Inuit culture
The Inuit ( Inuktitut : "people") refer to those ethnic groups who live in the arctic central and northeastern Canada as well as in Greenland . Scientifically, they are also known as Neo-Eskimos. Statements on the culture of the Inuit are therefore essentially limited to these regions; Again and again, however, there are parallels to other ethnic groups living in the far north of Siberia , which are usually referred to as Eskimos .
The traditional Inuit life is determined by extreme climatic conditions, and their essential resources were hunting and trapping. Due to the environmental conditions prevailing in northern latitudes, agriculture , that is, agriculture and livestock, was never possible on the millions of square kilometers of the tundras and icy coasts of Asian Siberia, the American north, and Greenland. Accordingly, a lifestyle has developed among the Inuit of the Central and Eastern Arctic in which hunting has become the core of culture and cultural history . And so everyday life in the modern Inuit settlements that arose only a few decades ago still reflects the development of a typical hunting culture that spanned thousands of years and made it possible for the Inuit and their ancestors to settle in the Arctic, one of the most extraordinary human To provide services.
In the culture of the Inuit there are stories about earlier people who they legendarily call Tunit and which have long been considered a myth in research. However, recent research confirms the existence of a population known as the Paleo-Eskimo , which was largely displaced by the Inuit around 700 years ago and died out. Today it is believed that contact with the Inuit or even the Vikings transmitted diseases and thus accelerated their extinction. The last descendants of this tunit, known as Sallirmiut ("people of Salliq"), lived on Southampton Island (Inuktitut: Salliq), a large island on the northern edge of Hudson Bay and the neighboring island of Coats Island until well into modern times. They died of a gastrointestinal infection brought in by whalers in 1903. Remains of a Sallirmiut camp region are still preserved 64 kilometers southeast of the Coral Harbor settlement .
Cultural-historical overview
Early Pre-Dorset Culture (3000 to 500 BC)
Archaeological research is certain that the ancestors of the Eskimos, which died out around 1300 AD, originally developed in the area around Chukotka and the Bering Strait , which separates America and Asia, and thus immigrated to the American continent long after the first Indians . From the remains of former deposits it can be deduced that these "Paleo-Eskimos", around 3000 BC. Crossed the Bering Strait - probably on the winter ice - as well as via the Aleutian Islands. From this pre-Dorset culture, both the Independence-I, living further north-east, and the Saqqaq culture emerged, which developed regional differences. A partial intermingling with older indigenous people (Indians) is definitely detectable in some coastal groups. Archaeological finds also suggest that the Paleo-Eskimos evidently came quite suddenly around 2300 BC. When the arctic climate was a few degrees warmer than today, they advanced from southwest Alaska into the Canadian High Arctic to northeast Greenland in the area of the Independence Fjord and lived there as nomads, following the hunted animals.
The latest research suggests that Pre-Dorset people crossed the Bering Sea again and lived on the Chukotka Peninsula for about 1000 years, where they mixed with the Paleo-Siberian peoples there, before they ventured culturally further across the Bering Sea.
Around 1500 years ago, a new wave of settlements followed - the ancestors of today's Inuit, whose traces go back to the Birnirk culture in Far North (around Nome, southern Alaska), which originated in Siberia.
Paleo-Eskimos and Inuit differ significantly both genetically and in their culture, for example their hunting technique. Anthropological and genetic research by the University of Copenhagen shows that DNA has been isolated for 4000 years , suggesting that the Paleo-Eskimos did not marry the Inuit for cultural reasons. This fact surprised the scientists around Eske Willerslev and the molecular biologist Maanasa Raghavan. The last genetic contact may have taken place in Siberia during the immigration period.
The immigration waves of the much older pre-Dorset Independence Saqqaq culture and the much younger Thule Birnirk culture can therefore be clearly distinguished. The modern Inuit are therefore not direct descendants of the Paleo-Eskimos.
Speculation that Vikings were intermingled at the end of the Dorset culture is based on Inuit legends, who portray the Tunit as an older and younger group. A meeting of Vikings and the Dorset culture is possible in time, but this is an interpretation of the myths and has not yet been genetically proven.
This established paleo-Eskimos on the islands of the Canadian archipelago and in the northern part of the mainland as well as in northern Greenland, scientifically attributed to the pre-Dorset-Eskimos (2500 to 500 BC). The names "Pre-Dorset" and "Dorset" are derived from the name of the island and settlement Cape Dorset after the anthropologist Diamond Jenness found remains of a previously unknown culture there in 1925 and has since referred to it as the "Dorset culture".
The paleo-Eskimos had to get by under much more difficult conditions than their descendants: without boats, without harpooning equipment, presumably without sled dogs as draft animals and pack animals, without more stable housing than fur-covered tents, without other heat sources than small fireplaces with unsuitable fuel. In the central Canadian Arctic, the pre-Dorset Eskimos lived mainly from hunting with the spear and from fishing in rivers and lakes with barbed gears. Ethnic groups living in the closer coastal area hunted seals, walruses and smaller whales with hand harpoons, which they hurled from the coast or from the sea ice. At Cape Krusenstern on the west coast of Alaska, there was evidence of a settlement continuity that lasted for almost 5000 years from the beginning of settlement into the 20th century. The archaeological investigation of the finds allows essential insights into the culture of the inhabitants.
Independence I culture (2300 to 1500 BC)
According to the traces of a larger settlement found at Independence Fjord , the culture of these people belonging to the Paleo-Eskimos is called Independence I. Their dwellings had an elliptical floor plan and had a central hearth made of vertically positioned stone slabs, which was equipped with driftwood, bones, musk ox excrement, moss and the lean woodwork of low arctic willows . It is still unclear whether the fire was lit with the help of flint stones or by drilling and rubbing together willow sticks with the help of sinews, as was customary centuries later. The center aisle of the dwellings, on both sides of which were the sleeping and lying areas, also consisted of upright stone slabs. The roof is believed to have been made from musk ox skin with driftwood struts and willow twigs.
Seals , musk oxen , arctic hares , arctic foxes , ptarmigan , various types of geese , ducks and gulls were apparently hunted and arctic char harpooned to obtain food. Bone and stone (flint) were used as tool materials, from which, among other things, needles , scrapers , burins , arrow and lance tips were made. Around 1500 BC The Independence I culture died out, the cause of its disappearance is still unclear.
Saqqaq culture (2400-900 BC)
In the west and southern part of the east coast of Greenland developed around 2400 BC. The Saqqaq culture, which lasted about 1500 years. Its center was on Disko Bay near the place Saqqaq, which gave the culture its name, and stretched along the fjords and coasts. The culture of the Saqqaq people is similar to that in the Canadian Arctic known as "Pre-Dorset", which developed around the same time. It is therefore assumed that the people of the Saqqaq culture immigrated far to the north via Ellesmere Island to Greenland and then moved further south; however, it is scientifically considered that the Saqqaq culture could have emerged from the Independence I culture.
