavut, Nunavik has separate government and educational institutions from those in the rest of the Inuktitut-speaking world, resulting in a growing standardization of the local dialect as something separate from other forms of Inuktitut. In the Nunavik dialect, Inuktitut is called Nunavimmiutut (ᐃᓄᑦᑎᑐᑦ). This dialect is also sometimes called Tarramiutut or Taqramiutut (ᑕᕐᕋᒥᐅᑐᑦ or ᑕᖅᕐᕋᒥᐅᑐᑦ). Sub dialects of Inuktitut in this region include Tarrarmiut and Itivimuit. Itivimuit is associated with Inukjuak, Quebec, and there is an Itivimuit River near the town. === Labrador === The Nunatsiavut dialect (Inuttitut ᓄᓇᑦᓯᐊᕗᒻᒥᐅᑐᑦ or, often in government documents, Labradorimiutut) was once spoken across northern Labrador. It has a distinct writing system, developed in Greenland in the 1760s by German missionaries from the Moravian Church. This separate writing tradition, the remoteness of Nunatsiavut from other Inuit communities, has made it into a distinct dialect with a separate literary tradition. The Nunatsiavummiut call their language Inuttut (ᐃᓄᑦᑐᑦ). Although Nunatsiavut claims over 4,000 inhabitants of Inuit descent, only 550 reported Inuktitut to be their native language in the 2001 census, mostly in the town of Nain. Inuktitut is seriously endangered in Labrador. Nunatsiavut also had a separate dialect reputedly much closer to western Inuktitut dialects, spoken in the area around Rigolet. According to news reports, in 1999 it had only three very elderly speakers. === Greenland === Though often thought to be a dialect of Greenlandic, Inuktun or Polar Eskimo is a recent arrival in Greenland from the Eastern Canadian Arctic, arriving perhaps as late as the 18th century. === Inuit Nunaat and Inuit Nunangat === Throughout Inuit Nunaat and Inuit Nunangat the Inuktut is used to refer to Inuktitut and all other dialects. It is used by Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the Inuit Circumpolar Council, and the Government of Nunavut throughout Inuit Nunaat and Inuit Nunangat. == Phonology == Eastern dialects of Inuktitut have fifteen consonants and three vowels (which can be long or short). Consonants are arranged with six places of articulation: bilabial, labiodental, alveolar, palatal, velar and uvular; and three manners of articulation: voiceless stops, voiced continuants and nasals, as well as two additional sounds—voiceless fricatives. Natsilingmiutut has an additional consonant /ɟ/, a vestige of the retroflex consonants of Proto-Inuit. Inuinnaqtun has one fewer consonant, as /s/ and /ɬ/ have merged into /h/. All dialects of Inuktitut have only three basic vowels and make a phonological distinction between short and long forms of all vowels. In Inuujingajut—Nunavut standard Roman orthography—long vowels are written as a double vowel. All voiceless stops are unaspirated, like in many other languages. The voiceless uvular stop is usually written as q, but sometimes written as r. The voiceless lateral fricative is romanized as ɬ, but is often written as &, or simply as l. /ŋ/ is spelt as ng, and geminated /ŋ/ is spelt as nng. == Grammar == Inuktitut, like other Eskaleut languages, has a very rich morphological system, in which a succession of different morphemes are added to root words to indicate things that, in languages like English, would require several words to express. (See also: Agglutinative language and Polysynthetic language.) All words begin with a root morpheme to which other morphemes are suffixed. Inuktitut has hundreds of distinct suffixes, in some dialects as many as 700. However, it is highly regular, with rules that do not have exceptions like in English and other Indo-European languages, though they are sometimes very complicated. One example is the word qangatasuukkuvimmuuriaqalaaqtunga (ᖃᖓᑕᓲᒃᑯᕕᒻᒨᕆᐊᖃᓛᖅᑐᖓ) meaning 'I'll have to go to the airport: == Writing == === Latin alphabets === The western part of Nunavut and the Northwest Territories use a Latin alphabet usually called Inuinnaqtun or Qaliujaaqpait, reflecting the predispositions of the missionaries who reached this area in the late 19th century and early 20th. Moravian missionaries, with the purpose of introducing Inuit to Christianity and the Bible, contributed to the development of an Inuktitut alphabet in Greenland during the 1760s that was based on the Latin script. (This alphabet is distinguished by its inclusion of the letter kra, ĸ.) They later travelled to Labrador in the 1800s, bringing the Inuktitut alphabet with them. The Alaskan Yupik and Inupiat (who additionally developed their own syllabary) and the Siberian Yupik also adopted Latin alphabets. === Qaniujaaqpait === Most Inuktitut in Nunavut and Nunavik is written using a scheme called Qaniujaaqpait or Inuktitut syllabics, based on Canadian Aboriginal syllabics. In the 1860s, missionaries imported this system of Qaniujaaqpait, which they had developed in their efforts to convert the Cree to Christianity, to the Eastern Canadian Inuit. The Netsilik Inuit in Kugaaruk and north Baffin Island adopted Qaniujaaqpait by the 1920s. In September 2019, a unified orthography called Inuktut Qaliujaaqpait, based on the Latin alphabet without diacritics, was adopted for all varieties of Inuktitut by the national organization Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, after eight years of work. It was developed by Inuit to be used by speakers of any dialect from any region, and can be typed on electronic devices without specialized keyboard layouts. It does not replace syllabics, and people from the regions are not required to stop using their familiar writing systems. Implementation plans are to be established for each region. It includes letters such as ff, ch, and rh, the sounds for which exist in some dialects but do not have standard equivalents in syllabics. It establishes a standard alphabet but not spelling or grammar rules. Long vowels are written by doubling the vowel (e.g., aa, ii, uu). The apostrophe represents a glottal stop when after a vowel (e.g., maꞌna), or separates an n from an ng (e.g., avin'ngaq) or an r from an rh (e.g., qar'rhuk). In April 2012, with the completion of the Old Testament, the first complete Bible in Inuktitut, translated by native speakers, was published. Noted literature in Inuktitut has included the novels Harpoon of the Hunter by Markoosie Patsauq, and Sanaaq by Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk. === The Canadian syllabary === The Inuktitut syllabary used in Canada is based on the Cree syllabary devised by the missionary James Evans. The present form of the syllabary for Canadian Inuktitut was adopted by the Inuit Cultural Institute in Canada in the 1970s. Inuit in Alaska, Inuvialuit, Inuinnaqtun speakers, and Inuit in Greenland and Labrador use Latin alphabets. Though conventionally called a syllabary, the writing system has been classified by some observers as an abugida, since syllables starting with the same consonant have related glyphs rather than unrelated ones. All of the characters needed for the Inuktitut syllabary are available in the Unicode block Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics. The territorial government of Nunavut, Canada, has developed TrueType fonts called Pigiarniq (ᐱᒋᐊᕐᓂᖅ [pi.ɡi.aʁ.ˈniq]), Uqammaq (ᐅᖃᒻᒪᖅ [u.qam.maq]), and Euphemia (ᐅᕓᒥᐊ [u.vai.mi.a]) for computer displays. They were designed by Vancouver-based Tiro Typeworks. Apple Macintosh computers include an Inuktitut IME (Input Method Editor) as part of keyboard language options. Linux distributions provide locale and language support for Iñupiaq, Kalaallisut and Inuktitut. === Braille === In 2012 Tamara Kearney, Manager of Braille Research and Development at the Commonwealth Braille and Talking Book Cooperative, developed a Braille code for the Inuktitut language syllabics. This code is based on representing the syllabics' orientation. Machine translation from Unicode UTF-8 and UTF-16 can be performed using the Liblouis Braille translation system which includes an Inuktitut Braille translation table. The book ᐃᓕᐊᕐᔪᒃ ᓇᓄᕐᓗ (The Orphan and the Polar Bear) became the first work ever translated into Inuktitut Braille, and a copy is held at the headquarters of the Nunavut Public Library Services at Baker Lake. == See also == Indigenous languages of the Americas Thule people == References == == Bibliography == == Further reading == == External links == === Dictionaries and lexica === "Inuktitut Morphology List" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 30 September 2005. (133 KB) === Webpages === A Brief History of Inuktitut Writing Culture Inuktitut Syllabarium (Languagegeek) Our Language, Our Selves Archived 11 November 2005 at the Wayback Machine Government of Nunavut font download Inuktitut-friendly website hosting and development Tusaalanga ("Let me hear it"), a website with Inuktitut online lessons with sound files === Utilities === NANIVARA – Inuktitut Search Engine. – NANIVARA means "I've found it!" in Inuktitut.

