The Inuit are an indigenous people of the Arctic and subarctic regions of North America (parts of Alaska, Canada, and Greenland). The ancestors of the present-day Inuit are culturally related to Iñupiat (northern Alaska), and Yupik (Siberia and western Alaska),"Inuit", Canadian Encycloprdia and the Aleut who live in the Aleutian Islands of Siberia and Alaska. The term culture of the Inuit, therefore, refers primarily to these areas; however, parallels to other Eskimo groups can also be drawn.
The word "Eskimo" has been used to encompass the Inuit and Yupik, and other indigenous Alaskan and Siberian peoples, but this usage is in decline.
Various groups of Inuit in Canada live throughout the Inuvialuit Settlement Region of the Northwest Territories, the territory of Nunavut, Nunavik in northern Quebec and Nunatsiavut in Labrador and the unrecognised area known as NunatuKavut. With the exception of NunatuKavut these areas are sometimes known as Inuit Nunangat.
The traditional lifestyle of the Inuit is adapted to extreme climatic conditions; their essential skills for survival are hunting and trapping, as well as the construction of fur clothing for survival. Agriculture was never possible in the millions of square kilometres of tundra and icy coasts from Siberia to Northern America including Greenland. Therefore, hunting became the core of the culture and cultural history of the Inuit. They used harpoons and bows and arrows to take down animals of all sizes. Thus, the everyday life in modern Inuit settlements, established only some decades ago, still reflects the 5,000-year-long history of a hunting culture which allowed the Inuit and their ancestors to populate the Arctic.
Etymology
Europeans in North America used to refer to the Inuit as Eskimos, but the people consider that term pejorative. The primary reason some people consider Eskimo derogatory is the questionable but widespread perception that in Algonquian languages it means "eaters of raw meat."Kaplan, Lawrence. "Inuit or Eskimo: Which name to use?" Alaskan Native Language Center, UFA. Retrieved 27 Nov 2013.Eskimo , American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition, 2000 One Cree speaker suggested the original word that became corrupted to Eskimo might indeed have been (which means "he eats it raw"), and the Inuit are referred to in some Cree texts as (which means "eats something raw").
The word Inuit is the autonym, the name which the people use for themselves and it means "the people." Its singular form is Inuk.Hessel, Ingo. Arctic Spirit: Inuit Art from the Albrecht Collection at the Heard. Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre, 2006: x. .
Inuit Circumpolar Council
The Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC), formerly Inuit Circumpolar Conference, is a multinational non-governmental organization (NGO) and indigenous peoples' organization (IPO) representing the 180,000 Inuit and Yupik people (sometimes referred to as Eskimo) living in Alaska (United States), Canada, Greenland (Denmark), and Chukotka, Siberia (Russia).
The Conference, which first met in June 1977, initially represented Native Peoples from Canada, Alaska and Greenland. In 1980 the charter and by-laws of ICC were adopted. The Conference agreed to replace the term Eskimo with the term Inuit. This has not however met with widespread acceptance by some groups, most pre-eminently the Yupik. The principal goals of the ICC are to strengthen unity among Inuit of the circumpolar region; to promote Inuit rights and interests on an international level; to develop and encourage long-term policies that safeguard the Arctic environment; and to seek full and active partnership in the political, economic, and social development of circumpolar regions., or in short: to strengthen ties between Arctic peoples and to promote human, cultural, political and environmental rights and polities at the international level.
Cultural history
Overview
The common ancestors of the Inuit and related peoples are believed by anthropologists to have their origin in eastern Siberia, arriving in the Bering Sea area approximately 10,000 years ago.Naske and Slotnick, 1987, p. 18.
The Inuit in North America (including Greenland) are the descendants of what anthropologists call the Thule people, who emerged from western Alaska around 1000 CE. They had split from the related Aleut group about 4000 years ago and from northeastern Siberian migrants. They spread eastwards across the Arctic. They displaced the related Dorset culture (from 500 BCE to between CE 1000 and 1500), called the in Inuktitut, which was the last major Paleo-Eskimo culture.
The first Inuit group, known as Paleo-Eskimos, crossed the Bering Strait in 3000 BCE presumably on winter ice, which was long after earlier migrations by the ancestors to the North American Indians. Archaeological finds have revealed that the Paleo-Eskimos moved to the northern Canadian Arctic in 2300 BCE, apparently because of a change in climate. From there they gradually followed the herds of game across the Arctic to Greenland, and dispersed into more distinct nomadic tribes.
Pre-Dorset culture (c. 3200 to 850 BCE) is said to begin when the Paleo-Eskimos settled on the islands of the Canadian archipelago and northern Greenland. The descriptions "Dorset" and "Pre-Dorset" come from Cape Dorset on Baffin Island, the source of an assemblage which in 1925 anthropologist Diamond Jenness identified as originating from a hitherto unknown "Dorset culture." The Paleo-Eskimos weathered the winter of the high Arctic with much more difficulty than their later descendants because they lacked technologies such as boats, harpoon-tips, dog sleds, dwellings other than skin tents, and sources of warmth other than small fire pits and wood fuels. In the central Canadian Arctic, they mainly hunted muskoxen and caribou with bow and arrow, and fished with barbed devices. Groups living near the coastline hunted seals, walruses and smaller whales by throwing harpoons from the shore or from sea ice.
