for geography student

1. ESKIMO
Eskimos are indigenous peoples who have traditionally inhabited the circumpolar region from eastern Siberia (Russia), across Alaska
(United States), Canada, and Greenland.
There are two main groups that are referred to as Eskimo: Yupik and Inuit. A third group, the Aleut, is related. The Yupik la nguage
dialects and cultures in Alaska and eastern Siberia have evolved in place beginning with the original (pre-Dorset) Eskimo culture that
developed in Alaska. Approximately 4,000 years ago the Unangam (also known as Aleut) culture became distinctly separate, and
evolved into a non-Eskimo culture.
HISTORY:
Approximately 1,500-2,000 years ago, apparently in Northwestern Alaska, two other distinct variations appeared. The Inuit language
branch became distinct and in only several hundred years spread across northern Alaska, Canada and into Greenland. At about t he same
time, the technology of the Thule people developed in northwestern Alaska and very quickly spread over the entire area occupied by
Eskimo people, though it was not necessarily adopted by all of them.
The earliest known Eskimo cultures (pre-Dorset) date to 5,000 years ago. They appear to have evolved in Alaska frompeople using the
Arctic small tool tradition who probably had migrated to Alaska from Siberia at least 2,000 to 3,000 years earlier, though th ey might
have been in Alaska as far back as 10,000 to 12,000 years or more. There are similar artifacts found in Siberia going back perhaps
18,000 years.
Today, the two main groups of Eskimos are the Inuit of northern Alaska, Canada and Greenland, and the Yupik of Central Alaska . The
Yupik comprises speakers of four distinct Yupik languages originated from the western Alaska, in South Central Alaska along the Gulf
of Alaska coast, and the Russian Far East.
In Alaska, the term Eskimo is commonly used, because it includes both Yupik and Inupiat, while Inuit is not accepted as a collective
term or even specifically used for Inupiat. No universal term other than Eskimo, inclusive of all Inuit and Yupik people, exists for the
Inuit and Yupik peoples.
In Canada and Greenland, the term Eskimo has fallen out of favor, as it is sometimes considered pejorative and has been repla ced by the
term Inuit. The Canadian Constitution Act of 1982, sections 25 and 35, recognized the Inuit as a distinctive group of aboriginal peoples
in Canada.
ORIGEN
Alaskans also use the term Alaska Native, which is inclusive of all Eskimo, Aleut and Indian people of Alaska, and is exclusive of Inuit
or Yupik people originating outside the state. The term Alaska Native has important legal usage in Alaska and the rest of the United
States as a result of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971.
The term "Eskimo" is also used worldwide in linguistic or ethnographic works to denote the larger branch of Eskimo -Aleut languages,
the smaller branch being Aleut.
LANGUAGE
The Eskimo-Aleut family of languages includes two cognate branches: the Aleut (Unangan) branch and the Eskimo branch. The Eskimo
sub-family consists of the Inuit language and Yupik language sub-groups. The Sirenikski language, which is virtually extinct, is
sometimes regarded as a third branch of the Eskimo language family, but other sources regard it as a group belonging to the Yupik
branch.
Inuit languages comprise a dialect continuum, or dialect chain, that stretches from Unalakleet and Norton Sound in Alaska, ac ross
northern Alaska and Canada, and east all the way to Greenland. Changes from western (Inupiaq) to eastern dialects are marked by the
dropping of vestigial Yupik-related features, increasing consonant assimilation (e.g., kumlu, meaning "thumb," changes to kuvlu,
changes to kublu, changes to kulluk, changes to kulluq), and increased consonant lengthening, and lexical change. Thus, speakers of two
adjacent Inuit dialects would usually be able to understand one another, but speakers fromdialects distant fromeach other o n the dialect
continuumwould have difficulty understanding one another.
SOCIETY, MARRIAGE
The division of labor in traditional Inuit society had a strong gender component, but it was not absolute. The men were traditionally
hunters and fishermen and the women took care of the children, cleaned the home, sewed, processed food, and cooked. However, there
are numerous examples of women who hunted, out of necessity or as a personal choice. At the same time men, who could be away from
camp for several days at a time, would be expected to know how to sew and cook.
