In northern Québec, the Northwest Territories, and on the north coast of Labrador live the Canadian Eskimos, more popularly known today as Inuit (Real Men). Over 20,000 of these northernmost Canadians live in widely scattered communities with populations ranging from fifty to several thousand people. Their origins, as revealed by the archaeological record, are still not clear.
Although parts of the north have been occupied for at least 30,000 years, the ancestors of the Canadian Inuit arrived on this continent no more than 10,000 years ago. By the eighteenth century, European influences were being felt by the Inuit: in some places only indirectly, elsewhere there were traders and whalers bringing with them iron and steel implements, rifles, fishnets, open boats, textiles and sewing machines, foods, inexpensive musical instruments and a demand for furs that fostered the development of trapping at the expense of hunting and sealing.
At the time of European contact there were on the order of 50,000 Eskimos in the arctic world. Of these, some 2,000 lived in Siberia, 26,000 in Alaska, 8,000 in Canada, and 14,000 in Greenland. Their population density varied greatly, with the smallest numbers living in the Canadian Central Arctic where plant and animal resources were very poor.
Resources and Environment
Caribou, fish, and seal were the basic animal resources used, in varying proportions, by all Canadian Inuit. Polar bear, muskox, walrus, beluga whale, and narwhal were also valuable as were a wide variety of other animal and plant resources found throughout the arctic regions.
The arctic climate has varied over hundreds of years but the basic seasonal pattern is one of long, cold winters and short, cool summers. Although the weather starts to warm up in May, most communities are not ice-free until July. Freeze-up occurs in October or November.
Copper Eskimo
The historic Canadian Inuit -that is, those living at the time of first European contact were grouped by early anthropologists on the basis of shared features of geography and culture. They were known from east to west as Labrador, East Hudson Bay, Baffinland, Sadlermiut, Iglulik, Caribou, Netsilik, Copper and Mackenzie Eskimos. A National Museum anthropologist, the late Diamond Jenness, was a member of the Canadian Arctic Expedition and lived with the Copper Eskimos from 1914 to 1916. Jenness and other members of the expedition, led by Canadian anthropologist Vilhjalmur Stefansson, brought back extensive collections of artifacts, photographs, and films and documented a rapidly changing culture. The life of the Copper Eskimo at that time is examined here as a microcosm of the general way Canadian Inuit once lived.
The Copper Eskimos inhabited Victoria Island and the Coronation Gulf region of the Central Arctic. When sustained contact with Whites began early in the twentieth century, this group numbered about 800 people and occupied approximately 388,500 square kilometres of tundra and sea-ice. Their culture was closely adapted to local resources through some 800 years of living in the area. Extensive use of the local native copper deposits prompted explorers to name these people the Copper Eskimos.
The yearly cycle of life was governed by the changing seasons which determined what food resources were available, where people had to travel to harvest them and the types of living arrangements that were possible.
The month of May is a convenient starting point to trace a year in the life of traditional Copper Eskimo culture. By this time of year the sun is constantly circling overhead, causing the snow to melt from the land and sea-ice. As snow buntings and ptarmigan make their first appearance, countless numbers of caribou stream northward to their summer pasture grounds.
Spring Migration
When the roofs of snow houses on the sea-ice began to collapse, the Copper Eskimo abandoned these winter villages and started the annual trek to the interior carrying all that was necessary for summer life on the tundra.
The decision to move was not made according to any set pattern. A man respected as a good hunter might start packing his goods on a sled and others in the community either followed suit or remained where they were for a few more weeks according to whim. Before each group moved inland, however, it deposited surplus winter gear and clothing on the coast, as well as stores of blubber that would provide fuel and light when the summer days were over and winter returned once more. Caches were protected from animals by building them on islands and high rocks, or by covering them with boulders. Other people respected these stores, recognizing that lives might depend on items deposited there.
The meagre food resources of most areas could not support large groups during the warm summer months. Consequently small groups consisting of a single family or a few families related by kinship, partnership or friendship travelled about the tundra interior. They moved camp every few days to try fishing a different lake, find a caribou herd or trade with people from another area. A family might wander 800 kilometres on foot through the area they considered their home territory. Their movements were not aimless, however, as they went to hunting and fishing spots known in the past to be productive.
A man had quite an investment in his home district and was reluctant to move to an unfamiliar area that might not supply food for his family. If a move was made the man invariably tried to associate with an older inhabitant of the new district who could act as guide. As it was rare for whole groups to move to a new territory, inter-group conflict over hunting or fishing territories was negligible.