Inuit cuisine

Historically, Inuit cuisine, which is taken here to include Greenlandic, Yupʼik and Aleut cuisine, consisted of a diet of animal source foods that were fished, hunted, and gathered locally. In the 20th century the Inuit diet began to change and by the 21st century the diet was closer to a Western diet. After hunting, they often honour the animals' spirit by singing songs and performing rituals. Although traditional or country foods still play an important role in the identity of Inuit, much food is purchased from the store, which has led to health problems and food insecurity. According to Edmund Searles in his article Food and the Making of Modern Inuit Identities, they consume this type of diet because a mostly meat diet is "effective in keeping the body warm, making the body strong, keeping the body fit, and even making that body healthy". == Food sources == Hunted meats: Sea mammals such as walrus, seal, and whale. Whale meat generally comes from the narwhal, beluga whale and the bowhead whale. The latter is able to feed an entire community for nearly a year from its meat, blubber, and skin. Inuit hunters most often hunt juvenile whales which, compared to adults, are safer to hunt and have tastier skin. Ringed seal and bearded seal are the most crucial aspect of an Inuit diet and is often the largest part of an Inuk hunter's diet. Land mammals such as reindeer (caribou), polar bear, and muskox Birds and their eggs Saltwater and freshwater fish including sculpin, Arctic cod, Arctic char, capelin and lake trout. While it is not possible to cultivate native plants for food in the Arctic, Inuit have traditionally gathered those that are naturally available, including: Berries including crowberry and cloudberry Herbaceous plants such as grasses and fireweed Tubers and stems including mousefood, roots of various tundra plants which are cached by voles in burrows. Roots such as tuberous spring beauty and sweet vetch Seaweed == Hunting practices == There has been a decline of hunting partially due to the fact that most young people lack the skills to survive off the land. They are no longer skilled in hunting like their ancestors and are growing more accustomed to the Qallunaat ("white people") food that they receive from the south. The high costs of hunting equipment—snowmobiles, rifles, sleds, camping gear, gasoline, and oil—is also causing a decline in families who hunt for their meals. Seal: Depending on the season, Inuit hunt for different types of seal: harp seal, harbour seal, and bearded seal. Ringed seals are hunted all year, while harp seals are only available during the summer. Because seals need to break through the ice to reach air, they form breathing holes with their teeth and claws. Through these, Inuit hunters are able to capture seals. When a hunter arrives at these holes, they set up a seal indicator that alerts the hunter when a seal is coming up for a breath of air. When the seal comes up, the hunter notices movement in the indicator and uses their harpoon to capture the seal in the water. Walrus: They are often hunted during the winter and spring since hunting them in summer is much more dangerous. A walrus is too large to be controlled by one person, so it cannot be hunted alone. In Uqalurait: An Oral History of Nunavut, an Inuk elder describes the hunt of a walrus in these words: "When a walrus was sighted, the two hunters would run to get close to it and at a short distance it is necessary to stop when the walrus's head was submerged... the walrus would hear you approach. [They] then tried to get in front of the walrus and it was harpooned while its head was submerged. In the meantime, the other person would drive the harpoon into the ice through the harpoon loop to secure it." Bowhead whale: Similar to walrus, they are captured by harpoon. The hunters use active pursuit to harpoon the whale and follow it during attack. At times, Inuit were known for using a more passive approach when hunting whales. According to John Bennett and Susan Rowley, a hunter would harpoon the whale and instead of pursuing it, would "wait patiently for the winds, currents, and spirits to aid him in bringing the whale to shore". Reindeer (caribou): During the majority of the year, they roam the tundra in small herds, but twice a year large herds of reindeer cross the inland regions. Reindeer have excellent senses of smell and hearing so that the hunters must be very careful when in pursuit. Often, Inuit hunters set up camp miles away from the reindeer crossing and wait until they are in full view to attack. There are many ways in which the reindeer can be captured, including spearing, forcing reindeer into the river, using blinders, scaring the reindeer, and stalking the reindeer. When spearing reindeer, hunters put the string of the spear in their mouths and the other end they use to gently spear the animal. Fish: They are caught by jigging. The hunter cuts a square hole in the ice on the lake and fishes using a fish lure and spear. Instead of using a hook on a line, Inuit use a fake fish attached to the line. They lower it into the water and move it around as if it is real. When the live fish approach it, they spear the fish before it has a chance to eat the fake fish. == Nutrition == Because the climate of the Arctic is ill-suited for agriculture and lacks forageable plant matter for much of the year, the traditional Inuit diet is lower in carbohydrates and higher in fat and animal protein compared to the global average. When carbohydrate intake is inadequate for total energy requirements, protein is broken down in the liver through gluconeogenesis and utilized as an energy source. Inuit studied in the 1970s were found to have abnormally large livers, presumably to assist in this process. Their urine volumes were also high, a result of additional urea which the body uses to purge waste products from gluconeogenesis. However, in multiple studies the traditional Inuit diet has not been shown to be a ketogenic diet. Not only have multiple researchers been unable to detect any evidence of ketosis resulting from the traditional Inuit diet, but the ratios of fatty-acid to glucose were observed to be well below the generally accepted level of ketogenesis. Inuit might consume more carbohydrates than most nutritionists have assumed. Because some of the meat the Inuit eat is raw and fresh, or freshly frozen, they can obtain more carbohydrates from their meat, as dietary glycogen, than Westerners can. The Inuit practice of preserving a whole seal or bird carcass under an intact whole skin with a thick layer of blubber also permits some proteins to ferment into carbohydrates. Furthermore, the blubber, organs, muscle and skin of the marine mammals that Inuit eat have significant glycogen stores, which assist those animals when oxygen is depleted on prolonged dives. For instance, when blubber is analyzed by direct carbohydrate measurements, it has been shown to contain as much as 8—30% carbohydrates. While postmortem glycogen levels are often depleted through the onset of rigor mortis, marine mammals have a much delayed onset of rigor mortis, even in warm conditions, presumably due to the high content of oxymyoglobin in the muscle that may permit aerobic metabolism to continue slowly for some time after the death of the animal. Additionally, in cold conditions, glycogen's depletion is halted at −18 °C (−0.4 °F) and lower temperatures in comminuted meat. Traditional Inuit diets derive approximately 50% of their calories from fat, 30–35% from protein and 15–20% of their calories from carbohydrates, largely in the form of glycogen from the raw meat they consumed. This high fat content provides valuable energy and prevents protein poisoning, which historically was sometimes a problem in late winter when game animals grew lean through winter starvation. It has been suggested that because the fats of the Inuit's wild-caught game are largely monounsaturated and rich in omega-3 fatty acids, the diet does not pose the same health risks as a typical Western high-fat diet. However, actual evidence has shown that Inuit have a similar prevalence of coronary artery disease as non-Inuit populations and they have excessive mortality due to cerebrovascular strokes, with twice the risk to that of the North American population. Indeed, the cardiovascular risk of this diet is so severe that the addition of a more standard American diet has reduced the incidence of mortality in the Inuit population. Furthermore, fish oil supplement studies have failed to support claims of preventing heart attacks or strokes. Vitamins and minerals which are typically derived from plant sources are nonetheless present in most Inuit diets. Vitamins A and D are present in the oils and livers of cold-water fishes and mammals. Vitamin C is obtained through sources such as reindeer liver, kelp, muktuk, and seal brain; because these foods are typically eaten raw or frozen, the vitamin C they contain, which would be destroyed by cooking, is instead preserved. == Eating habits and food preparation == Searles defines Inuit food as mostly "eaten frozen, raw, or boiled, with very little mixture of ingredients and with very few spices added". Some preparations include: Akutaq: berries mixed with fat. Bannock: flatbread Food preservation techniques include fermenting fish and meat in the form of igunaq Labrador tea Suaasat: a traditional soup made from seal, whale, reindeer, or seabirds. One common way to eat the meat hunted is frozen. Many hunters will eat the food that they hunt on location where they found it. This keeps their blood flowing and their bodies warm. One custom of eating meat at the hunting site pertains to fish. In Overland to Starvation Cove: A History, Heinrich Klutschak explains the custom: "...no fish could be eaten in a cooked state on the spot where caught but could only be enjoyed raw; only when one is a day's march away from the fishing site is it permitted to cook the fish over the flame of a blubber lamp." Inuit eat only two main meals a day, but it is common to eat many snacks every hour. Customs among Inuit when eating and preparing food are very strict and may seem odd for people of different cultures. When eating a meal, Inuit place large slabs of meat, blubber, and other parts of the animal on a piece of metal, plastic, or cardboard on the floor. From here, anyone in the house is able to cut off a piece of meat. At these meals, no one is obliged to join in the meal; Inuit eat only when hungry. Sometimes, though, meals are announced to the whole camp. A woman does this by the shout of "Ujuk!" which means "cooked meat". After a hunt, the eating habits differ from normal meals. When a seal is brought home, the hunters quickly gather around it to receive their pieces of meat first. This happens because the hunters are the coldest and hungriest among the camp and need the warm seal blood and meat to warm them. The seal is cut in a specific way directly after a hunt. Borré explains the cutting of the seal in this way: "one of the hunters slits the abdomen laterally, exposing the internal organs. Hunters first eat pieces of liver or they use a tea cup to gather some blood to drink." At this time, hunters may also chop up pieces of fat and the brain to mix together and eat with meat. Women and children are accustomed to eating different parts of the seal because they wait until the hunters are done eating. Intestines are the first thing to be chosen and then any leftover pieces of the liver are consumed. Finally, ribs and the backbone are eaten and any remaining meat is distributed among the camp. === Food sharing in the community === Inuit are known for their practice of food sharing, a form of food distribution where one person catches the food and shares with the entire community. Food sharing was first documented among the Inuit in 1910 when a little girl decided to take a platter around to four neighboring families who had no food of their own. According to Uqalurait: An Oral History of Nunavut, "food sharing was necessary for the physical and social welfare of the entire group." Younger couples would give food from their hunt to the elders, most often their parents, as a sign of respect. Food sharing was not only a tradition, but also a way for families to make bonds with one another. Once you shared food with someone, you were in a "lifelong partnership" with them. Inuit often are relentless in making known that they are not like Qallunaat in the sense that they do not eat the same food and they are communal with their food. Qallunaat believe that the person who purchases the food is the owner of the food and is free to decide what happens to the food. Searles describes the Inuit perspective on food by saying that "in the Inuit world of goods, foods as well as other objects associated with hunting, fishing, and gathering are more or less communal property, belonging not to individuals but to a larger group, which can include multiple households." Food in an Inuit household is not meant to be saved for the family who has hunted, fished, gathered, or purchased it, but instead for anyone who is in need of it. Searles and his wife were visiting a family in Iqaluit and he asked for permission to have a cup of orange juice. This small gesture of asking was taken as offensive because Inuit do not consider food belonging to one person. == Perceived benefits and beliefs of the diet == The Inuit believe that their diet has many benefits over the western Qallunaat food. They believe that their diet