The marital customs among the Inuit were not strictly monogamous: many Inuit relationships were implicitly or explicitly sexual. Open
marriages, polygamy, divorce, and remarriage were known. Among some Inuit groups, if there were children, divorce required th e
approval of the community and particularly the agreement of the elders. Marriages were often arranged, sometimes in infancy, and
occasionally forced on the couple by the community.
Marriage was common for women at puberty and for men when they became productive hunters. Family structure was flexible: a
household might consist of a man and his wife (or wives) and children; it might include his parents or his wife's parents as well as
adopted children; it might be a larger formation of several siblings with their parents, wives and children; or even more than one family
sharing dwellings and resources. Every household had its head, an elder or a particularly respected man.
There was also a larger notion of community as, generally, several families shared a place where they wintered. Goods were shared
within a household, and also, to a significant extent, within a whole community.
The Inuit were hunter-gatherers, and have been referred to as nomadic. One of the customs following the birth of an infant was for an
Angakkuq (shaman) to place a tiny ivory carving of a whale into the baby's mouth, in hopes this would make the child good at hunting.
Loud singing and drumming were also customary after a birth.

2. TRAVEL
The natives hunted sea animals from single-passenger, covered seal-skin boats called qajaq which were extraordinarily buoyant, and
could easily be righted by a seated person, even if completely overturned. Because of this property the design was copied by Europeans,
and Americans who still produce them under the Inuit name kayak.
Inuit also made umiaq ("woman's boat"), larger open boats made of wood frames covered with animal skins, for transporting peo ple,
goods and dogs. They were 6-12 m (20-39 ft) long and had a flat bottomso that the boats could come close to shore. In the winter, Inuit
would also hunt sea mammals by patiently watching an aglu (breathing hole) in the ice and waiting for the air-breathing seals to use
them. This technique is also used by the polar bear, who hunts by seeking holes in the ice and waiting nearby.
On land, the Inuit used dog sleds (qamutik) for transportation. The husky dog breed comes from Inuit breeding of dogs and wolves for
transportation. A team of dogs in either a tandem/side-by-side or fan formation would pull a sled made of wood, animal bones, or the
baleen from a whale's mouth and even frozen fish, over the snow and ice. The Inuit used stars to navigate at sea and landmarks to
navigate on land; they possessed a comprehensive native system of toponymy. Where natural landmarks were insufficient, the Inuit
would erect an inukshuk.
ECONOMY
Traditionally, most groups relied on sea mammals for food, illumination, cooking oil, tools, and weapons. Fish and caribou we re next in
importance in their economy. The practice of eating raw meat, disapproved of by their Native American neighbors, saved s carce fuel and
provided their limited diet with essential nutritional elements that cooking would destroy. Except for the Caribou Eskimo of central
Canada, they were a littoral people who roved inland in the summer for freshwater fishing and game hunting.
Eskimos in the United States and Canada now live largely in settled communities, working for wages and using guns for hunting . Their
mode of transportation is typically the all-terrain vehicle or the snowmobile. The native food supply has been reduced through the use of
firearms, but, as a result of increased contact with other cultures, the Eskimo are no longer completely dependent on their t raditional
sources of sustenance.
The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 granted Alaska natives some 44 million acres of land and established native village
and regional corporations to encourage economic growth. In 1990 the Eskimo population of the United States was some 57,000, with
most living in Alaska. There are over 33,000 Inuit in Canada, the majority living in Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, N Quebec, and
Labrador.
Nunavut was created out of the Northwest Territories in 1999 as a politically separate, predominantly Inuit territory. A sett lement with
the Inuit of Labrador established (2005) Nunatsiavut, a self-governing area in N and central E Labrador. There are also Eskimo
populations in Greenland and Siberia. In the traditional Eskimo economy, the division of labor between the sexes was strict; men
constructed homes and hunted, and women took care of the homes.
The division of labour in traditional Inuit society had a strong gender component, but it was not absolute. The men were trad itionally
hunters and fishermen and the women took care of the children, cleaned the home, sewed, processed food, and cooked. However, there
are numerous examples of women who hunted, out of necessity or as a personal choice. At the same time men, who could be away from
camp for several days at a time, would be expected to know how to sew and cook.
