NunatuKavummiut (or People of NunatuKavut) are an Indigenous collective who trace their descent from Inuit and European people in central to southern Labrador. They have also been called the Southern Inuit, Inuit-Métis and Labrador Métis. While some NunatuKavummiut have used the term Métis (meaning "mixed" in French), they are unrelated to the Métis Nation of Western Canada.
According to the NunatuKavut Community Council (NCC), the NunatuKavummiut span 24 communities across NunatuKavut, forming a majority in many of those, and most still partake in traditional livelihoods such as hunting, fishing, trapping, and berry collecting. The NunatuKavut Community Council's proposed land claims mostly cover central and southern Labrador.
The NCC (formerly the Labrador Métis Nation) signed a memorandum of understanding with the federal government in 2019, though this does not grant Indigenous rights in itself. It is also an associate member of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples. The NCC and its approximately 6,000 members have not been recognized by the Nunatsiavut Government, the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, or the Inuit Circumpolar Council. The Court of Appeal of Newfoundland and Labrador said the NunatuKavummiut had a "credible but [as yet] unproven" case for Indigenous rights.
Terminology Nunatuĸavut or NunatuKavut means "Our Ancient Land" in the traditional Inuttitut dialect of central and southern Labrador. The NunatuKavummiut (literally "the People of Our Ancient Land") have also been known as the South-central Labrador Inuit, Southern Inuit of NunatuKavut, Southern Labrador Inuit, Labrador Inuit-Métis and Labrador Métis. The NCC was previously known as the Labrador Métis Association (1985) and the Labrador Métis Nation (1998).
Changing usage
Until the 1970s, the terminology used for the People of NunatuKavut was often applied by outsiders. Exonyms for the peoples today comprising the NunatuKavummiut have included Anglo-Esquimaux, Esquimaux, Labradorians, livyeres, planters, Settlers or mixed settlers, Southlanders, and more pejorative terms such as half-breeds and half-castes (some of which had also been used to refer to other groups, such as the Métis Nation and Kablunângajuit).
Around 1975, some south-central Labradorians of Inuit and European heritage began to use the term Métis, which means "mixed" in French, to replace the use of derogatory terms such as half-breed. The term became more popular after the formation of the Labrador Métis Association in 1981, and its incorporation in 1985. Even then, not all NunatuKavummiut used Métis, and the term sometimes caused confusion with the mixed Indian-European Métis Nation – an unrelated Indigenous group based in West Canada. Additionally, many of the Indigenous people of south-central Labrador called themselves Inuit or used both names interchangeably. This has led to combined terms such as Inuit-Métis also being used. Ultimately, the name of the community was changed, in 2010, to Southern Inuit of NunatuKavut or NunatuKavummiut to avoid confusion and better reflect the identity of its members.
History Arrival in southern Labrador There has been general scholarly agreement that Inuit were active in southern Labrador from at least the point of European first contact in the 1550s until the 1760s, when the area came under effective European control. Many settlements were inhabited throughout the year. Sod houses dating from the early- to mid-16th century have been identified in Sandwich Bay, such as on Huntingdon Island. Communal houses were inhabited by as many as five or six families and tents were used in the warmer seasons. Occupation was likely much more extensive and consistent than that, as most NunatuKavummiut lived a transhumant semi-nomadic way of life until the mid-1900s., p. 150
Contact with Europeans Southern Inuit groups are recorded as being in conflict with the Basque and French whalers beginning in the mid-1500s; later they traded with these groups until the French were excluded from the region following the Treaty of Paris (1763). Europeans did not have separate communities but lived with the local Inuit and adopted Inuit customs and traditions. The presence of some Iberian and French surnames among south-central Inuit families, attested among Roman Catholic church records, probably relates to early unions with these Basque and French settlers.
Most contact with Europeans after this point was with British men, who mostly came alone or in small groups, and without wives. From as early as the 18th century, there are reports of British (and occasionally Irish) men cohabiting with Inuit women, leading to the development of a Southern Inuit community. These unions would sometimes be formalized by visiting clergy.
Although influenced in many ways by prolonged contact with European seasonal workers and merchants, the Southern Inuit culture and way of life retained distinctly Inuit traditions. The Southern Inuit often traded with European merchants, fishers and fur traders, with items from Italy, England, France and elsewhere discovered at archeological sites. European items were often adapted and customized by the Southern Inuit to better suit their purposes. The Moravian Church missionaries who arrived in the north during the 1770s also did not settle in southern Labrador.
Between 1830 and 1870, the number of permanent British settlers slowly increased (most working for the Hudson's Bay Company or fur and fish traders), creating new generations of mixed Inuit-Europeans. Along the southern coast, these newly emerging Inuit-Europeans, who would become known as the Labrador Métis, developed their own distinct culture, with genealogies that have been traced back to the time of the earliest British arrivals.
