Native Americans: The Inuit of the Artic

   

The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants, and many ethnic groups who identify with those peoples. In North American, they are often also referred to as Native Americans, Aboriginals,  First Nations, and (by Christopher Columbus' geographic mistake) Indians, later called Red Indians and by unique tribal identifications (Algonquin, Sioux, Cherokee, Navajo, etc.). Native American peoples are located throughout the United States.

Hawaiian and Alaskan indigenous peoples are also considered Native Americans. Native Americans are a diverse and culturally rich. There are 562 tribes officially recognized by the federal government. With about 4.5 million individuals who self-identify as having American Indian, Alaskan Native or Native Hawaiian ancestry. Each group has its own language and social customs.

The Inuit (The People) 

One of these Native American groups is called The Inuit. The Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Artic regions of Canada, Greenland, Siberia and Alaska. Inuit means “the people” in the Inuktitut language. An Inuk is an Inuit person. The Inuit language is grouped under Eskimo-Aleut languages.

The Land of the Inuits

The Inuit have lived in the Arctic for thousands of years. Some areas formerly occupied by the Inuit are no longer inhabited. The lands where the Inuit live is cold and harsh.  They have long cold winters and short, cool summers. There is a lot of snow.  On the average there are between 15 and 90 inches of snow each year.  The snow doesn't melt until spring, and winter storms can force people to remain inside for days at a time. 

Inuit Territory

Inuit Travel

For transportation Inuits use kayaks, umiaks, snowshoes and dogsleds.

The kayak is a boat that can carry only one person. It is quiet for hunting. It is small and covered in seal skins. Around the edge it was slightly raised so the passenger could fasten his coat to the rim. This way the man and the boat could be one water proof unit. The kayak’s paddle is a long stick which has a paddle on each side. 

The umiak is a larger and more open boat.  It is covered with animal skins. It was made to carry large loads: an entire family or a two-ton load of blubber. The normal length of a amok was 35-40 feet. But for its size it was quite light, light enough for two men to carry.  

The best known transportation was the komatik or dogsled. The komatik has a light but sturdy frame on runners with reins. The reins are hitched up to six or so huskies.

Snowshoes are racket-shaped platforms which have leather straps across the frame which tie on your feet.

Kayak

Dogsled / Komatik

                                       

Umiak

Inuit Houses

The word igloo actually means any type of house, not just a snow house. The snow-block house that we usually think of when we hear igloo was not used by all Inuits.  There were no snow-block houses in Alaska.  The Alaskan Inuits lived cabins made from driftwood and covered with soil.

To make an igloo, hard-packed snow was cut into blocks with a long knife made of bone, ivory, or metal. A man could build an  igloo in an hour. In the igloo, Inuit slept on a low snow platform covered with twigs and caribou furs. Each igloo had a skylight made of freshwater ice. When summer arrived the igloo melted, and the family had to move into tents made of animal skins.

 

Inuit Food

The Inuit people hunt for their food.  They eat primarily fish, sea mammals and a few land mammals. They hunt seals, especially, the ring seal.  Inuit know a great deal about how seals live.  They also know about ice that covers the sea in the winter.  They know where to go on that ice to find the seals.

 

The Inuit people hunt seals during winter through the frozen ocean ice. Seals are mammals and must breathe. Seals scratch a holes through the ice as it begins to freeze.  Seals come back to these holes for air. The Inuit hunter stood with a poised harpoon over these breathing holes, waiting for the seal to surface. Often the hunter had to stand this way for several hours in the bitter cold.  Harpoons are still used, though rifles are also used..

In the spring and summer, when the ices melts, seals are hunted from boats called kayaks.  The kayak holds only one hunter.  It  is covered all over with sealskin or caribou skin. The hunter sits in it, dressed in tight-fitting waterproof clothing made from seal or walrus intestine. The kayak moves silently through the water.  The hunter can get very close to seals without being heard. 

Hunter in kayak 
with harpoon

Caribou

Caribou are also hunted for food, as well as for their skins for clothing and antlers for tools. 

Inuit Clothing

Only fur clothing was warm enough in such a cold place.  The Inuit preferred the fur of the caribou, though they sometimes used fur of other animals such as seals and polar bear.

Clothing consisted of coat, trousers, stockings, shoes or boots.  In very cold weather two of each garment were worn.  The inner one had the fur against the skin, the outer one had the fur outside.  

One Inuit garment, the hooded coat called the parka, has been adopted by skiers and others who spend time in the cold. An atiqik is a Inuit parka made with goose down. 

 

Boots are called kamiks.  They are made from sealskin because it lasts long, is warm,  and isn't hurt when it gets wet. 

Kamiks

FAMILY & WORK

Men and women do different things.  Men are the hunters and home builders, while women preparethe food, work on skins and make the clothing.  Men and women need each other.  Every Inuit gets married.  Inuit are fond of children and orphans live with relatives and are well treated.  In a land where there were no vegetable foods or roads, a mother nurses her children and carries them everywhere on her back until they are 3 years old.

Information courtesy of http://www.ih.k12.oh.us/ps/Inuit/Maininuit.htm