Copper Inuit Research Articles

Mapping Inuinnaqtun: The Role of Digital Technology in the Revival of Traditional Inuit Knowledge Ecosystems

The term Inuinnaqtun is often used in reference to a dialect of Inuktut spoken by Inuinnait (Copper Inuit) of the Central Canadian Arctic. The broader meaning of Inuinnaqtun, however, is to speak, to create, to practice, to do, to think, to be, like an Inuinnaq (a human being). Inuinnaqtun was once its own robust ecosystem, with Inuinnait physically immersed in a landscape and way of life that nourished a fluent and full language, supported human relationships, and maintained a sophisticated body of cultural knowledge. The Inuinnait journey into the 21st century has challenged the practice of Inuinnaqtun, along with the connectivity of its ecosystem. How can an integrated Inuinnaqtun ecosystem be restored in contemporary Inuinnait society? In this paper, we outline the decade-long development of a digital mapping program to document traditional forms of engagement between Inuinnait people, language and land, and facilitate the continued circulation of knowledge that underlies these relationships. In reviewing its various successes and challenges, we critically question digital technology’s ability to digitally represent Inuinnaqtun ontology, in addition to the role that digital technologies can play in facilitating the local relocation of knowledge, objects and relationships dispersed into global contexts.

Rekonstrukcja rdzennego dziedzictwa architektonicznego

Long resident peoples including Gwich’in, Inuvialuit, Copper Inuit, and Sami, Coast Salish and others have learned over countless generations of observation and experimentation to construct place-specific, biomimetic architecture. To learn more about the heritage value of long-resident peoples’ architecture, and to discover how their architecture can selectively inform adaptable architecture of the future. we engaged Inuit and First Nations knowledge-holders and young people in reconstructing tradition-based shelters and housing. During the reconstructions, children and Elders alike expressed their enthusiasm and pride in the inventiveness and usefulness of their ancestral architectural wisdom. Several of the structures constructed during this research are still standing years later and continue to serve as emergency shelters for food harvesters. During extreme weather, the shelters contribute to a potentially widespread network of food harvester dwellings that would facilitate revitalization of traditional foodways. The reconstructions indicate that building materials, forms, assembly technologies, and other considerations from the architecture of Indigenous peoples provide a valuable heritage resource for architects of the future.

Zeolite zones in East Greenland: use of native copper by pre‐contact Inuit?

Zeolites are a diverse group of calcium and sodium aluminosilicate minerals. They are tectosilicates (3‐D arrays of SiO4 tetrahedra), but vary in chemistry and crystal symmetry. Some readily exchange sodium for calcium and are used as water softeners. They also find applications as molecular sieves in petroleum refining, although the bulk of zeolites used industrially today are synthetic. These minerals form at low temperatures under well‐defined conditions and can be used as indicators of palaeotemperatures. In the same environment, but at higher temperatures, other minerals form including quartz, calcite, prehnite and even native copper. The Inuit of East Greenland, a Stone Age people, may have utilized native copper from this environment as did the Copper Inuit of the central Canadian Arctic.

Prehistoric Neoeskimo Komatiks, Victoria Island, Arctic Canada

The remains of five prehistoric Neoeskimo sleds—komatiks—were located during extensive ground surveys over several hundred square kilometres on the Wollaston Peninsula, western Victoria Island, Arctic Canada. The radiocarbon dates obtained on the remains range from 790 to 300 BP (cal. 736 – 300), which places the sleds within the Thule and Intermediate Copper Eskimo Period. Structurally, these sleds are similar to historic Copper Inuit and Netsilik Inuit sleds: they have wooden runners with lashing and front trace holes, wooden slats tapered at each end with lashing notches on each side, and antler sled shoes with drilled holes to receive pegs for attaching to the runners. However, the sleds range in length from 1.38 to 1.81 m, and thus are at the smaller end of the size range of historic Inuit sleds. The size suggests either that they represent special function sleds used in addition to larger sleds, or that larger sleds may have been a late historic development, perhaps influenced by contact. The fact that no sleds attributable to Paleoeskimo culture were recorded is consistent with the generally held belief that dogs and sleds were not an important part of Paleoeskimo transportation systems.

Gendered Inuinnait (Copper Inuit) landscapes of Banks Island’s northern interior, Arctic Canada, 17th–20th centuries a.d.

Archaeological survey data from the northern interior of Banks Island in Canada’s western Arctic builds upon traditional interpretations of past land use to explore the ways in which this landscape was perceived by different groups. The data confirm earlier archaeological, ethnographic, and oral history work which suggest that the area was occupied primarily in the summer months at two separate times in the past: the Palaeoeskimo period and the Inuinnait (Copper Inuit) period. The earlier occupation was less intensive than the latter and both were focused on muskox hunting. Drawing on ethnographic studies of the Inuit in both the early and late 20th centuries, and on the distribution of archaeological camp sites versus hunting sites, a reconstruction is made of the different ways in which men and women experienced and understood the survey area during Inuinnait times. It suggests that the main drainages formed important travel routes, and that while women’s knowledge of the region was concentrated along these corridors and in favorite camping places, men’s knowledge extended into hunting areas beyond their peripheries.