A research team of human geneticists Eske Willerslev and M. Thomas P. Gilbert from the University of Copenhagen discovered the rare genetic marker while examining the mitochondria passed on from the mother's side in the tuft of hair of a male member of the early Saqqaq culture who lived in the west of the island of Greenland about 4,000 years ago D2a1. A data comparison showed that today this marker can apparently only be detected in a group of people in eastern parts of Siberia and the Aleutian Islands who have colonized other areas in the Arctic . Although this is only a single case study, additional aspects of the first settlement in Greenland may be derived from it. The researchers suspect that people of the Saqqaq culture first advanced from eastern Siberia via the Aleutian Islands to Alaska and from there moved on to Greenland. Of scientific interest is also the finding that the marker D2a1 is not detectable in the genome of Indians or in that of the people of the Thule culture and today's Inuit descended from them. The researchers hope to obtain further information about where the paternal line came from during the earliest immigration to Greenland from the still pending breakdown of the core genome of the tuft of hair and thus the gain of a first complete picture of the genetic material of an extinct group of people, which could well turn out to be that the paternal line is from a completely different place.
The main source of food for these coastal inhabitants was marine mammals. A residential relic on southern Disko Bay, dating from around 2400 to 1400 BC. It contains numerous objects made of serpentinite (burins, scrapers, knife blades and arrowheads) and organic material (wooden arrow and lance shafts, ladles and knife handles). In addition to these tools, bones of various species of seals and small whales as well as arctic foxes, fish and birds were found.
Similar to the dwellings of the Independence I culture, those of the Saqqaq culture had a central fireplace and a stone aisle. Apparently, the people of the Saqqaq culture already knew stone Tran lamps as light and heat source. When the climate changed around 1000 BC. When it cooled down noticeably, the Saqqaq culture also disappeared, similar to the Independence I culture.
Independence II culture (1400-400 BC)
The north of Greenland had probably not been populated for around 500 years for climatic reasons. Today it is assumed, however, that before the disappearance of the Saqqaq culture in South Greenland, people immigrated there from the Canadian archipelago, whose culture, from an archaeological point of view, showed noticeable progress in development. It is known as the Independence II culture and is likely to have developed from the pre-Dorset culture recorded in Canada. It is possible that these people came into close contact with the Saqqaq culture.
The distribution area of the Independence II people essentially corresponded to that of the Independence I culture. The oldest finds are dated to 1400 BC. Dated to about 400 BC, the most recent. Until now, however, it has not been scientifically proven whether the extreme north of Greenland was also settled in these 1,000 years, as only about ten places can be found and the climatic conditions at that time increasingly deteriorated (the warmest climatic phase corresponded to the Independence II period around the coldest period of the Independence I period). Archaeological research currently suspects that evidence of the Independence II culture is more likely to be found in the still little explored northeastern Greenland and not in the extreme north of the island (up to around 83 ° N. Br.). In fact, relics of a larger Independence II settlement were discovered in 1987 on the Île de France (off northeast Greenland, around 78 ° N. Br.). The hunters of the Independence II culture hunted the same animal species as those of earlier cultures - the seal and the musk ox - but for the first time also the walrus . The dwellings from the time of the Independence II culture are similar to those of the Independence I culture, only they were much more complex; So far, no connection between the two cultures has been found. Independence II tools are more reminiscent of those of the pre-Dorset and also the later developed Dorset culture.
Nothing is known about the whereabouts of the Independence II people either; a hike south along the east coast of Greenland and immersing yourself in Dorset culture are considered possible.
Dorset Culture (500 BC to 1000 AD)
From the time between 500 BC. There is evidence of a remarkable technical and cultural advancement of the people of the Dorset cultural area living in northern Canada and in Greenland, a cultural phase known today as "Dorset I", whereby similarities with the Saqqaq culture can be found are indicative of intermingling. The tunit (singular: Tuniq), Tornit or Tunirjuat mentioned in traditional myths and legends as powerful people living in stone houses or even giants are probably identical with the named Dorset people - as is probably the Sallirmiut ; They are considered stupid by today's Inuit, but also so strong that they could effortlessly move huge boulders and drag home walruses weighing tons. This is in line with the habits of the Paleo-Siberian peoples who hunted marine mammals.
Their hunting methods were much improved. Presumably they invented the snow house, igloo . A semi-underground dwelling with walls made of boulders and pieces of grass, the forerunner of the later common Qarmaq ( turf house ), served them as a permanent winter residence . They were given light and warmth by a small lamp made of steatite (soapstone), in which oil could be ignited, the Qulliq .
It is noteworthy that the Dorset culture with its stylistic features between 500 and 1000 AD, the period of the cultural phase known as "Dorset II", covers an area from Victoria Island in the west to Greenland in the north and Newfoundland in the East, indicating intense communication over thousands of kilometers. A global warming at that time, which made it possible to settle in the whole of the north, including in the high arctic regions ( Vikings on Greenland) , may have contributed to this . The climatic conditions of that time meant that the Scandinavians gave the two islands of Greenland, "Grassland", and Iceland, "Ice Land", names that seem paradoxical today. Compared to Ellesmere Island, only smaller Dorset settlements were found on Greenland .
The people of the Dorset II culture lived primarily on marine mammals. The main tool material used was flint , but occasionally, depending on the occurrence, cold-hammered meteorite iron was used for blades and weapon points.
Carved depictions of people and animals are already available from the early Dorset I period as evidence of artistic activities; in the later Dorset II period, however, such artistic activity increased significantly. Human masks, the design of animals (especially bears and birds), but also carved amulets suggest that this art primarily served shamanic, magical or hunting rituals. Presumably, this cultural surge resulted from socio-economic pressures that the Dorset Eskimos were exposed to. Such pressure to promote culture could have arisen both from the climatic warming that took place at the time and the resulting changes in traditional hunting conditions from the ice, as well as from the penetration of new ethnic groups into traditional areas. Such assumptions are by no means unusual: social and economic pressures and hardships often seek out valves in spiritual , i.e. transcendental, areas and thereby promote the development of artistic means of expression.
Thule culture (1000 to 1800)
In Alaska , the original home of the Saqqaq culture of the pre-Dorset people, the development was in the 3,000 years between 2000 BC. BC and AD 1000 significantly more advanced than that of the Dorset people, especially since the climate there was less extreme than in the northeast of the American continent. Presumably there was also a cultural exchange with the Paleo-Siberian peoples on the other side of the Bering Sea, who for their part were not untouched by the advances in East Asia.
Technical and cultural advancement
The various peoples on the American northwest coast developed completely new techniques for hunting and fishing - inventions that also significantly influenced and fundamentally changed the lifestyle of the relatives of the Dorset Eskimos who remained there. Skin-covered boats such as the one-man kayak ( Inuktitut : Qajaq) and the Umiaq (plur.Umiat) - a large boat mostly used by women - can accommodate up to 20 people , new types of lances and harpoons equipped with weights and floats opened up more successful hunting opportunities especially on whales, which provided valuable food (including whale skin rich in vitamin C with rind, maktaaq ) and an extended range of raw materials (whale bones and hides as building materials, whale oil as heating medium). Dog sleds (Inuktitut: Qamutik, plur. Qamutinik) favored travel and transportation in the winter months. Improved forms of living in winter-proof dwellings with entrance tunnels as a cold trap promoted the emergence of new types of social coexistence and set ritual, religious and artistic impulses.
