Inuit

Eskimo and reindeer, Alaska, between 1906 and 1916 (AL+CA 5837)

The Inuit are one of many groups of indigenous people in the Americas and live in very cold places in the Arctic: northern Canada, Greenland, and Alaska.

The word Inuit means "the people" in Inuktitut, their language. The people are sometimes called Eskimos, a word that likely comes from the Algonquin language and may mean "eater of raw meat," which many believe to be misinformation. The term "Eskimo" means "netter of snowshoes."

Most Inuit prefer to be called by their own name, either the more general Inuit," particularly in Canada, or their actual tribal name. Inuit is a tribal name, but not all indigenous Arctic peoples in North America are Inuit. Particularly in Alaska, the word "Eskimo" is accepted as a more general term, but they probably prefer to be called by their tribal name.

Etymology

Inuit in Canada and Greenland prefer the name Inuit because it is their own name for themselves. Inuit means "more than one man," and "one man" is an "Inuk." The term Eskimo is more frequently used in the United States, where such concerns get less attention.

Their language is Inuktitut, and it is one of the official languages of Nunavut and of the Northwest Territories, both in Canada. Greenland's official language is a variety of Inuktitut. Eskimo is a term that is more frequently used in the United States, where such concerns get less attention.

Inuit in Alaska have various concerns, such as protecting the caribou from American oil pipelines. Campaigns against seal hunting campaigns work to eliminate that aspect of northern culture, which most Inuit regard as vital to their lives.

Traditional culture

Food

Inuit ate both raw and cooked meat and fish, as well as the fetuses of pregnant animals. Whale blubber was burned as fuel for cooking and lamps.

Inuit were also nomadic, but they did not domesticate any animals except for dogs, which they used to pull their sleds and help with the hunt. Inuit were hunter-gatherers, who lived living off the land. They were very careful to make good use of every part of the animals that they killed. Respect for the land and the animals that they harvested has been a focal part of their culture.

Hunting

In the summer, Inuit lived in tents made of animal skins. In the winter, they lived in sod houses and igloos. They could build an igloo out of snow bricks in just a couple of hours. Snow is full of air spaces, which helps it hold in warmth. With just a blubber lamp for heat, an igloo can be warmer than the air outside. The Inuit made very clever things from the bones, antlers, and wood that they had. They invented the harpoon, which was used to hunt seals and whales. They built boats from wood or bone covered with animal skins. They invented the kayak for one man to use for hunting the ocean and among the pack ice.

Inuit sleds could be built from wood, bone, or even animal skins wrapped around frozen fish. Dishes were made from carving soapstone, bones, or musk ox horns. They wore two layers of skins, one fur side in and the other facing out, to stay warm.

Inuit had to be good hunters to survive. When an animal was killed in a hunt, it was thanked respectfully for offering itself to the hunter. They believed that it intended to provide itself as a gift towards the survival of the hunter and his children. Their gratitude was deeply sincere and an important aspect of their belief system. In the winter, seals did not come out onto the ice but came up only for air at holes that they chewed in the ice. Inuit used their dogs to find the air holes and then waited patiently until the seal came back to breathe and kill it with a harpoon. In the summer, the seals would lie out on the ice enjoying the sun. Hunters would have to creep up on a seal slowly to kill it. They would use their dogs and spears to hunt polar bears, musk ox, and caribou. They would sometimes kill caribou from their boats as the animals crossed the rivers on their migration.

Inuit even hunted whales. From their boat, they would throw harpoons, which were attached to floats made of inflated seal skins. The whale would grow tired from dragging the floats under the water. When it slowed down and came up to the surface, the Inuit could keep hitting it with more harpoons or spears until it died. Whale blubber provided vitamin D and omega fatty acids to their cultural diet and prevented rickets. The whaling industry around the world has depleted the whale population, and traditional whale hunting for subsistence purposes is now rare around the world. The Inuit have added to their modern northern diet with grocery foods, which are normally very expensive in the North.

Clothes

During the summer, Inuit gathered berries and roots to eat. They also collected grass to line their boots or make baskets. Often the food that they found or killed during the summer was often put into a cache for use during the long winter. A cache was created by digging down to the permafrost and building a rock lined pit there. The top would be covered with a pile of rocks to keep out the animals. It was as good as a freezer because the food would stay frozen there until the family needed it.

Inuit cultural traditions and traditional stories provided each new generation with lifes kills and knowledge to survive their environment and to work together. Inuit usually moved around in small groups looking for food, and they would sometimes get together with other groups to hunt for larger animals such as whales. Men hunted; built homes; and made weapons, sleds, and boats. Women cooked, made the clothes, and took care of the children. Children and infants under the age of 5 became easy victims of hypothermia.

Canadian companies such as Canada Goose and Moose Knuckle have clothing designs based on Inuit culture.

Today

Today, most Inuit live in modern houses. Many still hunt or fish for a major part of their food supply or for income. Seal pelts are used to protect from the extreme Arctic cold. The technology has worked well for many thousands of years. Besides, commercial winter clothes are expensive. Today, Inuit use rifles and snowmobiles to hunt, but traditional values respecting the animals hunted still very much apply. In Alaska, many Inuit have received money from the oil that was discovered in that state on their traditional lands.

The Arctic is very different from the rest of the world. The way of life in the South does not work well in the area. Canada values having Inuit peoples in its northernmost lands as proof of sovereignty over the Canadian portion of the Arctic Circle.

Related pages

• Aleut
• Yupik