Period I (9000 – 5000 BCE)
Western Arctic Paleo-Arctic tradition – Alaska and the east, west, and the southwest Yukon Territory. Anangula Tradition
Period II (5000 – c. 2000 BCE) Western Arctic Ocean Bay I Northern Archaic tradition
Period III (c. 2000 – 1000 BCE) Western Arctic Takli Culture Arctic small tool tradition (spreads eastward) = Alaska Peninsula, around Bristol Bay, and on the eastern shores of the Bering Strait Eastern Arctic Eastern Arctic Small Tool Tradition groups c. 3000 – 500 BCE Independence I culture Northern Greenland and the Canadian Arctic between 2400 and 1000 BCE. This Paleo-Eskimo culture was named after Independence Fjord, where traces of a large settlement were found. Their lodgings were erected on elliptical foundations centred upon box-shaped hearths made of flat stones set on end. These they filled with driftwood, musk ox dung, and bones. They might have started fires with the help of a bow drill operated by sinews, which was in general use some centuries later.
Saqqaq culture 2400 – 900 BCE
In the western and southern parts of the eastern coast of Greenland, the Saqqaq culture developed around 2300 BCE and lasted 1500 years. The centre of their settlements was Disko Bay near the place Saqqaq, which lent its name to the culture. The people extended their culture along the fjords and coastlines in the area. The culture of the Saqqaq people shows marked similarity to the culture that in the Canadian Arctic is described as "Pre-Dorset", and the two cultures developed around the same time. Scholars believe that the people of the Saqqaq split off from the Pre-Dorset culture, migrated into Greenland from Ellesmere Island in the north, and later migrated to the southern coast.
Period IV (1000 BCE – 1000 CE)
Western Arctic
Kachemak tradition Norton tradition – 1000 BCE to 800 CE. Choris (750 – 400 BCE),Christyann Darwent and John Darwent, "The Enigmatic Choris and Old Whaling Cultures of the Western Arctic". The Oxford Handbook of the Prehistoric Arctic (2016), edited by Max Friesen and Owen Mason Norton (500 BCE — 800 CE) Ipiutak (100–200 BCE to 800 CE) (in northern Alaska, the forerunners of the Thule people)
Eastern Arctic
Independence II culture (700 – 80 BCE)
Northern and northeastern Greenland from around, north and south of the Independence Fjord. Presumably for climatic reasons, northern Greenland was not populated for about 500 years afterward. Archaeological evidence has shown that before the disappearance of the Saqqaq culture from southern Greenland, a new culture arrived from the Canadian archipelago. The newer people showed a more developed culture from an archaeological standpoint. That culture is called Independence II culture, and it seems to have developed from the Canadian Pre-Dorset cultures. Possibly, they came in close contact with the Saqqaq culture.
The range of distribution of the Independence II people approximately corresponds to that of the Independence I people. The oldest finds have been dated to 1400 BCE, and the most recent to 400 BCE. Researchers have not confirmed whether the farthest northern regions of Greenland were constantly settled during this 1000-year period, because only about 10 dwellings are extant. The climate of that time steadily worsened; the warmest temperature of the Independence II period approximately matches the coldest temperature of the Independence I period.
Archaeological research has focused its fieldwork on areas of Greenland below 83 degrees latitude north for traces of the Independence II culture. In 1987 the remains of a larger Independence II settlement was discovered on the Île-de-France (at about 78 degrees north). The Independence II people hunted the same animals as earlier cultures (seals and muskoxen), but for the first time also walruses. The houses of the Independence II period were similar to those of the Independence I period, only more complex. So far no connection between the two cultures has been proven. Independence II tools are more reminiscent of the Pre-Dorset and the later Dorset culture. The fate of the Independence II culture is unknown; it is possible that they migrated south along the east coast of Greenland and merged into the Dorset Culture.
Dorset Culture (500 BCE – 1000 CE)
Archaeological evidence shows that between 500 BCE and 500 CE, remarkable technological and cultural advances took place in the area of northern Canada and Greenland known as the Dorset region. Today this period is known as Dorset I. The Dorset people are probably identical to the Tuniit (singular Tuniq, also Tornit or Tunirjuat), who are described in Inuit mythology as powerful giants who dwelt in stone houses. They were believed to have been capable of enormous feats of strength, such as carrying walruses or moving enormous boulders.
Their hunting methods were greatly improved over previous Arctic cultures. They probably invented the igloo,Igloo (originally iglu) can refer to any kind of house, although it is usually used to refer to domed snow dwellings. Definition which is difficult to determine because such ephemeral structures leave no archaeological evidence. They spent the winters in relatively permanent dwellings constructed of stone and pieces of grass; these were the precursors of the later qarmaqs. They were also the first culture to carve seal-oil lamps (qulliq, also spelled kudlik) from soapstone.
In the next 500 years, known as the Dorset II period, the Dorset culture expanded to occupy the region between Victoria Island in the west to Greenland in the east to Newfoundland in the south. A shift in climate, which enabled them to settle high-Arctic regions, probably contributed to this. It is remarkable that the Dorset II culture uniformly maintained the stylistic attributes of the Dorset I culture despite this rapid territorial expansion.