Migration wave of the "Neo-Eskimos"
Global warming in the American north in the centuries around 1000 AD (as well as in Europe, where a " medieval heat optimum " developed) changed the living conditions in the Arctic and probably led to immigration with rapid population growth. This development was probably connected with the migration of the prey - for example musk ox and caribou , which were hunted with bow and arrow, but also bowhead whales , narwhals and seals in the higher latitudes . Likewise, the search for iron from meteorites was probably decisive for the migration of “Neo-Eskimos” from Alaska to northern Canada and to Greenland. In the second expansion, some groups also advanced south and settled on the shores of Hudson Bay.
As is evident from Inuit myths , the paleo-people of the Dorset culture who lived in those areas were ousted by the technically superior neo-Eskimos or they died out due to unknown circumstances. Around 1000, the Dorset culture extinguished within a short time largely in almost the entire Arctic. It lasted only a few centuries longer in northern Labrador and in the Ungava region (until around 1300); the Sallirmiut , who lived very isolated on the south coast of Southampton Island and the two offshore islands Coats Island and Walrus Island until the beginning of the 20th century, are probably the last descendants of the Dorset people.
The second wave are the direct ancestors of today's Inuit. Their culture, which can be proven to have arisen around the Bering Strait and which lasted from around 1000 to 1800, was given the name Thule culture after the relics of settlement were first discovered in the area around Thule in north-western Greenland.
A period of warmer climates between 1000 and 1200 enabled the Thule people for a long time to maintain the life and behavior patterns that were handed down from their original home around the Bering Strait - land and sea animal hunting and staying in permanent winter settlements. They were excellent whalers, in addition to the smaller Narwhal and Beluga also the huge bowhead knew how to shoot. From these huge marine mammals the Thule Eskimos obtained food, heating and lighting oil and raw materials for the construction of boats, houses and tools. They were also able to do a kind of trade in rare raw materials such as iron , copper and serpentine across northern Canada, not least by using their dog sleds .
Thule dwellings
For the construction of a typical Thule house, a “Qarmaq”, large whale rib bones were stuck into the tundra floor as a frame between boulders and the base was covered with pieces of grass. Then the upper part was covered with animal skins and sealed with sod and sod; Snow applied outside provided additional thermal insulation. Igloos served as additional housing and travel accommodation in winter and tents made of animal skins in summer.
Artistic activities
While the artistic activities of the Dorset people were almost exclusively shaped by ritual or mythical customs, such impulses can hardly be proven in Thule art. The diverse finds of everyday objects in their winter houses preserved by the ice show mainly decorative elements. Small figurative carvings in the form of female figures, whales and water birds, sometimes with women's heads and bodies, were also made in relatively small numbers.
A remarkable difference between Paleo and Neo-Eskimos can be seen in the artistic design of bears. In Dorset art, bears can be found in realistic and stylized representations, which are interpreted today as amulets and representations of ghostly helpers against external threats. Thule art, on the other hand, was limited to depicting bear heads to be attached to harpoon ropes; Whether this served decorative or functional purposes has not yet been clarified (presumably both apply). Canine teeth of bears were used by the Thule people as amulets, jewelry or just as hunting trophies. In general, it can be concluded from the evidence of the Thule culture that these people coped better than their predecessors with the influences of their natural environment and even found time and leisure to artistically decorate objects of personal life. Obviously, no socio-economic, culture-promoting pressure was necessary for this type of art.
Mention should also be made of the diverse Inuksuit , a large number of which were still from the Thule period , landmarks “like a person”, some of which were given an impressive artistic form. Such cairns are also known from Inner Mongolia, Tibet and Siberia and served passers-by not only as waypoints, but also occasionally as cult objects for sacrifice combined with the wish for successful trips or hunts.
Transitional phase (from 1300)
At the beginning of the 14th century, the climate gradually cooled again, which had an impact above all on the Canadian archipelago and along the central polar sea coast of the mainland and also caused the Viking settlements in Greenland to be abandoned. In the period between 1550 and 1850, the so-called Little Ice Age , the temperatures in North America (as in Europe) were much lower than today - with a brief heat spike around 1800. The influence of this temperature drop on the living conditions of the Thule, depending on the hunting conditions -People was substantial. Whole areas of the High Arctic were depopulated, partly through emigration, but partly also as a result of the extinction of entire population groups through starvation. Only in climatically more favorable areas of the southern Arctic - such as in southwest Greenland (where the Thule culture developed into the "Inugsuk culture" through new settlement and social structures), on the southern Baffin Island and in Labrador - could the traditional way of life be maintained .
In Greenland, however, a sudden change occurred with the appearance of the first whaling ships at the beginning of the 17th century: In the following 150 years, up to 10,000 whalers annually cruised off the Greenland coasts and exerted a significant influence on the culture of the Thule people. As a result of the newly emerging trade relations, interpersonal relationships intensified, and so after a few generations most Inuit no longer had a purely indigenous descent.
Historical period of the Inuit (from 1800)
The 19th century is considered to be the beginning of the "historical period of the Inuit", the descendants of the Thule culture, and thus the beginning of the actual "Inuit culture". With the Inuit, the Thule tradition has been preserved with restrictions, but survival conditions in northern Canada deteriorated considerably compared to those of their ancestors at the beginning of the 2nd millennium. The technical standards and the way of expressing oneself artistically (to use this important cultural parameter) developed in decline. For example, carving and decoration work has become rarer and less differentiated. Due to climate change, the occurrence of hunted animals shifted, and the resulting change in foraging led to the fact that the previously relatively sedentary way of life had to be given up in the winter months. As nomads, the Inuit built less expensive winter dwellings, namely tent-like huts with wind protection made of stones, pieces of grass and snow (they too, like the Thule dwellings, call them “Qarmaq”). The knowledge about the construction of dome-shaped snow houses, the igloos, found more and more widespread and increasing perfection.
Contact with Europeans
Another major cause of changes in Inuit culture is contact with Europeans. In general, early contacts with Grænlendingar and later with explorers, fishermen and whalers had a less profound and local effect in Canada (unlike in Greenland), as they were probably not able to settle down permanently. However, such contacts had devastating consequences for the Inuit: the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, tuberculosis and other infections. The situation was quite different with the appearance of traders, missionaries and representatives of the Canadian state administration, who gained a foothold here in the long term and exerted a direct influence on the lives of the indigenous people. The first administrative and police posts were established in 1903 near the important whaling stations in Fullerton Harbor on Hudson Bay and on Herschel Island in the northwest of the Mackenzie Delta ; it is the year in which the Norwegian Roald Amundsen set out with his ship Gjøa to navigate the famous Northwest Passage on a more southerly route than his predecessor, along the Canadian mainland.
Since the beginning of the 20th century, major and, for the people who live here, profound changes have taken place across the Arctic. Greenland was increasingly visited and explored by research expeditions (for example Alfred Wegener 1912–1913; Thule expeditions by Knud Rasmussen 1915–1924). In 1933 the International Court of Arbitration recognized Denmark's sovereignty over the whole of Greenland, which also had cultural-political and structural effects.