Until 1910 the Copper Eskimos were suspicious of the Amerindians to the south and stayed away from their territory. In that year, however, Stefansson brought some Copper Eskimos together with Amerindians of Great Bear Lake to trade Eskimo dogs for guns and ammunition. The trade then became an annual affair.
Quest for Food
Through the end of July, fishing was the main pursuit of the peregrinating families, with both men and women participating. In early summer, arctic char and lake trout were caught with hook and line at holes cut through lake ice, or were speared in shallow water. In most of the larger rivers there were large runs of arctic char returning from the sea in late summer. Several family groups met at known fishing spots where the fish gathered below waterfalls, or where stone weirs were built across shallow streams. The fish were speared, split and dried for early winter use. By the end of July, fishing was finished and the ice had melted from all except the very largest lakes.
After storing the dried fish and extraneous clothing and household articles in a stone cache, the Copper Eskimo went off to hunt. They knocked down ptarmigan and longspurs with stones or arrows, shot ducks on their nests and carried off the eggs, speared or caught ground squirrels with nooses and speared or caught with their hands the tiny fish that hid under the stones on the margins of the lakes. With their bows and arrows they stalked brown bears and wolves, while polar bears were run down with the help of the dogs and stabbed with improvised spears.
Meanwhile the caribou grew fat with peaceful grazing. Although caribou were hunted throughout the summer, the most important hunt occurred in September and October when the animals gathered in large herds prior to their move southward toward the forest. The skins were then in prime condition for use as winter clothing and the meat was stored for use in early winter, before sealing could begin from the new ice.
Caribou Hunting
Because the bow and arrow and spear were effective only at close range, several family groups cooperated to drive the caribou toward an ambush. Lines of inuksuit (stone "men") were built to guide the caribou towards the hunters who waited concealed in shallow pits. At other times the caribou were driven to a crossing on a river or lake and speared from kayaks as they swam.
The long, slender Copper Eskimo kayak was well adapted for this purpose, although those used by the eastern and western arctic Eskimos were shorter and broader and thus better able to withstand hunting in rough seas. All kayaks, however, were constructed on the same basic principle; a slender wooden frame was entirely covered with dehaired seal or caribou skin, leaving only a central hole for the passenger surrounded by a wooden coaming in the deck. The skeleton of the kayak consisted of two gunwales, or planks bound together at the bow and stern and held apart by deck beams. Mortised into the bottom of the gunwales were a large number of ribs, with a number of longitudinal stringers fastened to the ribs for strength.
After a sufficient number of caribou were killed, several weeks were required for sewing winter clothes. Prime caribou skins were those taken in late summer and early fall when the holes left by the parasitic warble flies had healed over and the old fur was completely shed; the more luxuriant new growth had appeared but was not too long. Skins were scraped, dried, softened, cut and finally sewn using copper needles and sinew thread. This work had to be completed before the winter sealing began, because sewing caribou skins on the ice-sea was believed to cause storms and other dangerous events. This taboo originated in a basic Copper Eskimo belief that land and sea products had to be kept separate to avoid supernatural punishment. For example, seal and caribou meat could not be cooked together in the same pot as doing so could cause sickness, drive away the game or bring on bad weather.
In November and early December, the family groups gathered in large bands at "sewing places" along the coast where they had cached their heavy, but warm, caribou-skin tents for use at the end of winter and before snow was available for making snow houses. Here, they lived on food stored from the previous spring and summer and waited for the sewing to be finished and the ice to thicken so they could begin their winter life on the sea-ice.
The clothing made of caribou skins was the primary protection against the arctic winter. All winter clothing was worn in two layers, the inner one having the fur next to the body and the outer one with the fur outside. Thus protected, a hunter could work in the coldest winter weather. Special clothing, with extra care taken in the style, ornamentation and condition, was reserved for winter visiting and dancing.
While waiting for the move onto the sea-ice, the men were busy bringing in their caches of caribou meat, dried or frozen fish and the pokes of blubber that had been secreted in stone cairns on the coast since spring. They also worked at repairing or making new sealing implements. The scraping of most of the skins that the women used in making clothing was also done at this time by the men.
Division of Labour
While there were exceptions, the division of labour was structured strictly along male/female lines. The men generally performed the heavier tasks: most of the hunting, building of snow houses and erecting of heavy caribou-skin tents in the spring and fall. Their spare time was spent in making and mending tools and weapons. All the cooking, sewing and caring for small children fell to the women. They also gathered fuel in summer, helped along with the children in the caribou drive, fished through the ice in fall and spring, and participated in the late spring salmon catches at the stone weirs. Few women could manage a kayak and rare was the woman who took part in hunting and sealing.