The marital customs among the Inuit were not strictly monogamous: many Inuit relationships were implicitly or explicitly sexual. Open
marriages, polygamy, divorce, and remarriage were known. Among some Inuit groups, if there were children, divorce required th e
approval of the community and particularly the agreement of the elders. Marriages were often arranged, sometimes in infancy, and
occasionally forced on the couple by the community.
Marriage was common for women at puberty and for men when they became productive hunters. Family structure was flexible: a
household might consist of a man and his wife (or wives) and children; it might include his parents or his wife's parents as well as
adopted children; it might be a larger formation of several siblings with their parents, wives and children; or even more than one family
sharing dwellings and resources. Every household had its head, an elder or a particularly respected man.
There was also a larger notion of community as, generally, several families shared a place where they wintered. Goods were shared
within a household, and also, to a significant extent, within a whole community.
The Inuit were hunterÐgatherers, and have been referred to as nomadic. One of the customs following the birth of an infant wa s for an
Angakkuq (shaman) to place a tiny ivory carving of a whale into the baby's mouth, in hopes this would make the child good at hunting.
Loud singing and drumming were also customary after a birth.
ART
Inuit art refers to artwork produced by Inuit people, that is, the people of the Arctic previously known as Eskimos, a term that is now
often considered offensive outside Alaska. Historically their preferred mediumwas walrus ivory, but since the establishment of southern
markets for Inuit art in 1945, prints and figurative works carved in relatively soft stone such as soapstone, serpentinite, or argillite have
also become popular.
Around 4000 BCE nomads known as the Pre-Dorset or the Arctic small tool tradition (ASTT) crossed over the Bering Strait from
Siberia into Alaska, the Canadian Arctic, Greenland, and Newfoundland. Very little remains of them, and only a few preserved artifacts
carved in ivory could be considered works of art.
The Dorset culture, which became culturally distinct around 600 BCE, produced a significant amount of figurative art in the mediums of
walrus ivory, bone, caribou antler, and on rare occasion stone. Subjects included birds, bears, walruses, seals, and human figures, as well
as remarkably small masks. The Dorsets depicted bears and other animals in ivory with lines indicating their skeletal system incised on
the surface of the ivory; bears in such a style are known as "flying bears". These items had a magical or religious significance, and were
either worn as amulets to ward off evil spirits, or used in shamanic rituals.
The Ipiutak culture seems to represent a classical period of Inuit development. The artwork is extremely elaborate, incorpora ting
geometric, animal, and anthropomorhic designs.
Around 1000 CE, the people of the Thule culture, ancestors of today's Inuit, migrated from northern Alaska and either displaced or
slaughtered the earlier Dorset inhabitants. Thule art had a definite Alaskan influence, and included utilitarian objects such as combs,
buttons, needle cases, cooking pots, ornate spears and harpoons. The graphic decorations incised on them were purely ornamental,
bearing no religious significance, but to make the objects used in everyday life appealing.

3. All of the Inuit utensils, tools and weapons were made by hand from natural materials: stone, bone, ivory, antler, and animal hides.
Nomadic people could take very little else with them besides the tools of their daily living; non-utilitarian objects were also carved in
miniature so that they could be carried around or worn, such as delicate earrings, dance masks, amulets, fetish figures, and intricate
combs and figures which were used to tell legends and objectify their mythology and oral history.
In the 16th century the Inuit began to barter with European whalers, missionaries and other visitors to the North for tea, weapons or
alcohol. Items previously produced as decorative tools or shamanic amulets, such as carvings of animals and hunting or campin g scenes,
became trade commodities. Inuit artists also began producing ivory miniatures specifically as trade goods, to decorate European rifles,
tools, boats, and musical instruments. Cribbage boards and carved walrus and narwhal tusks were intended for the whalers. Mis sionaries
encouraged the use of Christian imagery, which was accepted to a limited extent.
MYTHOLOGY, RELIGION, COSMOLOGY
Inuit mythology has many similarities to the religions of other polar regions. Inuit traditional religious practices could be very briefly
summarized as a form of shamanism based on animist principles.
In some respects, Inuit mythology stretches the common conception of what the term "mythology" means. Unlike Greek mythology, for
example, at least a few people have believed in it, without interruption, from the distant past up to and including the prese nt time. While
the dominant religious system of the Inuit today is Christianity, many Inuit do still hold to at least some element of their traditional
religious beliefs. Some see the Inuit as having adapted traditional beliefs to a greater or lesser degree to Christianity, while others would
argue that it is rather the reverse that its true: The Inuit have adapted Christianity to their worldview.