In Canada, even the barren lands of the Kivalliq region, the until then almost untouched area in the west of Hudson Bay, were covered by the ever-expanding trading activities of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC). Animals were no longer primarily hunted by the Inuit to gain food and clothing for survival in the Arctic. Now the procurement of barter goods for the markets in the south and in Europe, especially arctic fox skins, but also other pelts and the ivory teeth of walruses and narwhals, dominated the everyday life of the Inuit. With their prey they were now in a position to trade in the highly valued goods offered by the HBC, especially weapons and ammunition, hardware, tobacco, coffee, tea, sugar and flour.
In order to tie the hunters and trappers to the trading posts, the Inuit were loaned traps and granted loans. Above all, this new type of dependency on other people put the native people of the country on a completely different, completely new basis of life and changed their traditional culture.
Social structure and way of life in the 19th century
The basic social structure of the Canadian Inuit in the 19th century consisted of an estimated 50 groups, each with 200 to 800 members, who were based on the voluntary union of largely independent extended families and managed without institutions exercising order. These extended families are in turn made up of the actual families comprising grandparents, parents and children. Such a social structure based on solidarity, which allowed individual families to act independently, contributed significantly to increasing the chances of survival in times of reduced food supply. It enabled the Inuit to kill land and marine mammals, birds and fish of all sizes - from seals weighing 20 kilograms to bowhead whales weighing 50 tons, from small game to polar and grizzly bears.
The prey provided a balanced diet and almost all essential raw materials for clothing, for housing, household and heating, for building boats and sleds, hunting weapons, toys and artistic objects. Selected and appropriately prepared rock materials were used to manufacture only a few, albeit important, objects: arrow, lance and harpoon tips, scrapers, hatchets and knives. Steatite (soapstone) was a relatively soft, easy-to-work mineral that was suitable for the manufacture of oil lamps and cooking vessels.
In contrast, vegetable raw materials only played a subordinate role. Wood was rarely available in the Arctic; at most as occasional driftwood. In its place were the bones, antlers and tusks of hunted animals. Berries were picked intensively in late summer; as a source of vitamins, however, they were far from sufficient, which is why the main vitamin requirement was met by the consumption of raw animal food - maktaaq (whale rind), meat and fish.
Living in tents during the summer as well as in igloos and qarmait (singular: Qarmaq) - warm, semi-underground houses made of boulders, whale bones and grass cuttings - in winter still followed the Thule tradition. An important principle of all house constructions, be it igloo or winter house construction, were lower-lying entrance tunnels, whereby the inner living area was higher and the heavier cold air could penetrate less easily into the living space (vestibule and cold trap). The thread games played inside the igloo had both the task of preparing for the skillful use of sewing equipment or the harpoon lines required for hunting , and in some cases had a ritual significance. The girls of the Chugacheskimos preferred to play it in autumn, because they believed they could weave in the rays of the autumn sun and delay the onset of winter. The creation of the braided figures was often accompanied by rhymes or songs in which stories, fairy tales and legends were told.
The winter clothing was constructed in such a way that body heat was used as effectively as possible; practically there were hardly any openings through which the air could escape to the outside. In addition to seal skins, the preferred material was primarily caribou skins, in Greenland polar bear skins. They were cut wide to obtain a warm air cover and were worn almost everywhere in two layers - inside with the hair side in, outside with the hair side out; in summer you only wore the inner layer. Another characteristic feature was a hood attached to the inner layer, which prevented warm air from escaping at the neck. The mothers also used a special part of the hood of their Amauti (women's parka ) as a transport bag for the toddlers.
Nomad life in the first half of the 20th century
Many “Elders” (family elders, community elders) still remember the time over six decades ago: At that time the Inuit moved around a lot. Depending on the different seasons (up to sixteen according to old tradition) they followed the migrations of the animals they hunted for food and clothing. As a result, they would have had to keep moving their camps to other places and in doing so have strictly adhered to certain habits over generations.
At the turn of the 20th century, the Inuit families lived mostly in animal skin tents during the summer. Occasionally, however, they had already procured canvas or canvas tents from HBC. The inside of the tent was divided according to an old tradition, which is still cultivated today, into the rear sleeping area, mostly raised by fur pads, and the front living and cooking area. The woman's bed was always on the side of the qulliq , the oil lamp mostly made of steatite , which was used for lighting, heating and cooking. Because she had to monitor and operate the furnace from her warehouse. The man slept on the side of the hunting gear and guns, and the children snuggled halfway between the parents. In the meantime, the Qulliq has long been replaced by a modern industrial product in use throughout the Arctic, the easy-to-transport Coleman stove that runs on petrol and naphtha .
In the few summer months, the mouths of rivers were preferred as a place for the camp, because it was there (for example at specially created artificial fish weirs) to catch the arctic char , which is preferred over all other fish species , and to collect the eggs of sea birds . The caribou was the most important hunting animal for domestic Inuit ; they gave them meat food, skins for clothing and sinews for making ropes. The families living directly on the coasts mainly hunted seals and walruses and, depending on the region, narwhals and white whales; of course, they did not disdain the caribou either. The seals provided food for humans and dogs, oil for the Qulliq and essential raw materials for everyday items such as clothing , sealskin boots ( Kamik , pl. Kamit), kayak coverings, ropes (also pull ropes for dog sleds) and dog whips.
Winter was spent in individual igloos or connected by tunnels. These snow houses, for whose construction one had to rely on snow of a certain consistency, were basically given the same division as the tents. An important element was a lower entrance tunnel than the inner living area, which served as a vestibule and cold trap to make the heavier cold air less easy to penetrate into the living area. As additional protection from the cold, the sleeping area was also placed higher than the living area with a snow pad.
Sometimes families who do not want to change their location over the year but want to live in permanent camps have built a semi-underground house made of boulders, whale bones, furs and grass cuttings, the so-called Qarmaq . The creation of such Qarmaq camps undoubtedly stemmed from the Thule tradition. The winter was spent in Qarmaq, while the airier tent was preferred for the summer days.
The harsh weather conditions in winter caused the individual families to band together more closely during this time. Mutual visits between groups living in different hunting grounds also served to report experiences and news, but they were primarily aimed at the exchange of food from different sources.
In winter, people traveled by dog sledge , sometimes on foot. In the warmer seasons, trips were mainly made by kayak or the large umiaq, which is mostly used for families (often referred to as a “woman's boat”, since mostly women rowed) and overland of course on foot. Traditional overland trails, for example, ran from Wager Bay to Repulse Bay in the north, to Chesterfield Inlet with the adjoining Baker Lake in the southwest and to Chantrey Inlet on the Arctic Ocean in the northwest.
Transition into the 21st century
Fundamental upheaval in living conditions
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In the 150 years between 1800 and 1950, the culture and way of life of the Canadian Inuit, who previously had no monetary system, changed fundamentally. Complete autonomy and independence were largely dependent on almost all goods of western industrial nations: clothing, many kinds of food, weapons, tools and technical equipment. A major factor in this was that, as hunters and trappers, they could only develop a low level of productivity, which did not financially cover the new way of life imposed on them; The products obtained from the hunted prey were also subject to far too cyclical and fashionable fluctuations, quite apart from species protection and environmental problems.