will make one stronger, warmer, and full of energy. One example is the drinking of seal blood. When interviewing an Inuk elder, Searles was told that "Inuit food generates a strong flow of blood, a condition considered to be healthy and indicative of a strong body." After the consumption of seal blood and meat, one could look at their veins in the wrist for proof of the strength that Inuit food provides. Borré states that "seal blood is seen as fortifying human blood by replacing depleted nutrients and rejuvenating the blood supply, it is considered a necessary part of the Inuit diet." Inuit also believe that eating raw meat keeps them warmer and stronger. They say that raw meat takes effect on one's body when eaten consistently. One Inuk, Oleetoa, who ate a combination of "Qallunaat" and Inuit food, told of a story of his cousin Joanasee who ate a diet consisting of mostly raw Inuit food. The two compared their strengths, warmth, and energy and found that Joanasee benefited most based on his diet. Inuit choose their diet based on four concepts, according to Borré: "the relationship between animals and humans, the relationship between the body and soul and life and health, the relationship between seal blood and Inuit blood, and diet choice." Inuit are especially spiritual when it comes to the customs of hunting, cooking, and eating. The Inuit belief is that the combination of animal and human blood in one's bloodstream creates a healthy human body and soul. === Hunting beliefs === A particularly strong belief held by the Inuit is about the relationship between seal and Inuit. According to Inuit hunters and elders, hunters and seals have an agreement that allows the hunter to capture and feed from the seal if only for the hunger of the hunter's family. Borré explains that through this alliance "both hunter and seal are believed to benefit: the hunter is able to sustain the life of his people by having a reliable source of food, and the seal, through its sacrifice, agrees to become part of the body of the Inuit." Inuit are under the belief that if they do not follow the alliances that their ancestors have laid out, the animals will disappear because they have been offended and will cease to reproduce. All saltwater animals, including seals, are considered to be always thirsty and are therefore offered a drink of fresh water as they die. This is shown as a sign of respect and gratitude toward the seal and its sacrifice. This offering is also done to please the spirit Sedna to ensure food supply. === Healing beliefs === Borré tells of a time when she saw an Inuk woman fall ill who blamed her sickness on the lack of seal in her diet. Once receiving seal meat, the woman felt better within hours and said that her quick recovery was due to the consumption of seal meat and blood. Borré experienced this many times among many different members of the group and they all attributed their sickness to the lack of Inuit food. == See also == List of diets No-carbohydrate diet Arctic vegetation == References == == External links ==

Inuit culture

The Inuit are an indigenous people of the Arctic and subarctic regions of North America (parts of Alaska, Canada, and Greenland). The ancestors of the present-day Inuit are culturally related to Iñupiat (northern Alaska), and Yupik (Siberia and western Alaska), and the Aleut who live in the Aleutian Islands of Siberia and Alaska. The term culture of the Inuit, therefore, refers primarily to these areas; however, parallels to other Eskimo groups can also be drawn. The word "Eskimo" has been used to encompass the Inuit and Yupik, and other indigenous Alaskan and Siberian peoples, but this usage is in decline. Various groups of Inuit in Canada live throughout the Inuvialuit Settlement Region of the Northwest Territories, the territory of Nunavut, Nunavik in northern Quebec and Nunatsiavut in Labrador and the unrecognised area known as NunatuKavut. With the exception of NunatuKavut these areas are sometimes known as Inuit Nunangat. The traditional lifestyle of the Inuit is adapted to extreme climatic conditions; their essential skills for survival are hunting and trapping, as well as the construction of fur clothing for survival. Agriculture was never possible in the millions of square kilometres of tundra and icy coasts from Siberia to Northern America including Greenland. Therefore, hunting became the core of the culture and cultural history of the Inuit. They used harpoons and bows and arrows to take down animals of all sizes. Thus, the everyday life in modern Inuit settlements, established only some decades ago, still reflects the 5,000-year-long history of a hunting culture which allowed the Inuit and their ancestors to populate the Arctic. == Etymology == Europeans in North America used to refer to the Inuit as Eskimos, but the people consider that term pejorative. The primary reason some people consider Eskimo derogatory is the questionable but widespread perception that in Algonquian languages it means "eaters of raw meat." One Cree speaker suggested the original word that became corrupted to Eskimo might indeed have been askamiciw (which means "he eats it raw"), and the Inuit are referred to in some Cree texts as askipiw (which means "eats something raw"). The word Inuit is the autonym, the name which the people use for themselves and it means "the people." Its singular form is Inuk. == Inuit Circumpolar Council == The Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC), formerly Inuit Circumpolar Conference, is a multinational non-governmental organization (NGO) and indigenous peoples' organization (IPO) representing the 180,000 Inuit, Yupik, and Chukchi peoples (sometimes referred to as Eskimo) living in Alaska (United States), Canada, Greenland (Denmark), and Chukotka, Siberia (Russia). The Conference, which first met in June 1977, initially represented Native Peoples from Canada, Alaska and Greenland. In 1980 the charter and by-laws of ICC were adopted. The Conference agreed to replace the term Eskimo with the term Inuit. This has not however met with widespread acceptance by some groups, most pre-eminently the Yupik. The principal goals of the ICC are to strengthen unity among Inuit of the circumpolar region; to promote Inuit rights and interests on an international level; to develop and encourage long-term policies that safeguard the Arctic environment; and to seek full and active partnership in the political, economic, and social development of circumpolar regions., or in short: to strengthen ties between Arctic peoples and to promote human, cultural, political and environmental rights and polities at the international level. == Cultural history == === Overview === The common ancestors of the Inuit and related peoples are believed by anthropologists to have their origin in eastern Siberia, arriving in the Bering Sea area approximately 10,000 years ago. The Inuit in North America (including Greenland) are the descendants of what anthropologists call the Thule people, who emerged from western Alaska around 1000 CE. They had split from the related Aleut group about 4000 years ago and from northeastern Siberian migrants. They spread eastwards across the Arctic. They displaced the related Dorset culture (from 500 BCE to between CE 1000 and 1500), called the Tuniit in Inuktitut, which was the last major Paleo-Eskimo culture. The first Inuit group, known as Paleo-Eskimos, crossed the Bering Strait in 3000 BCE presumably on winter ice, which was long after earlier migrations by the ancestors to the North American Indians. Archaeological finds have revealed that the Paleo-Eskimos moved to the northern Canadian Arctic in 2300 BCE, apparently because of a change in climate. From there they gradually followed the herds of game across the Arctic to Greenland, and dispersed into more distinct nomadic tribes. Pre-Dorset culture (c. 3200 to 850 BCE) is said to begin when the Paleo-Eskimos settled on the islands of the Canadian archipelago and northern Greenland. The descriptions "Dorset" and "Pre-Dorset" come from Cape Dorset on Baffin Island, the source of an assemblage which in 1925 anthropologist Diamond Jenness identified as originating from a hitherto unknown "Dorset culture." The Paleo-Eskimos weathered the winter of the high Arctic with much more difficulty than their later descendants because they lacked technologies such as boats, harpoon-tips, dog sleds, dwellings other than skin tents, and sources of warmth other than small fire pits and wood fuels. In the central Canadian Arctic, they mainly hunted muskoxen and caribou with bow and arrow, and fished with barbed devices. Groups living near the coastline hunted seals, walruses and smaller whales by throwing harpoons from the shore or from sea ice. === Period I (9000 – 5000 BCE) === Western Arctic Paleo-Arctic tradition – Alaska and the east, west, and the southwest Yukon Territory. Anangula Tradition === Period II (5000 – c. 2000 BCE) === Western Arctic Ocean Bay I Northern Archaic tradition === Period III (c. 2000 – 1000 BCE) === Western Arctic Takli Culture Arctic small tool tradition (spreads eastward) = Alaska Peninsula, around Bristol Bay, and on the eastern shores of the Bering Strait Eastern Arctic Eastern Arctic Small Tool Tradition groups c. 3000 – 500 BCE Independence I culture Northern Greenland and the Canadian Arctic between 2400 and 1000 BCE. This Paleo-Eskimo culture was named after Independence Fjord, where traces of a large settlement were found. Their lodgings were erected on elliptical foundations centred upon box-shaped hearths made of flat stones set on end. These they filled with driftwood, musk ox dung, and bones. They might have started fires with the help of a bow drill operated by sinews, which was in general use some centuries later. Saqqaq culture 2400 – 900 BCE In the western and southern parts of the eastern coast of Greenland, the Saqqaq culture developed around 2300 BCE and lasted 1500 years. The centre of their settlements was Disko Bay near the place Saqqaq, which lent its name to the culture. The people extended their culture along the fjords and coastlines in the area. The culture of the Saqqaq people shows marked similarity to the culture that in the Canadian Arctic is described as "Pre-Dorset", and the two cultures developed around the same time. Scholars believe that the people of the Saqqaq split off from the Pre-Dorset culture, migrated into Greenland from Ellesmere Island in the north, and later migrated to the southern coast. === Period IV (1000 BCE – 1000 CE) === ==== Western Arctic ==== Kachemak tradition Norton tradition – 1000 BCE to 800 CE. Choris (750 – 400 BCE), Norton (500 BCE — 800 CE) Ipiutak (100–200 BCE to 800 CE) (in northern Alaska, the forerunners of the Thule people) ==== Eastern Arctic ==== Independence II culture (700 – 80 BCE) Northern and northeastern Greenland from around, north and south of the Independence Fjord. Presumably for climatic reasons, northern Greenland was not populated for about 500 years afterward. Archaeological evidence has shown that before the disappearance of the Saqqaq culture from southern Greenland, a new culture arrived from the Canadian archipelago. The newer people showed a more developed culture from an archaeological standpoint. That culture is called Independence II culture, and it seems to have developed from the Canadian Pre-Dorset cultures. Possibly, they came in close contact with the Saqqaq culture. The range of distribution of the Independence II people approximately corresponds to that of the Independence I people. The oldest finds have been dated to 1400 BCE, and the most recent to 400 BCE. Researchers have not confirmed whether the farthest northern regions of Greenland were constantly settled during this 1000-year period, because only about 10 dwellings are extant. The climate of that time steadily worsened; the warmest temperature of the Independence II period approximately matches the coldest temperature of the Independence I period. Archaeological research has focused its fieldwork on areas of Greenland below 83 degrees latitude north for traces of the Independence II culture. In 1987 the remains of a larger Independence II settlement was discovered on the Île-de-France (at about 78 degrees north). The Independence II people hunted the same animals as earlier cultures (seals and muskoxen), but for the first time also walruses. The houses of the Independence II period were similar to those of the Independence I period, only more complex. So far no connection between the two cultures has been proven. Independence II tools are more reminiscent of the Pre-Dorset and the later Dorset culture. The fate of the Independence II culture is unknown; it is possible that they migrated south along the east coast of Greenland and merged into the Dorset Culture. Dorset Culture (500 BCE – 1000 CE) Archaeological evidence shows that between 500 BCE and 500 CE, remarkable technological and cultural advances took place in the area of northern Canada and Greenland known as the Dorset region. Today this period is known as Dorset I. The Dorset people are probably identical to the Tuniit (singular Tuniq, also Tornit or Tunirjuat), who are described in Inuit mythology as powerful giants who dwelt in stone houses. They were believed to have been capable of enormous feats of strength, such as carrying walruses or moving enormous boulders. Their hunting methods were greatly improved over previous Arctic cultures. They probably invented the igloo, which is difficult to determine because such ephemeral