The Inuit People Essay, Research Paper

The Inuit People Inuit: A People Preserved By Ice Thousands of years ago, during the last ice age, mile-thick glacierscovered a vast portion of North America, and the Asian continent wasjoined to North America by a land bridge. The Arctic areas of Alaska,Beringia, and Siberia were free of ice. Vast herds of caribou,muskoxen, and bison migrated to these plains. Following them were thenomadic Asian ancestors of today’s Inuit and Indians. The doorway toAsia closed about three or four thousand years later as the glaciersreceded and melted. These people: the Inuit (meaning the people),adapted to their harsh tundra environment and developed a culture thatremained untainted for a long time. The Inuit people relied solely on hunting for their existence. Withsummers barely lasting two months, agriculture was non-existent.Animals such as caribou and seal were vital. Groups of hunters wouldstalk and kill many caribou with fragile bows made of driftwood, andtheir bounty was split evenly amongst the tribe. Bone spears werefashioned to hunt seals which provided food, oil, clothes, and tents.The seal skins were also used to construct kayaks and other boats thatthe Inuit would use to travel and to hunt whales. One advantage of thesterile cold of the arctic was that it kept these people free of disease(until they met the white man.) Inuit tribes consisted of two to ten loosely joined families. Therewas no one central leader in the group: all decisions were made by thecommunity as a whole. Nor was there any definite set of laws; the Inuit,though usually cheery and optimistic, were prone to uncontrolled burstsof rage. Murder was common amongst them and it went unpunished unlessan individual’s murders occured too often. At that point, that person

was deemed unstable, and the community appointed a man to terminatehim/her. In their society, the duties of men and women were strictly separated.The males would hunt, fish and construct the tools used by the family.Women, however, were responsible for cleaning the animal skins, cooking,sewing the clothes ( a woman’s sewing ability was equally as attractiveto a man as her beauty was), and raising the children. Male childrenwere preferred because they could care for their parents in their oldage; female children when often strangled soon after birth. Although today Christianity has breached some of the southernmosttribes, the vast majority practice a form of animism. Their rituals arebased mainly on the hunt and the handling of slain animals. Magictalismans and charms are believed to control spirits, and shamans areconsulted in the case of injury or illness. There are traces of beliefsin an afterlife or reincarnation, but they are very minor. The Inuit people, like many other tribal minorities, are greatlystereotyped and misunderstood by the common man. For example: the Inuitword igloo means house and can refer to the cabins made of sod that mostInuit occupy. Also, the word Eskimo is a misnomer meaning “eaters ofraw flesh” given to the Inuit by the Algonquin Indians. This is asimple culture that remained undisturbed until whales became a preciouscommodity. Their isolation is slowly coming to an end as westerncivilization puts them into government housing and snowmobiles areincreasing as a means of transportation. They are beautifullyeccentric, and we must work to preserve their culture. References: “Seasons of the Eskimo: A Vanishing Way of Life” by FredBruemmer; Microsoft Encarta96 Encyclopedia; Microsoft Bookshelf.