The late 1940s are particularly marked by such upheavals. Since then the north has been increasingly included in a strategic defense concept; military bases and radar stations of the military remote early warning system DEW ("Distant Early Warning") were built. Although this promoted the infrastructure and created modern jobs, it also led to a sudden urbanization that could not be coped with everywhere. Traditional way of life was increasingly restricted and displaced by the “American way of life” without the necessary prerequisites for the transition to new forms of life in place - sufficient income and vocational training, to name just two examples. The transition difficulties were exacerbated by the fact that, for example, the Kivalliq region had to be quarantined at the end of the 1940s due to the occurrence of serious infectious diseases such as polio , and that at the same time the caribou population west of Hudson Bay almost completely perished and thus the Inuit living there lost their livelihoods. The increasing threat of tuberculosis to those mostly still living in camps also played a not insignificant role ; many sufferers had to be housed in sanatoriums in the south. Many Inuit tried to continue their traditional life in the ancestral areas while adapting to the new living conditions. However, they became more and more dependent on state welfare.
While the Canadian state's interests in the northern regions in the first half of the century were predominantly scientific, at the beginning of the 1950s three new priorities arose: military security needs, the discovery of important natural resources for economic purposes and increasing sensitivity to the special needs of the Inuit. They increased the need to exercise state sovereignty. The formation of a “Department of Indian Affairs and Natural Resources” in 1953 shows the status that the state has accorded its responsibility for people and “raw materials”.
The establishment of welfare state care, such as unemployment assistance, social welfare, health and retirement benefits, child benefits, extensive education and welfare programs in the industrial areas of Canada now also benefited the Inuit (and, by the way, the Indians as well) and should make the leap from the past into the present easier.
Change from nomadic to sedentary lifestyle
For the Canadian Inuit, a decisive process began in the mid-1950s that lasted until the 1960s, although it did so with certain differences in the individual regions - such as the Nunavut regions of Qikiqtaaluk (Baffin), Kivalliq or Kitikmeot - but essentially The course was similar: the extensive change from a nomadic to a sedentary way of life, that is, under the pressure of deteriorating living conditions, the Inuit often voluntarily, but sometimes also forced, moving away from their camps in settlements with permanent houses. The nomadic life was now over, and the wooden house replaced igloo, QarmaQ and (originally) manufactured from hides tent. Since then, the Inuit have been living in prefabricated settlement houses built on stilts in southern Canada because of the permafrost . These houses are heated with oil stoves (each house has a heating oil storage tank). Fresh water is brought in by tanker truck and the used water is also removed by tanker truck. Cooking area with electric stove, sink, freezer, laundry room with shower and / or bathtub and flush toilet, even washing machine and tumble dryer are common. The TV set runs almost around the clock. Correspondence is handled with the help of fax machines and e-mail connections.
regional customs
marriage
Inuit childhood was very short in the first half of the 20th century. The girls in particular got married early. Before the Christian missionaries came, families usually decided which children should be husband and wife. Marriage often served to strengthen the bond between two families, and girls traditionally had no influence on partner choice. Sometimes a young man who had not yet been promised made relatives ask his parents about their daughter; he himself was not present at such negotiations. The marriage generally took place without any ceremony (like birthdays, by the way). That only changed after Christianization in that the couples were now married in a Christian way as soon as a priest came to the area (often months after the actual marriage). When a state administration was finally set up, the marriages were also recorded administratively - first by police officers, then by the local administrative offices. Since moving from the camps to the settlements, partnerships without marriage have often been formed. You feel less bound and less responsible. However, as recently as the 1970s, it was by no means uncommon for newborns to make arrangements to marry later. However, compliance with such vows, which is now due (twenty or thirty years later), is being taken less and less seriously: Young people are increasingly disregarding tradition and fulfilling their own wishes.
Before Christianization, polygamy (more often polygamy , more rarely polygamy ) was not uncommon among the Inuit . Extra-marital relationships were mainly accepted on the extended hunting trips, and ritual partner swaps were also practiced in the context of so-called "lamp extinguishing games" . According to a popular theory, these traditions reduced the risk of inbreeding and consequent genetic impoverishment in the small isolated settlements. With colonization, however, these customs led to major conflicts: on the one hand, such traditions were opposed by missionaries as sinful , on the other hand they were misunderstood and exploited as sexual arbitrariness, which often led to prostitution and sexual exploitation.
Family life
Traditionally in northern Canada until about the middle of the 20th century, i.e. until the time of moving from scattered camps to settlements, the distribution of tasks between men and women within families and family groups was fairly clearly regulated and quite different: the men were responsible for procuring food, mainly responsible for hunting and fishing, as well as for the manual work (including igloo , qarmaq and tent construction ). The women were mainly responsible for more internal family tasks, especially caring for the small children, looking after the hunted prey (preserving meat, cleaning the hides, etc.), sewing clothes, maintaining the fire in the Qulliq, etc. ( however, they only participated to a limited extent in hunting and fishing). If the man failed to support his family (for example through accidental death), the family usually had to rely on support from other families; not infrequently the widow was taken over as a second wife by a close relative of the previous breadwinner.
With the departure of the camps and the move to the settlements, which essentially took place in the 1950s, significant changes occurred in this regard: From now on, the Inuit were directly under state administration and care (among other things, there was now social assistance). Entirely new professions for them - for example in health care and in local administrations, but also in arts and crafts - gave women the opportunity to earn money to contribute to the family livelihood like men. According to Canadian law, the tasks and areas of responsibility among male and female Inuit today are not significantly different from those in the western industrialized nations, to which the Inuit belong. In the self-government of the Nunavut Territory, for example, women and men participate indiscriminately as members of parliament and ministers; Inuit settlements are mayor female and male ( Mayor before).
birth
In the camps it was customary for experienced women to give good advice to first-time mothers during pregnancy and teach them many precautionary measures - chewing gum, for example, leads to the baby being born with a sticky layer on the skin, or to braiding wool the pregnant woman be careful not to make a noose, otherwise the unborn child could strangle itself with the umbilical cord. Prenatal taboos continued into the 1930s . At that time, a woman in labor was left alone and provided only with water to quench her thirst in a qarmaq or igloo that was built for this purpose. She gave birth on a caribou skin, tied the umbilical cord with caribou tendons and buried the afterbirth. She was not allowed to return to the family unit until the baby's umbilical cord fell off; she was left to her own devices for several days. The next generation no longer had to submit to such customs. Now the women who gave birth stood by as midwives during labor. Today women give birth to their children with the help of trained personnel in their settlement house or in the community health center, possibly even in one of the few clinics in the Arctic - for example in Iqaluit or Manitoba .
death
As long as the Inuit lived in camps or nomadically, they did not have any special grave sites or even cemeteries. Before the burial, the women from the camp washed the body of the deceased and tidied the hair, for example braiding the hair of female dead people into a braid that began above the forehead. Then they wrapped the body in a large caribou skin or wool blanket and laid it down on the tundra, facing the sky. They then carefully layered a mound of stone over it to protect it from being eaten by animals . Nevertheless, one can always come across scattered human bones on the tundra - evidence of predatory animals.