structures leave no archaeological evidence. They spent the winters in relatively permanent dwellings constructed of stone and pieces of grass; these were the precursors of the later qarmaqs. They were also the first culture to carve seal-oil lamps (qulliq, also spelled kudlik) from soapstone. In the next 500 years, known as the Dorset II period, the Dorset culture expanded to occupy the region between Victoria Island in the west to Greenland in the east to Newfoundland in the south. A shift in climate, which enabled them to settle high-Arctic regions, probably contributed to this. It is remarkable that the Dorset II culture uniformly maintained the stylistic attributes of the Dorset I culture despite this rapid territorial expansion. Ivory carvings date to as early as the Dorset I period, but artistic activity appears to have greatly increased in the Dorset II period. The presence of tiny human masks that subtly suggest animal features, carvings of bears with incised spirit lines indicating skeletal structures, and enigmatic tubes that may have been used to suck spirits out of the possessed; indicate the shamanistic, ritual character of this art. This cultural trend probably results from socio-economic pressures exerted upon the Dorset by the presence of new ethnic groups in the region. This period's climate was responsible for the Vikings' naming of Iceland and Greenland, labels that in our times sound paradoxical. === Period V (1000 CE – present) === ==== Western Arctic ==== Koniaq Old Bering Sea Okvik Birnirk – north coast of Alaska, sixth to the twelfth century CE. Punuk Thule—Bering Sea Thule "Western Thule" of North Alaska Canadian Thule Inugsuk Thule of Greenland Thule culture (1000 –1800 CE) The relatively temperate climate of the Alaska had allowed much greater cultural advances among the peoples there during the 3,000 years since the Pre-Dorset had left the region. ==== Cultural and technological advancements in Alaska ==== The various peoples of the Alaskan coasts had in that period developed entirely new techniques for hunting and fishing; these technologies also fundamentally changed their lifestyle and culture. Developments included boats constructed of watertight seal skin stretched over wooden frames such as the kayak (Inuktitut: qajag), used by hunters, and the umiak, a large boat used by groups of up to 20 women; new styles of spears, and harpoons equipped with weights and floats. These technologies enabled the hunting of whales, which provided a valuable source of food (especially whale skin, rich in vitamin C) and expanded the range of available materials to be processed for construction (bones and skin) and heating (whale oil). The development of dog sleds and of igloos that could be entered by a tunnel provided easier travel for the people and warmer dwellings during the winter. All of these advances promoted the formation of new social, religious, and artistic values. ==== The wave of Thule migrations ==== The warmer climate of North America in 1000 CE increased the amount of habitable territory in the Arctic and contributed to population growth. Presumably, this development, along with the constant pursuit of quarry into higher latitudes and the search for meteorite iron, was a major impetus for the migration of the Alaskan Thule into northern Canada and Greenland. In the so-called "second migration", some of the displaced groups migrated south, settling in the Hudson Bay area. As Inuit myths explain, the Dorset-culture residents were assimilated by the technologically superior Thule in most areas but were massacred in others. The Dorset culture subsequently died out throughout the Arctic in a short period around 1000 CE. They held out for a few centuries longer in northern Labrador and in the Ungava region (until about 1300 CE); the isolated Sadlermiut survived until the early 20th century on the southern coasts of Southampton Island and two islands nearby, Walrus Island and Coats Island. The new arrivals were the direct ancestors of today's Inuit. They originated from the area around the Bering Strait, but are named the Thule after the location of the first traces of their settlements to be excavated: Thule, Greenland. ==== Thule dwellings ==== The typical Thule house was constructed from a framework of whale jawbones and ribs anchored in the tundra soil with rocks. Animal hides were stretched over the frame, which was covered with sod. As accommodations for long hunting trips, the Thule used hide-tents in the summer. ==== Artistic activities ==== While the artistic productions of the Dorset were almost exclusively shaped by shamanistic ritual and myths, such influences are barely detectable in Thule art. The utensils discovered in excavations of well-preserved Thule dwellings show only decorative incisions. These utensils were almost entirely functional, with no ritual purpose. Small figurative carvings in ivory of female figures, water birds, and whales have also been found in Thule sites, but in relatively small numbers. Occasionally water birds would be depicted with the heads of women and vice versa, but such shamanistic carvings are few among the already small proportions of figurative carvings in Thule art. Among the art of the Thule, the depictions of bears especially contrasts with the art of the Dorset. In Dorset art, bears are realistically depicted within stylistic conventions; today, these objects are interpreted as spirit-helpers or amulets against dangers encountered in the hunt. In Thule art, images of bears are limited to carved bear heads that attached to harpoon shafts. Whether they served a decorative or functional purpose is uncertain (probably both). The Thule used bear teeth as jewellery, or hunting trophies. The artefacts left by the Thule generally suggests that they led a more comfortable lifestyle and had leisure time to artistically decorate their personal effects- their art was not the result of social or economic anxieties. They constructed diverse and numerous Inuksuit (like a man), piled-stone landmarks that survive. Some are examples of an impressive art form. ==== Transitional phase (1300 – 19th century) ==== From the beginning of the 14th century, a gradual cooling occurred throughout the Canadian Archipelago and the Arctic Ocean coast of the mainland. The period between 1550 and 1880, the so-called "Little Ice Age", caused temperatures significantly lower than today's in North America and Europe (with a brief period of higher heat around 1800). The effect of the drop in temperature upon the hunting-dependent lifestyle of the Thule was significant. Entire regions of the high Arctic were depopulated, partly by mass migrations but also by the starvation of entire communities. The traditional way of life was maintained only by communities in the relatively hospitable regions of the Arctic: the southern end of Baffin Island, Labrador, and the southernmost tip of Greenland. In Greenland, the Thule developed a different social structure and new dwelling types, and became what is known as the Inugsuk culture. In Greenland, the beginning of the 17th century brought the first European whaling ships and sudden change. In the following 150 years, up to 10,000 whalers would annually pass the coast of Greenland and substantially influence the culture of the Thule living there. The emerging trade relationships made intermarriage with European-Canadians and European-Americans common; there were few genetically pure Inugsuk after several generations. ==== Historical period of the Inuit (from 1800) ==== The 19th century is regarded as the beginning of "Inuit culture." Although the Thule traditions endured in a limited way, the living conditions of Inuit in the historical period were considerably worse than those of their ancestors 1000 years before. The technical standards and spirit of their artwork likewise began to decline. Carving and decorative engraving, for example, became rarer and less differentiated. The colder climate of the period and the resulting decline in animals as game meant that the Inuit were forced to abandon their winter settlements in search of quarry. In their newly nomadic way of life, the Inuit built more temporary winter dwellings. These were tent-like huts constructed of stone, grass, and snow. The Inuit called them qarmaqs. The technique of constructing igloos was further developed and became more widespread. ==== Contact with Europeans in Canada ==== Contact with Europeans was another important impetus for change in the culture of the Inuit. The earliest contacts with the Vikings, later with explorers, fishermen and whalers, affected Canadian Inuit (as opposed to Greenland's) less profoundly and more locally. Those early European arrivals did not intend to settle Canada. Such contacts proved fatal for many Inuit due to the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, smallpox and other infectious diseases. In contrast, tradesmen, missionaries and representatives of the Canadian administration established themselves in the region and directly influenced the life of the natives. The Canadians erected the first administrative and police stations in 1903, near the important whaling base of Fullerton Harbour on Hudson Bay and on Herschel Island northwest of the Mackenzie Delta. In that same year, the Norwegian Roald Amundsen started to transit the famous Northwest Passage with his ship Gjøa on a more southerly course than that of his predecessors, alongside the Canadian mainland. Starting at the beginning of the 20th century, radical changes occurred for the Arctic people. Greenland was visited with increasing frequency: Alfred Wegener led an expedition in 1912–13, and the Thule expeditions by Knud Rasmussen took place in 1915–1924. In 1933, the Permanent Court of International Justice attested Denmark's authority in Greenland, with cultural, political and structural impacts for the Inuit. In Canada, the Hudson's Bay Company tapped the previously unexplored "Barren Lands" of the Kivalliq Region to the west of Hudson Bay for trade. The Inuit no longer hunted animals for food and clothing, but mainly to acquire goods for barter with the emissaries of markets in the south and in Europe. The fur of the Arctic fox was especially in demand, but other kinds of fur and the ivory of walruses and narwhals were also desirable. The insistence on fox fur alone caused disruption as the trapping of foxes was traditionally done by the women. However, the numbers required by the traders meant travelling long distances over the trap line and it became men's work (see Menstruation and Family life below). Due to trade, the Inuit could acquire goods of the European-Canadian civilization, such as weapons and ammunition, tobacco, coffee, tea, sugar and flour. To keep the hunters associated with the trading posts, the traders lent them traps and extended credit to the Inuit. Becoming more dependent on another people meant that the native society had lost its former self-sufficiency. Therefore, changing their cultural development. ==== 19th century social structure and way of life ==== The basic social structure of the Inuit in the 19th century consisted of an estimated 50 groups of 200 to 800 members apiece. The membership was based upon the voluntary association of large and loosely composed clans. The clans in turn were made up of extended families- the grandparents, parents, and children. Such a loose social structure, which allowed families self-sufficiency and self-governance, increased the chances of social survival in times of scarcity. Hunting provided the Inuit with a balanced diet and the raw materials for clothing, housing, household implements and heating, boat and sled-building, hunting weapons, toys, and art-objects. Stones, carefully chosen and carved, were used for select but important objects: arrow, spear, and harpoon heads, hide-scrapers, and knives. Soapstone, a relatively soft and easily carved material, was used for the production of oil lamps (qulliqs) and cooking vessels. Plant-materials played a small role in Inuit culture, as they were so rare. Wood is scarce in the Arctic, except in the form of occasional driftwood. The bones, tusks, and antlers of hunted animals were used in its place. Berries were collected in large numbers during the late summer, but while they provided a source of some vitamins, they were far from sufficient. The people met their vitamin requirements by eating raw animal products, such as muktuk (whale skin and blubber), meat and fish. The Inuit tradition of living in tents during summer and in igloos and qarmait (singular: qarmaq, warm half-subterranean houses made from boulders, whale bones and sod) in winter still followed the Thule practices. The most important principle of all building constructions was the lowered entrance tunnel, which served as a windscreen and cold trap. The inner living area was constructed at a higher level so that the heavier cold air could not easily enter it. Girl children played with string figures within the igloos, as preparation for learning to sew and partly as a ritual act. The girls of the Chugach people mainly played this in autumn because it was believed this weaving captured the sunrays and thus delayed the beginning of winter. Often the creation of string figures was accompanied by rhymes and songs describing tales, legends and myths. The Inuit had developed winter clothing that ensured an effective use of the body heat, avoiding holes that would allow air to leak out. Apart from seal, mostly caribou skin was used, and in