Winter Life
The winter phase of the annual cycle began in December, when the sea-ice became thick enough to support their camps. The bands of about 100 people who had gathered at each sewing place now moved onto the ice and established their first winter villages. Each family carried all its belongings on a sled pulled by the men and women and their two or three dogs. The band moved only a few miles in the short winter day before building a snow house camp for the night.
The sleds used in these community migrations were made of driftwood or black spruce from the southern edge of Copper Eskimo territory. The runners were protected by a coating of frozen mud, and friction was reduced by a thin layer of pure ice glazed onto the mud by squirting water onto them from the mouth. The ice layer was quickly smoothed out with a pad of polar bear fur to which water will not stick. Being lashed together, rather than nailed or pegged, the sled had a flexibility that reduced breakage caused by the bumps and shocks of travel over rough ice or frozen, rocky ground.
The snow house was a dome-shaped structure built from blocks of hard, drifted snow. It provided a well insulated dwelling which served equally well for an overnight camp or for a month's stay at a good sealing location. A winter sealing village consisted of about twenty such structures. Each house sheltered a single family, but in some instances two or more families of friends or relatives might build connecting houses with separate sleeping platforms, tables and lamps for each group. A large community dance house was always erected, usually by joining the front portions of two or three houses.
In mid-winter the women had very little to do while their husbands were away sealing. Since they were forbidden to sew new garments during the days that the sun was absent, they spent their time gossiping in the dance house or in the houses of neighbours until the growing gloom signalled that it was time to trim the lamp and heat the pot for the hunters' evening meal.
The sealing grounds were often three to five miles (five to eight kilometres) from the village. The men and their dogs went there as a group and then split up to find the several breathing holes that the ringed seal kept open through the ice all winter long. The dogs, with their superior ability to smell, sniffed about and located the breathing holes. Portions of any game killed were distributed throughout the village, but the major part was reserved for the hunter's family, the basic unit of Copper Eskimo society.
Community Structure
Each community or band had a name associated with an inland territory where the members hunted in summer. Most of the families in a band were related by kinship or marriage and, as there was no recognized band leader, these ties served to maintain peace and harmony. Thus united, the members provided for each other when sick, took care of the aged, widows and orphans, and defended each other against outsiders. Any stranger was a potential enemy to the community, but this threat was eliminated if he were attached to some family through spouse exchange or adoption or as a dance associate. The former arrangement was an exchange of mates with a visiting couple for a night or so; any offspring from this temporary union were recognized as siblings. These sorts of exchanges and a number of variations on them were not considered unusual; indeed they contributed to the long-term welfare of the group. Spouse exchange within the group was more problematic and in arctic communities today it is often a major cause of friction.
Anthropologists are often integrated into a community through "adoption" by a family; as fictive kin, however, they seldom have a full complement of rights and duties. Diamond Jenness was adopted as a son by Ikpakhuak and Higilak, the most influential family of the Dolphin and Union straits Inuit. Jenness was expected to hunt and share his belongings with them just as they took care of his needs and gave him a crash course in learning what it was like to be Inuit.
The other way to foster permanent ties between people of different communities was through dancing associates, a connection meant to last until one of the partners died or became estranged through a violent quarrel. Jenness described the making of such ties in June of 1915 when two different bands of Copper Eskimo met at Lake Tahiryuak on Victoria Island.
Ikpakhuak was the most influential man in our party, so it was only natural that his wife Higilak should lead off in the dancing. Despite her portly figure she danced very well and gave a good exhibition of the ordinary pisik [personal song] in which she beat the drum herself. She called out her visitor Allikammik to run around her, first in one direction, then in the other, thus making her a dancing-associate. Allikammik then retired to the ring again, and the two women ratified their friendship by shaking their noses within an inch of each other.
Allikammik then did a dance of her own and called out Higilak in the same manner. Ikpakhuak later danced calling out both Allikammik and then her husband Kunana who, when he later danced, called out both Ikpakhuak and Higilak, thus completely cementing the dance-associate relationships between all four people. Jenness does not tell us whether the relationships were further strengthened through spouse exchange, although he does mention that Higilak was jealous of the attention shown Ipakhuak by Allikammik.