Burial rites of a similar kind can be traced back centuries; For example, the findings of the 500-year-old Inuit mummies from Qilakitsoq show that the Thule Eskimos , the ancestors of today's Inuit, enveloped and protected their dead in a similar way.
The Inuit used to consider the northern lights to be visible signs of those who had gone by. Children feared the spirits of the long dead and often whistled to themselves to "blow" the supernatural beings off their hands. In pre-missionary times it was customary to give newborn babies the name of a close relative who had died immediately before and who thus experienced a kind of return in the child. The custom has survived to this day, even though the traditional religion of all Eskimo peoples, apart from a few shamanists in East Greenland, has largely given way to Christianity.
Since moving to settlements, the dead have been buried in cemeteries. Almost all residents of the settlement take part in the hours of funeral masses in the churches; the villages then look like deserted. Because of the permafrost, the burial places are mostly only of shallow depth and covered with rocks; sometimes blue plastic film can be seen between the rock. Here and there a wooden box with a glass lid contains a few fading artificial flowers and other grave decorations. The grave crosses are often crooked, as the rock does not allow otherwise. The inscriptions show that there are still many children and young people resting in the cemeteries, victims of accidents or natural events and also suicides. It is not uncommon for a wooden hut to stand a little to one side: Here, the deceased during the winter are kept in natural cold until the warmer season allows them to be buried.
Challenges due to changed living conditions
Maintaining one's own identity and recollecting history and ancestors turned out to be an extraordinary challenge with such changes in the way of life, which many were not up to. It turned out to be particularly serious that (as in all areas near the North Pole, by the way), a loss of self-confidence led to alcohol and drug problems. The suicide rate among the Inuit four times that of the rest of Canada's population.
Although the death rate is still high and life expectancy is relatively low even today, the population has increased significantly over the past 40 years. Today around 50,000 Inuit (≈1.6 ‰ of the total Canadian population) live in around 70 settlements throughout Canada, some of which are barely more than a few hundred inhabitants.
Modern technology quickly replaced the centuries-old methods of mastering daily life: Firearms replaced lances and harpoons; Snowmobiles and quads increasingly took the place of dog and dog teams.
Above all, however, the daily supply now takes place via the delivery of commercially available foodstuffs and consumer goods instead of self-sufficiency through hunting prey.
Inuit became consumers who earn their livelihood by fishing, hunting, trapping and producing arts and handicrafts as well as wage labor and often have to be subsidized by additional social assistance. Not infrequently, state welfare is the only source of income; the number of welfare recipients is well above the national average. The proportion of public sector employees is also still extremely high at 20–30% compared to 7% in the Canadian national average and has even increased since the establishment of the Nunavut Territory . Nowadays there are only a few areas where traditional hunting and fishing methods have been preserved in their original form.
Changeover to living conditions in a modern industrial country
For the Inuit of Canada (and also Alaska) the capitalist way of thinking of the south caused bigger problems. For these people, who come from a homogeneous community, the experience that the accents in a merit-oriented achievement society with respect to authority, power and prosperity shift significantly. If they were previously independent in their way of life, they now feel forced into the shackles of a monetary system. As a result, new behavioral patterns emerged that put family ties under particular stress. The Inuit found it understandably difficult to switch to completely different living conditions, and in new administrative centers organized by non-resident Canadian government employees according to industrial state rules, and many people have not mastered the changes to this day: They are neither in the new culture nor in native to that of their ancestors.
The missionary work carried out by the Anglican Church and the Roman Catholic Church in the first half of the 20th century , which in some respects should not be viewed uncritically, was also of revolutionary importance for the cultural development of the Inuit . Although the Arctic is now considered to be largely Christianized, subliminally, despite its condemnation by the missionaries, some things from Arctic shamanism seem to assert themselves quite well alongside Christian ideas.
The easiest transition to life in a modern industrial country is of course for young people, who open up completely new opportunities, of course, coupled with all the problems that can be described with the catchphrase “television culture”. The traditional master-apprentice relationship between parents and children, which managed without reading and writing, was replaced by compulsory schooling in the 1950s. Inuit were trained as teachers and clergy - albeit in far too few numbers. Primary school education takes place in almost all settlements today; During the first three years of school, Inuktitut is the main language of instruction, and in many schools in the Arctic, “Elders” - elderly settlers who are recognized as experienced - convey knowledge of the culture, customs and way of life from the pre-settlement period at specially planned events. Despite all efforts, however, the number of school dropouts due to a lack of motivation is generally quite high.
Attending secondary schools is not possible in every settlement in the Arctic and therefore usually requires leaving one's home town during the school year, which many find extremely difficult. For this reason, so far only a few Inuit have had a university education; they too would have to leave their homeland during their studies. General vocational training has only recently been offered, but is often not accepted by young people as it often teaches jobs and skills that do not seem to be needed in the Arctic.
There has been no lack of intensive efforts to pave the way for the Inuit into a largely self-designed future and to help them return to their own values and personal identity. It was important to convey a new understanding of roles between men and women: in the past, the man as a hunter was responsible for the (survival) life of the family, while the woman was responsible for looking after children in the camp. Now both are often (unlike this process in the European cultural area), skipping entire stages of development, concerned with tasks that are new to them. It is not uncommon for the woman to take on the role of breadwinner, while the man is unemployed.
Cooperatives' recipe for success
Great hopes were placed in the establishment of cooperatives , with the help of which the Inuit should be given the ability to organize value-adding activities in order to be able to take care of themselves again and at the same time to preserve their traditional culture. In fact, these cooperatives, mostly under the management of “Qallunaat” (non-Inuit), proved to be very successful, because they also succeeded in combining economic thinking with traditional activities and values in reality.
The cooperatives developed activities in a wide variety of areas. They were active in the supply of goods and services, such as the trade in oil, gas, petrol and building materials, the operation of supermarkets with food, clothing and technical goods, hotels and restaurants, and the construction and organization of leisure and tourism facilities. Outside the area, the cooperatives operated commercially organized fur trading and fishing as well as the extraction of down and bird feathers.
In the cultural field, the cooperatives and similar associations devoted themselves intensively to promoting artistic inclinations that were and still are unusually pronounced among the Inuit. The production and sale of Inuit art , more precisely: of art objects and handicrafts, especially sculptures made of serpentine , serpentinite , steatite (soapstone) and marble , but soon afterwards also of art graphics (drawings, stone carvings, lithographs, etchings) and Textile art (for example wall hangings) produced excellent economic and cultural successes. In the course of the past 50 years, this branch of business of the cooperatives has achieved extraordinary importance for added value in the Inuit regions and is clearly in the first place , far ahead of the trade in hunting products such as furs, antlers or ivory tusks - but with the growing problem of overproduction . The same also applies to corresponding art from Greenland, such as the East Greenlandic tupilaks carved from walrus ivory .
In 1965, sales of handicrafts and real art operated by Inuit cooperatives were less than 100,000 Canadian dollars; in the following two to three decades they had already risen to 5 million dollars - each at wholesale prices; unrecorded sales are also estimated at several million dollars. Despite numerous attempts to expand the fields of activity, real added value still predominantly takes place in the consumer goods sector and hardly in the actual production area.