Greenland polar bear fur. In order to create a cushion of warm air, the clothing was loosely tailored and worn in two layers, the outer one with the hair inside, the inner one with the hair outside. In summer, only the inner layer was worn. The hood fixed on the inside of the coat avoided the leaking of warm air at the neck. Mothers used an additional part of their hoods for carrying the toddlers in their parka (amauti). === Nomadic life in the first half of the 20th century === Many elders still remember the time, more than 60 years ago, when the Inuit lived a nomadic lifestyle. Depending on the seasons (up to sixteen according to old traditions), they followed the animals they hunted for clothing and nourishment. They had to relocate and reconstruct their camps frequently and followed the same traditions for generations. At the turn to the 20th century, most Inuit still lived in hide tents during the summer. Sometimes, they already owned canvas tents obtained from the Hudson's Bay Company. The interior was divided into a back part used for sleeping, usually raised by coat underlays, and a front part for cooking and living; a tradition still in practice today. The woman's sleeping place was always beside the kudlik, an oil lamp usually carved from soapstone used for lighting, heating and cooking, because it was her duty to operate it. The man's sleeping place was near the weapons and hunting equipment; the children were nestled between their parents for warmth. Today the kudlik is replaced by a product of modern industry, the Coleman stove, which is easy to transport and operated by gasoline and naphtha. In the few months of summer, the people moved camp to the estuaries, because there it was easier to catch the favoured Arctic char, e.g. by using artificial weirs, and the eggs of seabirds. For the inland Inuit, the caribou was the most important resource; it provided meat, a hide for clothing, and sinew for rope. The coastal Inuit hunted mostly seals and walruses and, depending on the region, narwhals and belugas; of course also the occasional caribou. The seals were used for food for men and dogs. Their oil was used for the kudliks, and their skin and sinews for seal boots (kamik), kayak coverings, ropes (also drag ropes for dog sleds) and dog whips. During the winter, the Inuit lived in igloos, which were erected separately or connected by tunnels. Snow of a specific consistency was necessary to build them. They had the same general interior arrangement as the tents. The most important element was a lowered entrance tunnel, repelling the heavier cold air and the wind from entering inside. As additional prevention against cold, the sleeping area was elevated by a layer of snow as compared to the living area. Some of the families that wanted to live in permanent camps, built themselves a partially subsurface home of rocks, whale bones, coat and sod, the so-called qarmaq. The construction of such camps is certainly based on the Thule tradition. During the winter, they used qarmaqs, but in summer preferred the more airy tents. Due to the hard weather conditions in winter, in this season the families joined closer together. Mutual visits at hunting places of different groups were for the exchange of news and experiences, but mostly for the exchange of food from different sources. In winter, travelling was done by dog sleds, partly presumably also by foot. During the warmer seasons, mainly the people used the kayak, or, mostly as "women boat" for families, the large umiak, and travelled by foot. Traditional land routes were, e.g., from Wager Bay to Repulse Bay in north, to Chesterfield Inlet with the adjacent Baker Lake in the southwest and to Chantrey Inlet at the Arctic Ocean in the northwest. == Inuit in Canada == === Transition into the 21st century === ==== Fundamental change of living conditions ==== Between 1800 and 1950, the culture and way of living of the Canadian Inuit, who had not known any monetary system before, changed fundamentally. Complete self-sufficiency and independence were to a large extent replaced by dependence on goods of western industrialized countries, such as clothing, many kinds of foodstuffs, weapons, tools and technical equipment. This development was largely due to the fact that as hunters and trappers, they could develop only a low level of productivity that could not financially cover the Western way of living. Moreover, the products of the kill depended too much on market and fashion fluctuations, not to speak of concerns related to protection of species and of the environment. Post–World War II, the northern regions were increasingly incorporated into a Cold War strategic defense concept, and military and radar stations of the Distant Early Warning Line (DEW Line) were established. Although this developed the infrastructure and created jobs, it also led to a sudden urbanization that not every community could adapt to. Traditional ways of living were increasingly constrained and eliminated, with no provision made for the transition to the new way of living. The transitional difficulties were further enhanced, for example, by the fact that at the end of the 1940s, the Kivalliq Region had to be placed under quarantine because of the appearance of serious infectious diseases such as polio (for which there was as yet no vaccine). At the same time, the caribou population west of Hudson Bay nearly perished. As a consequence, the Inuit of that area lost their food supply. Those Inuit still mostly living in camps faced an increasing threat from tuberculosis; many who contracted the disease had to be treated in sanatoriums in the south. Many Inuit tried to continue their traditional way of living in their ancestral regions while adapting to the new conditions. But, they became more dependent on governmental welfare. The Canadian state had primarily scientific interest in its northern regions during the first half of the century. Beginning in the 1950s, it became concerned about three issues: military security requirements, discovery of economically important natural resources, and an increasing sensibility for the special concerns of the Inuit. The government felt the need to exercise governmental control and sovereignty over the territory. The Canadian government created a Department of Indian Affairs and Natural Resources in 1953 (now Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada). This department established social benefits such as unemployment aid, social welfare, care of the sick and of the elderly, child allowance, comprehensive educational and welfare programs of the industrial areas of Canada. At the same time, the Canadian government forcibly moved many Inuit families from their traditional hunting grounds into new and empty areas, to reinforce claims of Canadian sovereignty. === Traditional customs === ==== Menstruation ==== Traditionally, young Inuit women received little information about puberty, fertility, and pregnancy. Consequently, elders describe that it was not uncommon for young women to remain in bed when they reached menarche, believing that they were sick or physiologically different. Once informed, the young woman's mother would instruct her on menstruation practices and often, the camp (or community) would become apprised of her situation. During menstruation, women were expected to follow certain practices including, 1) not sitting where men sat, 2) using rabbit skin, foxes or mosses and other garments, with the exception of men's garments, for sanitary pads, and 3) laying rabbit skin on the bed at night to soak up blood. According to elders, women had to abide by more rules than men because of their menstruation and some rules were not only considered tradition, but also taboo if not followed. For example, using a man's garment for a sanitary pad could prevent the young woman from finding a husband for marriage. ==== Marriage ==== Marriage commonly occurred when the woman reached 14–15 years of age and the man reached adulthood, considered around 20 years of age. The marriage was traditionally arranged by the parents of the couple, possibly as early as infanthood, and often reflected a desire to strengthen the bond between families. In some parts of the Arctic, men also practised the tradition of "stealing" their wife from a camp, symbolically showing that the family did not want the daughter to leave their camp. In these cases, the family would later celebrate together and the woman would then join the husband's territory. Before the arrival of Christian missionaries, it was mostly the families who decided which children should marry whom, i.e. arranged marriages. Marriages often served to strengthen family ties, and girls had no say in choosing their partners. Sometimes a young man who had not yet been pledged, sent to the parents of the girl, without being personally present in those negotiations. The wedding was completely unceremonial (the same was true for birthdays). After Christianization, the only change was that now the couples also received Christian marriage ceremonies whenever a priest travelled their areas (often months after the actual marriage). When finally government administration had been established, marriages were also registered by the administration, initially by police officers, later by the local administrations. Since moving from the camps to the settlements, more couples live together without marriage. This way, they feel less tied but also less responsible. Into the 1970s, it was in no way unusual to make agreements regarding newborns about eventual marriages. However, when these promises of marriage became due, fifteen or twenty years later, they were taken less and less seriously. Before Christianization (referred to as Siqqitiq by the Inuit), polygamy, more often polygyny, less so polyandry, were not unusual among the Inuit. Extramarital relationships were accepted especially during extensive hunting trips, and there were so-called "lamp extinction games" with ritual partner exchanges. According to a popular theory, these traditions reduced the danger of inbreeding and resulting population bottleneck in small and isolated settlements. With colonization, these customs led to great conflicts: on one hand such traditions were thought by missionaries as sinful, on the other, they were interpreted as sexual arbitrariness and taken advantage of, often leading to prostitution and sexual exploitation. ==== Family life ==== The Inuit arrived in North America somewhere between 6000 BC and 2000 BC, they were one of the last groups to arrive to North America. Until the middle of the 20th century, i.e. until the move from disperse camps to settlements, the sexual division of labour between men and women within the families and family groups in northern Canada was traditionally arranged fairly well, and rather different: The men were responsible for the acquisition of food, especially for hunting and fishing, and for technical work (including the construction of igloos, qarmaqs, and tents). The Inuit women were predominantly in charge of intra-family concerns, such as caring for little children, taking care of the kill (conservation of meat, cleaning of furs, and the like), the sewing of clothing, fire keeping in the qulliq, etc. (their participation in hunting and fishing was limited). Whenever a family lost its breadwinner (for example in an accident), it was usually dependent on support by other families, and the widow was sometimes adopted as an additional wife by a close relative of the deceased (see widow inheritance). However, due to men being required to sometimes travel large distances to obtain food the division was not absolute. Men, for example, would need to know how to sew in case repairs were needed to their clothing. At the same time, women were required to know how to hunt and be able to help with igloo building. The move from the camps to the settlements, which essentially took place during the 1950s, brought about significant changes in this respect: The Inuit now were immediate subjects of governmental administration and care (also social welfare). By occupations that were completely new to them, like in health care and local administration, but also in Inuit arts, the women with their earned money were able to contribute like the men to the livelihood of their families. Nowadays, the division of tasks and responsibilities between male and female Inuit are, following Canadian legislation, not very different from western industrialized nations, of which the Inuit are considered a part. In the Northwest Territories the first female premier was Nellie Cournoyea, an Inuk. In Nunavut, female representatives and ministers are as common as their male counterparts. There are Inuit municipalities with female mayors, for example. === Health disparities === Nunavummiut, 85% of whom identify as Inuit, experience wide gaps in health status and access. The people of Nunavut have a life expectancy which is more than 14 years shorter than the Canadian average (66.8 years vs. 81 years). This is likely affected by its astonishingly high suicide rate, which is eleven times the national average. Smoking rates in Nunavut are more than double the national average. The fertility rate is more than twice as high (3.3 vs. 1.5 nationally). Of particular concern in Nunavut is rapid urbanization and subsequent overcrowding, with many homes without improved sanitation facilities. Food insecurity is another concern, with nearly 57% of children living in food insecure households as measured by