Marriage, as well as puberty, was marked by little or no ceremony, especially if the new couple were to remain in the bride's district. The groom erected a snow house and the bride moved in with her seal-oil lamp and a few other possessions. If the groom were taking the girl to another settlement he had to make a payment to the bride's parents as compensation for the loss of her services. Girls were often married before puberty. Because females were less valued than males and, therefore, the first to be sacrificed in times of extreme hardship, there was a preponderance of males in the population. This situation and occasional instances of polygyny meant that a man was often well into his prime by the time he found a wife. Most, but by no means all, marriages partners were found within the band The band acted as a unit only in communal eating, dancing in the dance house, and in moving to a new location every few weeks when seals became scarce in the vicinity of the old village.
Community disapproval was the main agent for social control. Without a community council, however, the will of the people had little voice or authority and minor offenses such as theft and abduction went unpunished. When murders occurred, usually only in the heat of passion, they frequently led to a feud in which relatives of the original victim attacked or killed the murderer and were then themselves attacked by the murderer's relatives. Further escalation was avoided by flight or by people on both sides deciding not to carry it further. Jenness heard of one unpunished murder that occurred when a man was sitting in his hut [snow house] sharpening a knife that he had just made, when a neighbour entered and began to jeer at him, saying that he did not know how to make a knife. The owner quietly continued to sharpen his weapon until its edge was keen enough, then drove it into the jester's stomach with the remark, "Now see if I can't make a knife."
A good deal of conflict resulted from the inevitable tensions of living one's entire life among an isolated group of only 100 people. Thus, much of the Copper Eskimo's energy was spent in maintaining personal relationships and resolving these tensions.
Oral Traditions and Religion
The cold dark days of early winter brought hunting almost to a standstill. This was the time for singing, telling stories and communicating with the spirits which controlled the animals and the weather.
Songs were personal poems; they told of the singer's feelings and experiences. Legends told of the supernatural world, the origins of things, animals and their relationships to men, and events in the distant past. The Copper Eskimo view of the world as a place inhabited by men, giants, dwarfs, animals with strange powers, ghosts, and supernatural beings was expressed in these songs and stories. The universe was conceived as a flat, endless expanse of land and sea, usually covered over by snow and ice. At the corners were wooden posts holding up an unbroken expanse of sky, above which was another land full of caribou and other animals with the sun, moon, and stars.
Certain people in each community were known to be shamans, people who could communicate with the supernatural world. They were called on to discover the reason for bad weather, poor hunting, or other misfortunes. Illness in the village, or a storm which prevented hunting, might be the result of a woman sewing caribou skins while living on the sea-ice. Poor seal hunting might result from a man laughing at a seal which he had caught. Such information could be discovered by the shaman through conjuring or by seeking an answer in a trance.
Most of man's misfortunes were caused by tornrait (spirits) or inyuin tarrait (shades of the dead), the latter being different from the concept of soul. When troubles occurred these spirits or shades had to be appeased, but first the shaman had to discover what shades or spirits were causing the problem. To do this he or she held a type of seance at which he was entered by one of his helping or familiar spirits; these could be the spirit of an animal or the shade of a dead person.
Diamond Jenness often saw a shaman named Higilak hold seances for the purpose of finding when visitors might arrive, why someone was ill, where the seals were or where some article was lost. Her familiars included the spirits of a polar bear and a wolf as well as the shade of a dead relative. One night Jenness saw Higilak's divine over her husband Ikpakhuak, who had come home with a headache.
She borrowed my coat [attigi], rolled it into a bundle, and fastened her belt-cord around it. Then she summoned a shade into the bundle and asked various questions, judging of the answers by the weight of the coat, "Yes" if it seemed heavy to lift and "No" if it seemed light. After a series of questions and answers she discovered that a dead sister-in-law of Ikpakhuak had bewitched him, so she appeased the wrath of the shade with soothing words until it promised to cease its baneful influence.
The shamanistic performances were more common during the winter months but could be held anytime of the year day or night and in or out of doors. Shamans were not usually particularly powerful people and had no more or less rights and obligations than other members of the band.
The lengthening daylight of February and March climaxed the Copper Eskimo year. Seals could be hunted more easily in the growing daylight, so food and fuel were usually abundant in the villages. People and dogs ate well, and the lamps burned giving heat and light. The children played tag, wrestled in the snow, and set up house with miniature tools and weapons. Longer days meant travel, migrations to new sealing grounds and visits from friends among the eight or ten villages scattered over the ice between Amundsen Gulf and Dease Strait. Dances were held almost nightly in honour of both visitors and hosts, and they carried on a brisk barter.