Current developments
In a period of five thousand years, the Eskimo ethnic groups have diverged more and more ethnically. However, after the Second World War , the increasing involvement of foreign states taking possession of the Arctic led to the realization that they could only maintain their cultural identity if they appeared united on an international level. The Eskimo ethnic groups of Canada joined forces with their relatives in Alaska and Greenland (after the collapse of the Soviet Union also with the Siberian Chukchi ) in a “Pan-Eskimo movement”. This movement is supported by the Inuit Circumpolar Conference , founded in 1977 after four years in advance , to which its pioneer Eben Hopson (North Slope Borough, Alaska) had invited with his vision of constituting an Eskimo unit in an independent nation.
A nationalist trend was definitely noticeable during the 1980s and 1990s , and there was no lack of wishful thinking to make the dream of circumpolar unity a reality. But in the reality of everyday life, rational, and not least financial, thinking prevailed.
In all efforts to preserve and maintain cultural values from the past, the Inuit want the progress that modern industrial society offers. They are concerned about environmental hazards from technical processes in the development of raw materials, but are also interested in a future based on the western model. At the same time, they have recognized that they can shape their living conditions much better according to their own ideas if they agree on common goals that are limited in space.
Not unlike the Canadian Indians, the Inuit of Canada grew in demand for collective ethnic rights and their own territory with a government formed from their ranks and Inuktitut as one of the official languages. At the federal level, the Inuit received the right to vote in 1962; In 1979 an Inuk, Peter Ittinuar, was elected member of parliament for the first time. In 1976, the organization Inuit Tapirisat ("Inuit Brotherhood") raised the demand for the establishment of a separate territory in northeast Canada for the first time. After more than 15 years of negotiations, an agreement, the so-called "Nunavut Settlement", was finally reached on November 12, 1992 between the Inuit, federal and territorial governments, which stipulated that from April 1, 1999, northern Canada would consist of three territories should: Yukon , Nunavut and remaining Northwest Territories . From this point on, Nunavut, like the other two territorial areas, was directly subordinated to the Canadian federal government and was increasingly given administrative independence. The Inuit have significant local control rights. They also perform important administrative positions, including police, legal and social assistance functions. Inuktitut, English and French are the official languages of government. In Canada, the Inuit do voluntary military service in the Canadian Rangers , the large association and its associations are only used territorially. Its main mission is the military presence and surveillance in remote areas.
An agreement (Agreement between James Bay and North Québec) between the Canadian federal government, the province of Québec and representatives of the Inuit resulted in the establishment of a "Kativik regional government" (Administration régionale Kativik) of the Nunavik region in 1978 with expanded political autonomy. After that, for example, all residents of the 14 Nunavut settlements elect their own MPs in regional elections.
Settlement of land claims and property rights
An important chapter of Canada's Arctic policy, which shaped the further development of Inuit culture, is reflected in the agreements that regulate land claims of the Inuit against the Canadian state. With the advancing development of the Canadian Arctic and its natural resources, there were more and more conflicts over land ownership and property rights between representatives of the Inuit and the federal government. Land that is not privately owned is considered state property, but the Inuit claimed ownership of large areas that they have lived and used for so many centuries. The funds made available on the basis of a 1984 agreement on land claims by the Inuvialuit (the Inuit relatives in the western Arctic) improved the situation of the indigenous people living in this region by giving the 2,500 Inuvialuit 91,000 km² of land and financial compensation, funds for improvement the social structure, hunting rights and more influence on the handling of the animal world, nature and environmental protection were assured.
The final agreement reached in 1993 with the Tungavik Federation of Nunavut is the most comprehensive ever reached in Canada. According to this, around 17,500 Inuit will receive 350,000 km² of land, financial compensation, a share of the income generated by the development of mineral resources, hunting rights and a greater say in questions about land and the environment.
Inuit groups' land claims were also successfully settled in the north of the province of Québec. Negotiations are also ongoing with the Labrador Inuit Association, which represents around 3,800 Inuit people living inland and on the coast of Labrador (part of Newfoundland Province).
Traditional Inuit culture and independent living
The Inuit expect a lot from self-determination and also - as far as the north-east Arctic Canada is concerned - from the government of the Nunavut Territory and its parliament, which has no parties, but emerges from a personality election and was last re-elected in 2004. In accordance with the problems of the territory, the greatest challenges lie in the areas of labor and social affairs, law, health and education. Difficult conditions emerge, for example, in the area of the administration of justice, where traditional Inuit conceptions oppose the legal system of the Canadian state.
Preservation and care of tradition and culture
In general, the government of Nunavut sees one of its most important tasks as preserving and cultivating the Inuit tradition and culture. It is currently making great efforts to preserve the knowledge of "Elders" (elders) about the time before the Inuit moved to settlements using modern technical methods (e.g. recording interviews on sound carriers and films); It is high time for this, as there are naturally fewer and fewer elders available with the appropriate knowledge.
Contemporary literature
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The centuries-old cultural heritage of the Inuit includes myths and legends in a special way , which, however, were only passed on orally because the Inuit had no writing system and, accordingly, no literature of their own. The tasks that were assigned to the literature sector in other cultures were therefore mainly related to storytelling. The oral presentation of traditional knowledge gave the Inuit families, above all, the feeling of immediate togetherness. At the same time, the narration linked the past and the present, as the essential statements were passed on from generation to generation as unchanged as possible and accepted as truth without reservation. Even today there are still no “writers” in the narrower sense of the word among the Inuit: Those who are active as a writer primarily write reports, overviews and essays about traditional contexts or their own experiences (“non-fiction”), rarely their own (mostly anthemic ) Poems or songs. The best-known Inuit authors include the knowledgeable former "Commissioner of Nunavut" (state highest representative of the territory) Peter Irniq (born in 1947 at Lyon Inlet, Kivalliq region), the writer, poet, cartoonist and photographer Alootook Ipellie (1951 Born in a camp near Iqaluit , died in Ottawa in 2007 ) or the former president of the Makivik Corporation, who was also active as a writer, Zebedee Nungak (born in 1951 in the south of Puvirnituq ).
Traditional and contemporary music
The music tradition of the Inuit is ancient, but was poor in form: One knew "Aya-Yait", these are songs with which the Inuit passed on experiences from generation to generation and whose refrain "aya-ya" gave them their name. Musically, the compositions were simply structured. The traditional "throat singing" (a throat singing ) and the ritual drum dance - the frame drum was the only instrument - by no means lay claim to compositional art; partly they were used for entertainment, partly for mythical-religious customs, which the missionaries opposed. Characteristic of the recitative singing were the complex rhythm, an undulating melody limited to the range of a sextine and the use of the major third and the minor second .
The Inuit first met European wise men from whalers; Through this they also got to know a European string instrument, after which they built the fiddle Tautirut . They also learned "square dance" from the whalers. The Moravian Brethren introduced religious choral singing in Greenland in the 19th century. In the 20th century, the accordion , which is still very popular with the Inuit, was added. In the last two decades, a kind of pop music that the Inuit had adopted from the south and then transformed in their own way became increasingly popular in the Arctic. Probably the most famous Inuit singer at the moment is Susan Aglukark, born in Manitoba in 1967 and raised in Arviat .