University of Toronto researchers. This dovetails with Nunavut's high obesity rate, which stands at 45.4%- more than twice the national average of 21.8%. === The context of birth === The Second World War and subsequent Cold War initiated a newfound interest in the Arctic by the Canadian government. Its vast mineral resources and strategic proximity to the USSR brought rapid development to the region. The study of the Inuit's health outcomes also began, finding vast health disparities between northern and southern Canadians. This prompted the opening of several nursing outposts in the Northwest Territories, including what is now Nunavut to provide primary and some secondary care to the Inuit population. These proved successful, and several studies found that Inuit had better access to primary care than many southern Canadians. To aid in maternity care, the government in Ottawa began recruiting midwives from England and New Zealand to work in the Arctic regions, which preserved the woman-centred midwifery model of care practiced by the traditional Inuit midwives. However, this was short-lived due to more stringent immigration laws passed in the 1970s. The physicians recruited to replace these midwives advocated for a medicalized, tertiary-care level birth, and a de facto policy of flying women to southern hospitals for labour and delivery was adopted. In the 1970s and 1980s, nearly 100% of pregnant women were flown out of their homeland to give birth. The most popular routes—from north to Yellowknife, Ottawa, Ontario; Churchill, Manitoba; or Winnipeg, Manitoba could be more than 1,000 miles. So common was the fly out to give birth that Inuit culture began to adapt to this almost inevitable fact. To announce a newborn member of their community, many Inuit proclaim "the newborn has arrived" instead of "the baby is born". Due to the fact that the infant is several weeks old when it arrives in its homeland, it is common for members of the community to shake the baby's hand to welcome him or her to the community. In the early 21st century, about half of Inuit women are flown out from Nunavut to southern hospitals for delivery, and evacuations consume more than 20% of the territory's health budget. They normally leave two to three weeks prior to their due date and return two to three weeks after birth. There are reports of Inuit women returning home after more than one month away to find their house in ruins and their other children poorly cared for. Inuit culture is closely tied to the land and community, and birth outside of this land causes cultural dissonance. Many Inuit women interviewed about the practice remarked that their children born outside of Nunangat were not truly Inuit. Some communities, such as Cambridge Bay, have a birthing centre available for low risk births and in 2014 two local women graduated from Nunavut Arctic College's midwifery program. The centre is available for all communities in the Kitikmeot Region. However, higher risk and first-time mothers must still go to the hospital in Yellowknife. === Pregnancy behaviours and beliefs === ==== Pregnancy ==== Young Inuit woman were discouraged from engaging in sexual intercourse until they reached "prime maternity age", after marriage, about 15. Once aware, it was important that the woman immediately divulge her pregnancy status to her mother, husband, and close community, as the Inuit believed that her status demanded special considerations and/or treatment to ensure the health of mother, baby, and camp. To prevent miscarriage, the husband and camp were to assure that the woman did not become mentally stressed or exhausted during the pregnancy. In pregnancy, women's care was traditionally guided by the taboos, known as pittailiniq, from the elders in the community. These taboos informed the woman's behaviors and activities in order to prevent complications, promote a healthy birth, and ensure desired characteristics of the infant. For example, in regards to activity, the Inuit had many pittailiniq about maintaining physical activity throughout pregnancy and resisting idleness or laziness, which was believed to adversely affect labour and birth. Another common pittailiniq instructed the woman to massage her stomach until she felt the fetus move, so that the baby wouldn't "stick" to the uterus. Diet in pregnancy The Inuit also followed many taboos (pittailiniq) about diet and consumption in pregnancy. Consistently, elders report that pregnant women were to abstain from raw meat, eating only boiled or cooked meat, during pregnancy. Men were also expected to observe this rule, but only when in the presence of their wives. The preferential treatment of pregnant women also extended to food, and the best pieces of meat and food were always reserved for the pregnant woman. The pittailiniq regarding the diet of pregnant women demonstrate the strong emphasis on maternal diet affecting infant beauty and/or appearance. Some of these pittailiniq are listed below. ==== Birth ==== According to elders, the women were not taught how to prepare for birth. Women expected and trusted that they would receive instruction and advice from their midwife and other birth attendants (i.e. mother and/or mother-in-law) during the event. According to elders, birth ideally occurred with both an assistant and midwife, but due to hunting-based economy/survival, many births occurred in transit or at a hunting camp. In these cases, the elders report that either the men would assist or the woman would endure birth alone. Due to the uncertainty of their location at the time of birth, the woman was often unaware of who her midwife was until birth. In the community, a midwife (Kisuliuq, Sanariak) or "maker" was a highly revered female member of the community, who had acquired experience and skills in birth by attending births with their mother, an elder, or other midwife of the community; often beginning at young age. Labour and birth were times of great celebration in the Inuit community. Traditionally, when a woman began having contractions, her midwife would gather other women of the community to help the labouring woman through the birthing process. Very often, women were expected to continue their daily chores up until the late stages of labour and endure labour pains without the aid of pain management. In traditional Inuit birth culture, the birth event was handled almost exclusively by the midwife. However, the woman played an active role in her own birth experience and was encouraged to follow her body's own physiologic cues regarding pushing and rest. Sources on traditional Inuit birth practices provide little reference to the postpartum period. In regards to physical care after birth, the information is also minimal. Women, who are able to breastfeed, do so immediately after birth, often continuing for two years or longer. Breastfeeding served as their only method of contraception and birth spacing. === The newborn === The birth of a newborn into the camp is cause for widespread celebration in the community and everyone, including children, would shake hands at its arrival. Also occurring immediately after birth, a designated person, often the midwife, felt the infant's genitalia to determine its gender. This person then became the infant's sanaji (for an infant boy) or arnaliaq (for an infant girl) and assumed a lifelong role in the child's life. If the infant was a boy, he would later call this person his arnaquti and give her his first catch as a child. The sanaji was also responsible for cutting the umbilical cord, providing the infant's first clothes, naming the child (tuqurausiq), blessing the child (kipliituajuq) and conferring the desired characteristics onto the child. In rare instances, the child might be considered sipiniq (Inuktitut: ᓯᐱᓂᖅ), meaning the infant is believed to have changed their physical sex from male to female at the moment of birth. This concept has primarily been historically attested in areas of the Canadian Arctic, such as Igloolik and Nunavik. Once assessed by the midwife and/or sanaji, the infant was promptly given to the mother for initiation of breastfeeding. According to elders, the infant remained in nearly constant physical contact with their mother from the day of birth; sleeping on the family platform, riding in the amauti (baby carrier on the mother), or nestled in her parka for feeding. ==== Naming the newborn ==== Performed by the sanaji or midwife, the tuqurausiq was the highly valued naming practice that linked the child to a relative or deceased family friend. The Inuit believed that when the infant was born, they took on the soul or spirit of a recently deceased relative or community member. Through the name, the child literally assumed the relationship of their namesake. For example, if a child were named for someone's mother, family members would then call that child "mother" and give the child the same respect given to that mother. In addition, as the infant or child is a representative of their namesake, they are considered to generally know what they want or need. Given this belief, it was also considered inappropriate to tell an infant or child what to do, as it was similar to commanding an elder or another adult, which violated social rule in Inuit culture. Children in the 21st century are still named for other family members but the name may be an English one rather than a traditional Inuit name. ==== Newborn outcomes ==== Compared with non-Inuit Canadians, Inuit have higher fertility rates, higher prevalence of births to mothers age 15–19 years, and worse birth outcomes. According to 2012 government statistics, the Inuit population has an infant mortality rate of 26.3 deaths per 1,000 live births, as compared to 4.1 deaths per 1,000 live births in the larger Canadian population. In addition, the Inuit experience a neonatal death rate of 9 deaths per 1,000 live births, versus 4 deaths per 1,000 live births in the Canadian population. === Push for a return to community birth === Beginning in the late 1970s and 1980s, women in Nunavut and the other areas of Nunangat began a push to end the practice of being flown to the south of Canada (Douglas- Rankin Inlet). This was based on a widely held belief in the region that birth of Inuit children within the Inuit homeland would strengthen the family unit and increase social cohesion. A large anthropological study confirmed strong correlations between the social dissonance caused by birth evacuation and a spectrum of social ills facing Inuit society. Furthermore, Inuit women wanted to return to their traditional practice of woman-centred midwifery, using knowledge passed down through the generations to complement a community-centred birthing experience. In 2008, the government of Nunavut passed the Midwifery Professions Act. This far-reaching provision extended a full scope of practice regarding prenatal, birth, postpartum, and primary care to registered midwives. The act also permitted Nunavut Arctic College to open a midwifery-training program, the curriculum of which is required to include traditional Inuit midwifery knowledge. ==== Birth centres in Nunavut ==== In 1993, the first birth centre in Nunavut opened its doors in Rankin Inlet. Heralded as a first step in returning birth to the North, the Rankin Inlet Birth Centre was a fledgling operation for most of its first decade. Today, more than half of Nunavummiut women give birth in southern hospitals- mostly in Yellowknife, Churchill or Ottawa. Only about 20% of the women in the surrounding Kivalliq region of central Nunavut give birth in the centre and less than half (47%) of the births of Rankin Inlet itself take place there. Its marginal success has been linked to its relatively low capacity, having only two maternity care workers employed there at any one time- both of whom are almost always southern Canadian midwives there on short-term assignments. The birth centre has handled approximately 600 births since its opening. A University of Manitoba audit in 2008 found that the centre has provided consistently safe maternity care since its opening, with not one case of maternal mortality. A second birth centre is housed within the Qikiqtani Hospital in Iqaluit. The Qikiqtani birth centre handles the majority of births, which occur in Nunavut, about 400 per year. The centre, opened in 2007, houses four birthing suites and a full surgical backup should the woman need it. The centre is equipped to handle breech, VBAC, and other complicated vaginal births using a physician-led team as well as midwives. At eight percent, the centre's cesarean rate is the lowest of any hospital in country. The Qikitqtani birth centre has reduced the evacuation rate on Baffin Island considerably, and there is little need for low-risk women to leave the territory to give birth. The centre's intervention rate is lower than the national average and is considered a model for the rest of the territory. === Death === When the Inuit still lived in camps or as nomads, they had no special tomb sites, much less cemeteries. Before burial, the women of the camp washed the body of the deceased and adjusted the hair; on dead women they braided the hair starting at the forehead. Then they wrapped the body in a large blanket of caribou hide or wool and laid it down far out in the tundra, face up. They stacked cairns on top, to protect the body from scavengers. Nevertheless, scattered human bones can be found throughout the tundra, testifying to the work of carnivores. Similar burial customs have been found through the