The Labrador Métis saw themselves as distinct from their northern Inuit and European neighbors (and were seen as such by non–Inuit-Métis people), but still recognized their Inuit heritage, much like the Kablunângajuit in the north. They used European tools, but adapted them like their Inuit neighbors. They practised a mix of Christian and Inuit religious traditions, albeit less formally than those under the remit of the Moravian Church. They also ate different food from the Europeans, with significantly more seal and local animals, like the Inuit. The construction, layout and contents of their homes also distinguished them from both European and Inuit houses in south-central Labrador. One well documented Labrador Métis sod house was the home of an English trader, Charles Williams, and his Métis (Scots-Inuit) wife, Mary. The house was constructed in the mid- to late-19th century and was inhabited perhaps as late as 1915.
Methodist visitors to south-central Labrador noted the differences between the Indigenous groups of the north and those of the south. As missionaries, they disapproved of the apparent polygamy practised by the southern-central Inuit. They also disapproved of the European "heathens" they found there, whose Indigenous partners they disparaged as "concubines". Lambert De Boilieu documented similar encounters with south-central "Esquimaux" communities, in which he detailed their lengthy breastfeeding, their hunting traditions, and their spiritual and religious beliefs. Scholar Stephen Hay suggests that the Labrador Métis became the majority population of southern Labrador at some point during the 19th century, and describes the integration of Inuit women, in particular, within British households., pp. 56–7 Non-Métis Inuit populations are also recorded throughout the 20th century. Ethnographer E. W. Hawkes recorded the presence of Inuit at Sandwich Bay in the early 20th century called Netcetumiut ("People of the Sealing-Place") and at Battle Harbour called Putlavamiut ("People from the Big Stone Trap" or "People from the Place with the Treacherous Water"). Kennedy described Labrador as having a "continuum" of "Inuitness", ranging from European to Inuit-European to Inuit.
While the Labrador Métis had many similarities with the northern Kablunângajuit group (both groups also shared the name Settlers), scholars have suggested that stigma against Indigenous people led many mixed Inuit-Europeans in the south to hide their ancestry until the latter half of the 20th century. Many adopted English, with the last native speaker of Inuttut in south-central Labrador thought to have died around the 1900s. Despite this, they retained a consistent culture throughout the 19th and early 20th century, until Newfoundland and Labrador joined the Canadian Confederation in March 31, 1949. Moreover, they were never completely divided from the northern Inuit, as communities on the north and south coasts were often related and still retain these family connections today.
NunatuKavummiut today
After the British Dominion of Newfoundland became part of the Canadian Confederation, the Kablunângajuit were incorporated into the recognized Inuit groups, but the Southern Inuit were not.: "By contrast to the Inuit and the Innu, Labrador Metis ethnogenesis developed comparatively late. This was due in part to the assumption that southern Labrador was not considered to be a traditional Inuit homeland. Rather, the Inuit have typically been thought to live only in northern Labrador. Any Inuit presence in the regions south of Hamilton Inlet were thought to be short-term visits made to trade with Europeans, at which point the Inuit returned north. This portrayal of the Inuit as northern residents only is a long-standing narrative, which has circulated in published literature since the early twentieth century (Rankin et al., 2012). By the mid-twentieth century, provincial and federal government agencies officially codified this 'natural' ethnic landscape. Both Inuit and the descendants of early European-Inuit unions living north of Hamilton Inlet would be considered 'native' (and now Inuit), while persons of similar mixed Inuit-European ancestries living further south were not (Kennedy, 1997; LIA, 2005; Plaice, 1996). The residents of southern Labrador were assumed to be of European and not Aboriginal ancestry." Subsequently, during the 1960s, these groups were encouraged by the provincial government's resettlement policy to move to population hubs such as Cartwright, Mary's Harbour, and Port Hope Simpson, thus leaving their traditional homes behind and disrupting their practices. These groups were largely unrepresented until the 1980s, when the Labrador Métis Association (LMA) was established to represent the Southern Inuit and Labrador Métis. The organization changed its name to the NunatuKavut Community Council in 2010, reflecting the historic name of their shared Southern Inuit ancestors, the NunatuKavummiut.
NCC figures from 2007 suggest that almost all NunatuKavummiut have retained traditional practices such as hunting, fishing, collecting wood, and harvesting today; and almost two-thirds still trap. The NunatuKavummiut community has continued to be affected by developments in the NunatuKavut area, and as a result the NCC has campaigned about local issues which may impact the livelihoods of its members. They have been affected by loss of traditional hunting territory and the decline in native wildlife, such as the caribou. In recent years, they have also attempted to engage with mining companies exploiting the area's mineral resources, such as iron. These efforts have been hampered by the lack of federal recognition. In 2023, Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Andrew Furey apologized to survivors of residential schools at an event in Cartwright.
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