Inuit traditional cosmology is not religion in the usual theological sense, and is similar to what most people think of as mythology only
in that it is a narrative about the world and the place of people in it.
Traditional stories, rituals and taboos of the Inuit are so tied into the fearful and precautionary culture required by their harsh
environment that it raises the question as to whether they qualify as beliefs at all, much less religion. Knud Rasmussen asked his guide
and friend Aua, an angakkuq (shaman), about Inuit religious beliefs among the Iglulingmiut (people of Igloolik) and was told: "We don't
believe. We fear." Living in a varied and irregular world, the Inuit traditionally did not worship anything, but they feared much.
Some authors debate the conclusions we might deduce fromAua's words, because the angakkuq was under the influence of mission aries,
and later he even converted to Christianity - converted people often see the ideas in polarization and contrasts, the authors say. Their
study also analyses beliefs of several Inuit groups, concluding (among others) that fear was not diffuse.
SPIRITS
The Inuit believed that all things had a form of spirit or soul (in Inuktitut: anirniq - breath; plural anirniit), just like humans. These spirits
were held to persist after death - a common belief present in practically all human societies. However, the belief in the pervasiveness of
spirits - the root of Inuit myth structure - has consequences. According to a customary Inuit saying "The great peril of our existence lies
in the fact that our diet consists entirely of souls." By believing that all things have souls like those of humans, killing an animal is little
different from killing a person. Once the anirniq of the dead - animal or human - is liberated, it is free to take revenge. The spirit of the
dead can only be placated by obedience to custom, avoiding taboos, and performing the right rituals.
The harshness and randomness of life in the Arctic ensured that Inuit lived constantly in fear of unseen forces. A run of bad luck could
end an entire community, and begging potentially angry and vengeful but unseen powers for the necessities of day-to-day survival is a
common consequence of a precarious existence even in modern society. For the Inuit, to offend an anirniq was to risk extinction. The
principal role of the angakkuq in Inuit society was to advise and remind people of the rituals and taboos they needed to obey to placate
the spirits, since he was held to be able to see and contact them.
The anirniit were seen to be a part of the sila - the sky or air around them - and were merely borrowed from it. Although each person's
anirniq was individual, shaped by the life and body it inhabited, at the same time it was part of a larger whole. This enable d Inuit to
borrow the powers or characteristics of an anirniq by taking its name. Furthermore, the spirits of a single class of thing - be it sea
mammals, polar bears, or plants - were in some sense held to be the same, and could be invoked through a sort of keeper or master who
was connected in some fashion with that class of thing. In some cases, it is the anirniq of a human or animal who became a figure of
respect or influence over animals things through some action, recounted in a traditional tale.
Some spirits were by nature unconnected to physical bodies. These figures were called tuurngait (also tornait, tornat, torn rait, singular
tuurngaq, torngak, tornrak, tarngek). Some were helping spirits that could be called upon in times of need. Some were evil an d
monstrous, responsible for bad hunts and broken tools. They could also possess humans, as recounted in the story o f Atanarjuat. An
angakkuq with good intentions could use them to heal sickness, and find animals to hunt and feed the community. He or she cou ld fight
or exorcise bad tuurngait, or they could be held at bay by rituals; However, an angakkuq with harmful int entions could also use
"tuurngait" for their own personal gain, or to attack other people and their tuurngait.
Though once Tuurngaq simply meant "helping spirit", it has, with Christianisation, taken on the meaning of demon in the Chris tian
belief system.
DIETIES
Below is an incomplete list of Inuit myth figures thought to hold power over some specific part of the Inuit world:
 Pinga- the goddess of the hunt, fertility and medicine
 Qailertetang- weather spirit, guardian of animals, and matron of fishers and hunters. Qailertetang is the companion of
Sedna.
 Sedna - the mistress of sea animals -- Sedna (Sanna in modern Inuktitut spelling) is known under many names,
including Nerrivik, Arnapkapfaaluk, Arnakuagsak, and Nuliajuk.
 Sila - personification of the air
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CHANDRA KANTA JANA…..