centuries. For example, Qilakitsoq mummies dating from 500 years ago show that the Thule people, ancestors of the Inuit, wrapped and protected their dead the same way. The Inuit believed the aurora borealis to be visible signals from the dead or the spirits of the dead. Some believed that whistling would bring the lights to earth where they would remove the whistlers head for use as a football. In some areas Inuit children feared the ghosts of those deceased long ago and often whistled or blew air against their hands, in order to "blow away" those supernatural beings. In other areas, such as eastern Greenland, the aurora were the spirits of dead children. In pre-missionary times it was usual to give a newborn child the name of a close relative who had died shortly before. This way, ancestors could experience a kind of return to a new life in the child. This custom has survived to this day, although the traditional animism religion has largely given way to Christianity. Since the move to the settlements, the dead are buried in cemeteries. All members of the community participate in requiems that last for hours, during which the towns appear deserted. Due to the frozen permafrost, burial sites are not deep, and are covered with rocks. Sometimes a blue plastic layer can be detected between the rocks. Here and there, a wooden box with a vitrified cover a few fading artificial flowers and other decorations can be seen. Crosses stand askew on the shifting permafrost. The inscriptions show that many of the dead are children, victims of accidents or natural disasters, and also suicides. Infrequently, there is a wooden hut outside of the town, where those that died during the winter are preserved in natural cold, until the warmer season permits their burial. === Challenges created by a changed way of life === Given such changes in their way of life, keeping their own identity and recollection of history and ancestors proved to be an extraordinary challenge many Inuit could not meet. These changes led to alcohol and drug problems. The suicide rate of the Inuit rose four times as high as the one of the remaining population of Canada. In the early 21st century the infant mortality rate is still high, about four times higher than the rest of Canada, and the lifespan relatively short, about 13 years less than the rest of the country. However, the Inuit population has grown considerably since the 1960s when there were about 12,000 and, as of the 2016 Canadian census, increasing to just over 65,025, distributed among some 70 settlements, some of which have a population of a few hundred only. They account for about 0.142% of the total population of Canada, and about 4% of the indigenous population, as of 2011. From 2006 to 2016, the Inuit population grew by 29.1% and the total Aboriginal population has grown by 42.5%—more than four times the growth rate of the non-Aboriginal population over the same period. Within a very short time, modern technology replaced methods and technologies that had been passed on for centuries. Firearms replaced lances and harpoons, snowmobiles, mainly Polaris, Ski-Doo and Yamaha took the place of dog sled teams (the name Ski-Doo is often used for the whole category, since Joseph-Armand Bombardier 1922 built the first snowmobile, Ski-Dog, which mutated to Ski-Doo by a typographical error). ATVs (all-terrain vehicles, quad-bikes) became widely accepted as a general means of transportation. The Inuit have become consumers who make their living by fishing, hunting, trapping and production of artwork. They also perform wage labour, and often must be supported by additional social welfare. Government support is often the only source of income. The number of recipients is much higher than the average of Canada. Also, the share of employees in public service is 20 to 30 percent, compared to 7 percent for Canada. This is extremely high, and has been rising even higher since the creation of Nunavut. Nowadays only a few areas are left where traditional methods of hunting and fishing have been preserved in their original form. ==== Adjustment to conditions of living in a modern industrial nation ==== The capitalist way of thinking in the south of Canada has been a large challenge for the Inuit. It was a drastic experience for the population of a homogeneous, that in an earning-focused, achievement-oriented society authority, power and wealth were defined in a very different way. Before, they were independent in their way of living, but now they saw themselves tied to the chains of a monetary system. Consequently, new patterns of behavior arose, which put enormous strain on family ties. The adjustment to totally different conditions of living, even more so in new administrative centres that were organized by Canadian public employees by the rules of an industrialized country, was understandably difficult for the Inuit. Many have not come to terms with the changes to this day; they do not feel part of either the modern culture nor of that of their ancestors. The proselytizing by the Anglican Church and the Roman Catholic Church in the first half of the 20th century, which must be critically viewed in some respect, was also of fundamental significance for the cultural change of the Inuit. Although the Arctic nowadays is considered largely Christian, elements of Shamanism appear to persist fairly well at the subliminal level, side by side with Christian thought, despite its condemnation by the missionaries. The adjustment to life in a modern industrialized country is easier for the young people who find new types of opportunities, but also all the problems that can be paraphrased by the keyword "TV culture". Compulsory education was introduced in the 1950s, replacing the traditional master-apprentice relationship between parents and children that did without reading and writing skills. Some Inuit were trained to be teachers and clergymen, but their numbers still were much too low. Basic education nowadays takes place in nearly all settlements. In Nunavut during the first three school years, the Inuit language, either Inuinnaqtun or Inuktitut, is the relevant language of instruction. In many schools of the Arctic, "elders", older residents who are recognized for their experience, are teaching the traditional knowledge, known as Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit, about culture, customs and way of living from the pre-settlement time, during planned lectures. Despite all efforts, the number of dropout is generally rather high, because of lack of motivation, among other reasons. As part of the Government of Canada's assimilation policy many Inuit children, along with First Nations, were sent to residential schools. Children were taken from their home communities in the summer and sent to a school in a centralized area where they would remain for an entire school year. These included Sir Alexander Mackenzie Day School in Inuvik which included the two residences, Stringer Hall for Anglicans and Grollier Hall for Catholics, and Chesterfield Inlet Indian Residential School which included the Turquetil residence. The year away from their homes caused multiple problems upon return. Children were not permitted to speak their native language while at school and thus had problems communicating to community members who spoke little or no English. At the same time the loss of traditional skills meant they were less able to occupy the roles that they would have normally taken up. Later in the 1970s schools were built in the communities but most did not go beyond grade 7/8. Therefore, this meant leaving the home town during the school year, which was very difficult for many, to attend high school. However, this was at the parents' and child's choice rather than forced schooling. Because of this, there were only a few Inuit with higher education, since they would have to leave during the years of study. In the 21st century all Inuit communities in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut offer schooling up to grade 12. This has increased the graduation rate but it still below that of the rest of Canada. In the NWT Aurora College and Arctic College in Nunavut offer education programs throughout the territories. These include the Nunavut Teacher Education Program which graduates primary, junior and high school teachers with a Bachelor of Education degree and the Akitsiraq Law School program. Some programs, such as general upgrading, are offered in the home community while others are only available in certain places. There has been no lack of intensive effort to find ways for the Inuit into a largely self-designed future, and to help them with a recollection of their own values and of their personal identity. It was important in this context to convey a new role of men and women. In the past, the man was responsible for family life and survival, while the women in the camp were charged with the young. Now often both of them have to master new tasks, thereby skipping several stages of development, with this process taking a course different from what happened in the European cultural area. It is not seldom that the woman assumes the sole role of the breadwinner, while the man is unemployed. ==== Cooperatives, a formula for success ==== Big hopes were put into the establishment of cooperatives, today the Arctic Co-operatives Limited, that were to help convey to the Inuit the skills of creating added value, so they would take care of themselves again and at the same time preserve their traditional culture. These cooperatives, mostly managed by Qallunaat (non-Inuit), did in fact prove very successful, because they succeeded in connecting economic thinking with traditional activities and values not only theoretically. The cooperatives developed activities in disparate areas. They were active in the provisioning of goods and services, such as trading with oil, gas, gasoline and construction materials, the organization of supermarkets with foodstuffs, clothing and technical goods, of hotels and restaurants, the construction of recreational and tourism facilities. On the regional level, the cooperatives ran commercial fur trade and fishing, as well as the production of downs and feathers. In the area of culture, the cooperatives and similar associations were intensely devoted to fostering artistic skills, which were, and still are unusually pronounced among the Inuit. The production and trade of Inuit art, i.e. of artistic and crafted objects, mainly sculptures made from serpentine, soapstone and marble, and soon afterwards also of graphics (drawings, lithotomies, lithographs, erasures) and tapestry (for example hangings), yielded excellent economic and cultural successes. In the course of the past 50 years this branch of the cooperatives reached an extraordinary importance for value added in the Inuit regions, and clearly ranks first, far ahead of trading hunting products: antlers, fur, or ivory, but overproduction is a growing problem. There is a similar problem with this type of art in Greenland, like the tupilaqs from East Greenland made from walrus ivory. In 1965, the turnover of Inuit cooperatives with trade of artistic objects and true arts was still below 100,000 Canadian dollars, but two or three decades later it has risen to $5 million, at gross prices, respectively (turnover not registered is estimated at a few additional million dollars). Despite manifold attempts in expanding the areas of activity, real added value still occurs mainly in the consumer goods sector, and scarcely in the real branch of production. === Current developments === During a period of five thousand years, the Inuit groups have grown apart ethnically. However, the increasing integration into nations foreign to them that were extending into the Arctic made them realize after World War II that they could maintain their cultural identity only if they appeared united at the international level. Therefore, the Eskimo groups of Canada united with their relatives in Alaska and Greenland (after the dissolution of the Soviet Union also with the Siberian Chukchi) to the "Pan-Eskimo Movement". This movement is supported by the Inuit Circumpolar Council, that was founded in 1977 as the Inuit Circumpolar Conference after a lead time of four years and to which its protagonist Eben Hopson (North Slope Borough, Alaska) was invited with his vision of constituting a unified, independent Eskimo nation. During the 1980s and 1990s a nationalistic trend could indeed be felt, and there was no lack of wishful thinking to achieve the dream of circumpolar unity. But in the reality of daily life, rational and last but not least fiscal thinking prevailed. ==== Nunavut ==== With all efforts to preserve and cultivate cultural values of the past, the Inuit also want the progress of the modern industrial society. They show concern about the endangering of the environment by technical processes associated with the exploitation of resources, but are also interested in a future of western standards. They have also recognized that they are much better able to influence their conditions of living to their own ideas, when they agree within regional bounds on the goals to be pursued. The Canadian Inuit, just like the other indigenous peoples (First Nations and Métis people) of Canada, grew the demand for collective ethnic rights and a territory of their own, with a government composed of their kind, and Inuktitut as one of the official languages. On the federal level, the Inuit got the right to vote in 1962. The first Inuk