Trade
The Copper Eskimos produced original copper items and acted as middlemen in the stone lamp and stone pot trade. No one area of the Arctic had all the necessary resources so some items were widely traded. Guns, ammunition and iron knives came from people south of Bathurst Inlet in exchange for the skins of caribou, muskoxen and foxes. Also traded with other groups were sleds, muskox horns, pals, tent poles, firestones (pyrites) and many lesser items.
Visiting groups often rearranged themselves, some of the local group returning with the visitors to their sealing grounds, while some of the newcomers in turn stayed with the group they had come to visit. Again, it was all according to individual whim.
The first European to see the Copper Eskimos was Samuel Hearne, whose Indian companions massacred a group of Inuit in 1771 on a stretch of the Coppermine River now appropriately known as Bloody Falls. The Inuit had brief encounters with several exploring expeditions during the nineteenth century, but with little effect on their way of life. After 1905, white and Inuit traders from Alaska and the Mackenzie River District began to visit the area frequently and the Copper Eskimo soon became involved in trading fox furs for rifles and other European goods. In 1916 the Hudson's Bay Company opened a trading post in the area, a mission was established in the same year, and a patrol of Northwest Mounted Police brought Canadian law to the region. White influence has accelerated constantly since that time.
The Copper Eskimo Today
Most of the Copper Eskimos now live in the communities of Coppermine, Holman Island, Cambridge Bay and Bathurst Inlet. In 1920, just four years after he had lived with the Copper Eskimo, Jenness reported that:
the Copper Eskimo country had undergone a profound change during the last few years. The Eskimos were leaving their winter sealing grounds about two months earlier than usual, and devoting their attention to the trapping of foxes. In the winter of 1919 all the inhabitants of southeast Victoria island migrated to Kent peninsula, where a large supply of blubber fuel had been accumulated by the trader in order that the natives might be able to give all their time to trapping. Hardly a bow remained in the country, nearly every man possessing a rifle. Caribou meat had therefore become the predominant article of food, and the destruction of the caribou was proceeding so rapidly that within ten years... hardly one would be left in the vicinity of Coronation gulf. The old copper culture had given place to one of iron... and the old style of dress was being abandoned in favour of western models. Infanticide had become exceedingly rare, partly through police and missionary influence.... On the other hand tuberculosis had already made its appearance among the Copper Eskimos. Clearly, for better or for worse, the new era has dawned, and only the future can decide whether the natives will survive or go under.
Modernization and urbanization of the Inuit have virtually eliminated their traditional, ecologically-adapted nomadic lifestyle. Where once hundreds of camps dotted the arctic landscape, the entire Canadian Inuit population is now concentrated in about fifty settlements. This urban trend may reduce even that number to a handful of still larger centres. Typical of underdeveloped regions, most parts of the Canadian North are plagued with low income per capita, restricted job opportunities and an illusory economic structure based largely on outside subsidization and sources of influence and control.
Government involvement in the North was negligible until the Second World War. By that time the government faced a state of continuing crisis which demanded immediate attention. Inevitably short-term solutions were substituted for long-term planning.
The Inuit themselves are showing increasing interest in their own culture and language and have formed active political and cultural groups designed to protect and advance their interest. Pan-Inuit organization of this type is still extremely difficult, however, because of the widely dispersed population and the general north/south, as opposed to east/west, orientation of the transportation and communication systems in the North. Through satellites, live colour television and reliable telephone communications are now available in most Inuit communities that want them. Increasing amounts of programme material are being produced in the North and for the North. Inuit Tapirisat, the largest of the Inuit political organizations, is currently involved in a land claims case in the Northwest Territories that will have far-reaching consequences.
In the mid-1970s noted Inuk sculptor Pierre Karlik of Rankin Inlet, N.W.T. crafted a 540-kilogram sculpture for the National Museum of Man. The title of his sculpture is Inuit Ubhmi (Eskimos Today). In explaining the meaning of the sculpture he wrote the following text:
The Eskimos today
-- Mostly now live in permanent settlements;
The Eskimos today
-- Are living in one settlement all winter long instead of moving around as they traditionally did;
The Eskimos today
-- Their children are now learning to speak English;
The Eskimos today
-- Are now seeing and experiencing many new things;
The Eskimos today
-- Don't understand many things that are happening;
The Eskimos today
-- Are searching for ways to be happy and contented;
The Eskimos today
-- Are no longer able to live their traditional lifestyle;
The Eskimos today
-- Are still unable to fit into the whiteman's lifestyle.
Karlik's final comment concerned the land claims. "Right now they are talking about their own land. Their own land is not their own. The land is an owner of those people. This land does not belong to anybody, it's just for living on."