The first Greenlandic rock band Sumé was formed in 1972 in the Danish study town of Sorø around Malik Høegh and Per Berthelsen . Her 1973 debut album Sumut was an expression of a new Greenlandic self-confidence. Sumé combined American and British rock music with elements of traditional drum dance. The angry Greenlandic texts were primarily directed against the cultural infiltration of Denmark. Sumé separated in 1977, but have performed together again and again since the 1990s. The songs by Malik and Per are now considered modern classics.
Contemporary visual arts
Contemporary Inuit fine arts and crafts did not emerge as important sources of added value until the second half of the 1950s. Serpentine and marble sculptures, art graphics, wall hangings and carpets (the latter mainly from Arviat , Baker Lake and Pangnirtung ), jewelry, ceramics and dolls provide a large number of Inuit artists of all generations with an essential livelihood in addition to hunting and fishing .
Value creation in the Arctic
It is extremely important for the territorial government at the same time to look for ways in which the national product of the new territory can be increased significantly, which not least means to reconcile the ties deeply rooted in the Inuit to their tradition with the demands of modernity. Hunting, trapping and fishing mainly serve to satisfy one's own needs and do not contribute by far enough to the necessary added value. The trade in the higher quality products obtained in this way, such as seal skins or ivory from narwhal and walrus, is also subject to international restrictions. The proceeds from artistic or handicraft work, although an important added value factor, only ensure a sufficient livelihood for a few people, especially since large families usually have to be supported. As an occupation that secures the future, such work is naturally limited. The expansion of tourism is just as limited: group trips to the Arctic are difficult to find a sufficient number of participants, and individual trips bring only limited capital into the country; cruise ships are most likely to add value.
Bringing tradition and modernity into harmony is, according to what has already been said, the central task that the management of the territory has to solve. Whether the exemplary self-determination model Nunavut will be successful depends not least on whether there will be enough qualified Inuit in the foreseeable future who are able to take on leadership roles. The need to catch up in education and training is still considerable. The expectation is that those responsible for Nunavut will succeed in training enough leaders among the Inuit for the numerous tasks that the creation of their self-governing territory entails. This shows great opportunities for the Inuit to maintain their traditional culture and still meet the claim to be members of a nation that brings together diverse cultures on an equal footing in a modern industrial state.
literature
- Bryan & Cherry Alexander: Eskimo - hunters of the far north . Belser, Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-7630-2210-4 .
- Kai Birket-Smith: The Eskimos . Orell Füssli, Zurich 1948.
- Fred Bruemmer : My life with the Inuit . Frederking & Thaler, Munich 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 : Ancient North America . Thames and Hudson, London / New York 1991, ISBN 0-500-27606-4 (also German: The early North America - Archeology of a continent. Translated by Wolfgang Müller. Verlag CH Beck, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-406-37245-7 )
- Bernhard Hantzsch , Leslie Neatby (Eds.): My life among the Eskimos: Baffinland journeys in the years 1909 to 1911, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, 1977
- Kenn Harper, Kevin Spacey: Give Me My Father's Body. The Life of Minik, the New York Eskimo. Steerforth Press, South Royalton VT 2000, ISBN 1-883642-53-1 .
- Kenn Harper: Minik - The Eskimo of New York. Edition Temmen, Bremen 1999, ISBN 3-86108-743-X .
- Richard Harrington: The Inuit - Life as it was . Hurtig, Edmonton 1981, ISBN 0-88830-205-3 .
- Gerhard Hoffmann (ed.): In the shadow of the sun - contemporary art of the Indians & Eskimos in Canada . 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 - History, Culture and Life in the Arctic . Frederking & Thaler, Munich 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: In the Land of the Inuit - Arctic Diary. Pendragon, Bielefeld 2002, ISBN 3-934872-21-2 .
- Ansgar Walk: Kenojuak - life story of an important Inuit artist. Pendragon, Bielefeld 2003, ISBN 3-934872-51-4 .
Movies
- Nanuk, the Eskimo ; Nanook of the North (Robert J. Flaherty), 1922
- Eskimo (Peter Freuchen, WS “Woody” Van Dyke II), 1932/33
- The Pauloosie Toosuk case; Trial at Fortitude Bay (Victor Sarin), 1994.
- Kikkik (Martin Kreelak, Ole Gjerstad, Elisapee Karetak), 2000.
- Atanarjuat - The legend of the fast runner ; Atanarjuat - The Fast Runner ( Zacharias Kunuk ), 2001
- Minik (Axel Engstfeld), 2006.
Web links
- History of the Inuit (Engl.)
- Robert McGee (Canadian Museum of Civilization): The Arctic ( Memento from April 20, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
- Roger Uchtmann: The story of the lamps going out - The depolarization of a polar culture ( Memento from May 29, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
- Government of Greenland (Danish / Inuktitut)
- Government of Nunavut (English / inuktitut)
- Government of Kativik, Québec (English / French / inuktitut)
- Inuit Culture - Outline of History; Inuit way of life, then and now in comparison ( Memento from June 5, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
- The McDougall Sound Archaeological Research Project (March 13, 2015 memento in the Internet Archive )
swell
- ↑ M. Raghavan, M. DeGiorgio, A. Albrechtsen, I. Moltke, P. Skoglund, TS Korneliussen, B. Grønnow, M. Appelt, HC Gulløv, TM Friesen, W. Fitzhugh, H. Malmström, S. Rasmussen, J. Olsen, L. Melchior, BT Fuller, SM Fahrni, T. Stafford, V. Grimes, Renouf, J. Cybulski, N. Lynnerup, MM Lahr, K. Britton, R. Knecht, J. Arneborg, M. Metspalu , OE Cornejo, A.-S. Malaspinas, Y. Wang, et al .: The genetic prehistory of the New World Arctic . In: Science . 345, No. 6200, August, P. 1255832. doi : 10.1126 / science.1255832 .
- ↑ Flegontov, P .; Altınışık, NE; Changmai, P .; Rohland, N .; Mallick, S .; Adamski, N .; Bolnick, DA; Broomandkhoshbacht, N .; Candilio, F .; Culleton, BJ et al .: Palaeo-Eskimo genetic ancestry and the peopling of Chukotka and North America . In: Nature No. 570, 2019, pp. 236-240.
- ↑ From Siberia to the new home. Greenland. In: Epoc . Year 2008, issue 5, p. 10. ISSN 1865-5718
- ↑ Rewriting of Greenland's Immigration History
- ^ Frederic V. Grunfeld (ed.), Oker: Spiele der Welt II. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1984, ISBN 3-596-23075-6 .
- ↑ Heinz Barüske: Greenland. Culture and landscape at the Arctic Circle . DuMont, Cologne 1990. ISBN 3-7701-1544-9 .
- ^ Bruno Nettl: Music in Primitive Culture , Harvard University Press 1956, p. 107.
- ↑ Sume totalt udsolgt (Danish) KNR April 20, 2011, accessed on January 8, 2018th
- ↑ Pictures from a concert 2007 Sermitsiaq, December 12, 2007, accessed on January 4, 2012.