to be elected Member of Parliament was Peter Ittinuar in 1979. In 1976, the organization Inuit Tapirisat ("Inuit Brotherhood"), now the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami ("Inuit United with Canada"), for the first time demanded the creation of a separate territory in the northeast of Canada. After more than 15 years of negotiation between Inuit and the Federal and Territorial Governments, finally an agreement was reached, the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, which determined that from April 1, 1999, the north of Canada should be composed of three territories: Yukon, Nunavut and the remaining Northwest Territories. Like the two other territories, Nunavut was placed under direct control of the Canadian federal government and received increasing administrative autonomy. The Inuit have substantial local rights of control. They participate in the execution of important administrative positions, including police, legal and social welfare offices. Inuktitut is official government language, besides English and French. Added value in Nunavut It is extremely important for the territorial government of Nunavut to look at ways to clearly rise the national product, which also means to conciliate the Inuit's deeply rooted tradition with the challenges of modern life. Hunting, trapping and fishing essentially serve their subsistence and by far do not contribute enough added value, as would be needed. In addition, the trade with more significant products gained from these activities, like seal furs, or ivory from narwhal or walrus, is subject to international restrictions. The revenue from artistic or handicraft work, although a significant contribution to added value, provides a sufficient livelihood to only a few, particularly because of the large family sizes that must be supported. This branch of economic activity by its nature can secure the future of only a limited number. The growth of tourism is also limited. It is difficult to secure sufficient enrollment for group tours to the Arctic, and customized tours do not bring much money to the area. Cruises contribute more to added value than other types of tours. Given all of the above, the central task of the territorial leadership is the conciliation of tradition and modern life. Whether the exemplary Nunavut model of self-determination will be successful, finally depends on the question if there will be trained Inuit in sufficient numbers in the foreseeable future who will be able to provide leadership. The backlog of education and training is still immense. Big opportunities will open for the Inuit to maintain their traditional culture and still live up to the claim of being members of a nation that embraces diverse cultures within a modern industrial country, but only if those responsible for Nunavut succeed in training executives in sufficient numbers for the immense tasks that are the consequence of creating a self-governed territory. ==== Accord of Nunavik ==== An accord, the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, between the Canadian federal government, the Province of Quebec and Inuit representatives resulted in the establishment of the Kativik Regional Government and gave a bigger political autonomy to the Nunavik region. As a result, all residents of the 14 Nunavik settlements elect their own representative in regional elections. === Settlement of land claims and titles === An important chapter of Canadian Arctic policy regarding development of the Inuit culture is reflected in the agreements settling Inuit land claims opposed to the Canadian state. The advancing exploitation of the Canadian Arctic and if its mineral resources led to ever more conflicts about land ownership and title between Inuit representatives and Federal Government. Land that is not under private ownership is considered as Federal land, but the Inuit claim large areas that they have inhabited and utilized for many centuries. The agreement reached in 1984 regarding land claims of the Inuvialuit (Inuit in the western Arctic) provided means to improve the situation of the indigenous residents of this region, by assuring 91,000 km2 (35,000 sq mi) of land to 2,500 Inuvialuit, as well as monetary compensation, funds for improving the social structure, hunting right, and more influence on dealing with the fauna, on natural and environmental protection. The Nunavut Land Claims Agreement signed in 1993 with the Tunngavik Federation of Nunavut is the most comprehensive agreement ever reached in Canada. As a result, about 17,500 Inuit receive 350,000 km2 (140,000 sq mi) of land, monetary compensation, a share of the profits from exploiting the mineral resources, hunting rights and a larger voice in questions regarding land and environment. Also in the north of the province of Quebec, land claims of Inuit groups were settled successfully. living in the interior and on the eastern coast of Labrador, a part of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Nunatsiavut, home to about 3,800 Inuit, is an Inuit self-government region in Labrador created on June 23, 2000. This Settlement area comprises the majority of Labrador's North Coast, while the land-use area also includes land farther to the interior and in Central Labrador. Nain is the administrative centre === Traditional Inuit culture === The Inuit place a high value upon self-determination. The governments of Nunavut, the Northwest Territories and Nunatsiavut do not have political parties, but operate as consensus governments. Difficult questions are common in judicature, where traditional Inuit concepts are opposed to the legal system of the Canadian state. ==== Preservation of tradition and culture ==== In general, the government of Nunavut sees one of its most important tasks to be the preservation and care of Inuit tradition and culture. Currently, it puts great effort into recording and archiving the oral accounts of "elders" about the time before the move of the Inuit into the settlements. It is high time for this, because the number of elders with this knowledge are dwindling. The festival leading up to the new year is Quviasukvik, which also is their traditional new year and is held on Christmas. ==== Contemporary literature ==== A special part of the centuries-old cultural heritage of the Inuit are their myths and legends, which had been passed exclusively by word of mouth, because the Inuit had no written language and consequently had no literary tradition. In the Inuit culture story telling had the function that in other cultures literature has. The oral recital of passed-on knowledge gave the Inuit families particularly a feeling of immediate togetherness. At the same time, narrating made a connection between past and present, because the essential statements had been passed from generation to generation and accepted as the truth, without reservations. Among the Inuit, there are even nowadays few authors in the strict sense: writers mainly produce reports, summaries and essays about traditional contexts, or their own experiences ("non-fiction"), in seldom cases poems (mostly anthems) or songs. A few noted Inuit writers have written works that are classified as novels, including Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk's Sanaaq, Markoosie Patsauq's Harpoon of the Hunter and Tanya Tagaq's Split Tooth, although even these works often defy conventional Western notions of literary genre, typically blending both fictional and non-fictional elements. Among the best-known Inuit authors are the former Commissioner of Nunavut (the highest governmental representative of the territory), Peter Irniq (born 1947 on the Lyon Inlet, Kivalliq Region), the writer, poet, cartoonist and photographer Alootook Ipellie (born 1951 in a camp near Iqaluit, died 2007 in Ottawa), Michael Kusugak the children's author, and the former president of the Makivik Corporation and active author Zebedee Nungak (born 1951 in the south of Puvirnituq, Quebec). ==== Contemporary music ==== The Inuit did not have a very distinct tradition of music. There were "Aya-Yait", songs used for passing experiences from generation to generation, and so called because of their refrain "aya-ya". In a musical sense, they were simply-structured compositions. The traditional "throat singing" as well as the ritual drum dance by no means claim to be artistic compositions, but they were used for entertainment and for mythological-religious customs. The Inuit first heard European melodies by listening to the whalers. With those, they saw European instruments for the first time, the fiddle and the accordion, both of which have remained popular among the Inuit to this day. They also learned the square dance from the whalers. For the past twenty years, a kind of pop music is catching on in the Arctic, which the Inuit adopted from the south and then modified their own way. Today Susan Aglukark (born in 1967 in Churchill, Manitoba, and grew up in Arviat) is perhaps one the most popular Inuit singers. Other singers include Tagaq, Charlie Panigoniak and Lucie Idlout. ==== Contemporary fine arts ==== Contemporary Inuit art and handicrafts did not come about before the late 1950s as important resources for added value. soapstone sculptures, artistic drawings, hangings and tapestries (the latter mainly in Arviat, Baker Lake and Pangnirtung), attire, ceramics and dolls are providing a basic livelihood to a large number of Inuit artists of all ages today, just like hunting and fishing. == Movies == The Way of the Eskimo (Columbia Eneutseak), 1911 Nanook of the North (Robert J. Flaherty), 1922 Eskimo (Peter Freuchen, W. S. "Woody" Van Dyke II), 1932–33 Trial at Fortitude Bay (Victor Sarin), 1994 Kikkik (Martin Kreelak, Ole Gjerstad, Elisapee Karetak), 2000 Atanarjuat – The Fast Runner (Zacharias Kunuk), 2001 Minik (Axel Engstfeld), 2006 The Necessities of Life (Benoît Pilon), 2008 White Dawn == Bibliography == Barry Lopez: Arctic Dreams. Random House, Vintage, Bantam, Simon & Schuster 1986. ISBN 978-0553263961 (National Book Award for Nonfiction) Bryan & Cherry Alexander: Eskimo – Jäger des hohen Nordens. Belser, Stuttgart 1993. ISBN 3-7630-2210-4 Kai Birket-Smith: Die Eskimos. Orell Füssli, Zürich 1948. Fred Bruemmer: Mein Leben mit den Inuit. Frederking & Thaler, München 1995. ISBN 3-89405-350-X Ernest Burch Jr., Werner Forman: The Eskimos. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman 1988, Macdonald/Orbis, London 1988. ISBN 0-8061-2126-2 Brian M. Fagan: Das frühe Nordamerika – Archäologie eines Kontinents. C. H. Beck, München 1993. ISBN 3-406-37245-7 Kenn Harper, Kevin Spacey: Give Me My Father's Body. The Life of Minik, the New York Eskimo. Steerforth Press, South RoyaltonVT 2000. ISBN 1-883642-53-1 Kenn Harper: Minik – Der Eskimo von New York. Edition Temmen, Bremen 1999. ISBN 3-86108-743-X (deutsche Ausgabe) Richard Harrington: The Inuit – Life as it was. Hurtig, Edmonton 1981. ISBN 0-88830-205-3 Gerhard Hoffmann (Hrsg.): Im Schatten der Sonne – Zeitgenössische Kunst der Indianer & Eskimos in Kanada. Edition Cantz, Stuttgart 1988. ISBN 3-89322-014-3 Betty Kobayashi Issenman: Sinews of Survival – The Living Legacy of Inuit Clothing. UCB Press, Vancouver 1997. ISBN 0-7748-0596-X Robert McGhee: Ancient People of the Arctic. UBC Press, Vancouver 1996. ISBN 0-7748-0553-6 David Morrison, Georges-Hébert Germain: Eskimo – Geschichte, Kultur und Leben in der Arktis. Frederking & Thaler, München 1996. ISBN 3-89405-360-7 Maria Tippett, Charles Gimpel: Between Two Cultures – A Photographer Among the Inuit. Viking, Toronto 1994. ISBN 0-670-85243-0 Ansgar Walk: Im Land der Inuit – Arktisches Tagebuch. Pendragon, Bielefeld 2002. ISBN 3-934872-21-2 Ansgar Walk: Kenojuak – Lebensgeschichte einer bedeutenden Inuit-Künstlerin. Pendragon, Bielefeld 2003! ISBN 3-934872-51-4 Sturtevant, William C. (1978). Handbook of North American Indians. Washington : Smithsonian Institution : 1978-2001. ISBN 0-16-004580-0. == See also == Circumpolar peoples Disc number – used by the Government of Canada in lieu of surnames Eskimo Head pull – Inuit game Higher education in Nunavut Lists of Inuit Siberian shamanism, Inuit religion, and Alaska Native religion Two-spirit == References == == Further reading == Sheppard, William L. “Population Movements, Interaction, and Legendary Geography”. In: Arctic Anthropology 35, no. 2 (1998): 147–65. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40316494. == External links == History of the Inuit at the Wayback Machine (archived December 16, 2008) Roger Uchtmann: The Story of the Extinguished Lamps – the Depolarization of a Polar Culture (German) at the Wayback Machine (archived May 29, 2009) Government of Greenland (Danish/Inuktitut) Government Nunavut (English/Inuktitut) Government of Kativik, Québec (English/French/Inuktitut) Inuit culture – abridged history; Inuit way of living past and present in comparison (German) at the Wayback Machine (archived June 5, 2013) The McDougall Sound Archaeological Research Project at the Wayback Machine (archived March 7, 2008) Radio Interview with Dr. Timothy Leduc on Sila, the Inuit, and Climate Change, University of Toronto, April 20, 2007.

Lists of Inuit

The Inuit (sometimes referred to as Eskimo) are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Alaska (United States), Greenland (Kingdom of Denmark), the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Nunavik (Quebec) and Nunatsiavut (Labrador), Canada. The list has been broken down by country: List of American Inuit List of Canadian Inuit List of Greenlandic Inuit