Traditional Inuit songs from the Thule area. Volume 1

This publication deals with the traditional song of the Inuit, primarily Inughuit from the Thule area, but also from Baffin Island and the Copper Inuit and Uummannaq and Upernavik areas, based on sound recordings from 1909, 1912, 1915, 1937, 1962 and 1984. In 1937 Professor Erik Holtved (1899-1981) recorded 134 traditional songs: no drum-songs and 24 other songs. Transcriptions and scientific processing of this collection is the nucleus of this work. The songs are presented/notated in their full length - with drum accompaniment and the texts/ singing syllables used - but also with analyses of a representative stanza from each song. The vast majority of Holtved's informants sang long songs in a dominating form type, where certain motifs had to be used in specific positions in the course of the stanza. The present author recorded approximately 350 songs in 1962 in collaboration with the eskimologist Bent Jensen and approximately 240 in 1984 in collaboration with the artist Pauline Motzfeldt Lumholt, also in the Thule area. Both collections were recorded for the Danish Folklore Archives. The 1962 collection has been transcribed and analysed in the same way as the 1937 collection, and other form types were found. One of the "new" form types was particularly easy to recognise, as the first motif in each stanza was repeated at a lower level. The informants of this form type were to a large extent descendants of people who had emigrated from Baffin Island in the 1860s. A frequent occurrence of the same characteristic was found in a collection of 45 songs from southern Baffin Island, indicating that the nucleus of the immigrant group of the 1860s had its roots in southern Baffin Island. This is confirmed by language studies and by genealogy. The most complicated and dominating form type found in the music of the Inughuit was also found in sound recordings made in 1914-16 with the Qitiqmiut, Copper Inuit. Both partial and close similarities indicated that the type was introduced by families coming from the Copper Inuit area(s). This is confirmed by archaeological finds and language studies. Old collections from the Uummannaq and Upernavik areas were also transcribed and analysed. These songs have only basic motifs in common with those of the Thule area. The song tradition, the performance of the songs as they were sung in 1962 and 1984, and the predominant soloist performance are described, as well as the song texts, the drum with its construction and use, movement patterns during the drum-dance and the difficult interplay between singing and drumming. A CD with a selection of the songs is enclosed with the publication.

Tundra Game Drives: an Arctic-Alpine Comparison

Stone fences and blinds built by prehistoric hunters to gather and ambush elk and bighorn sheep above timberline in the Colorado Front Range are similar in concept and function to structures built by the Copper Inuit and their predecessors for hunting caribou near Bathurst Inlet, in the Central Canadian Arctic. Four principal differences exist: (1) Circular blinds and continuous rock walls are more numerous in the Front Range than in the Arctic, where arcuate breastworks and lines of widely spaced cairns predominate. Differences in prey-species behavior are the most probable explanation. (2) Stone house foundations, meat-drying facilities, meat caches, kayak-storage racks, and fox and wolf traps occur near drive sites along caribou migration routes in the Bathurst Inlet region. The structures imply long-term habitation made possible by a plentiful meat supply. Comparable structures are absent above timberline in the Front Range because people retreated to warmer environments in winter, and because steep terrain and deep snow discouraged return visits to high-altitude caches. (3) The technique was adopted much earlier in Colorado than in the Central Canadian Arctic. The oldest Front Range drive systems were constructed while the Laurentide Ice Sheet still covered the Bathurst Inlet landscape. (4) Pedestrian game-drive hunting was abandoned in the Front Range soon after arrival of the horse (ca. a.d. 1700), but remained an integral part of Copper Inuit subsistence until the mid twentieth century. The rich ethnographic and oral history record of communal hunting in the Arctic is invaluable for interpreting the Colorado structures.

Dance of the Loon: Symbolism and Continuity in Copper Inuit Ceremonial Clothing

Abstract In the early twentieth century explorers, ethnographers, and entrepreneurs penetrated the territory of the Northern Copper Inuit who had been virtually isolated from western contact. They encountered a society and material culture seemingly unaltered by western influence. Working with both museum collections of indigenous fur clothing from this region and the graphic art of Copper Inuit elders, this paper proposes the existence of an extensive ceremonial clothing complex comprised of dance clothing and shamanistic vestments unknown elsewhere in the Canadian Arctic. The distinctive style of Copper Inuit cariboufur clothing, including dance and shamanistic clothing, disappeared from this region by the 1930s. However, as a result of collaborative fieldwork in the early 1990s, a style of Copper Inuit clothing has re-emerged as dance clothing in the context of the Kingalik Jamboree, an annual festival held in Holman (Uluhaktok) on the western coast of Victoria Island, Canada. This preliminary study of the ceremonial clothing of the Copper Inuit reveals the creative skill of Inuit seamstresses in shaping cultural ideas and preserving ancestral traditions through clothing design.

On the Questionable Practice of Invoking the Metaphysic

tion of warm climate (zero cold months as rated by Munroe et al. [1996]) with tall dense vegetation (rated by us as having a score of 2.5 to 3 on vegetation). Andamans, Bemba, Caingang, Fang, Iban, Kapauku, Kpelle, Toba, and Yanoama were given a score of 1 on this dichotomous variable. All others were rated as 0: they either had cold climates (5 or more cold months) or mixed or sparse vegetation (1-2 on plant vegetation as rated by us). A second combined dichotomous variable was created for the combination of cold climate (5 or more cold months as rated by Munroe et al. [1996]) and sparse or short vegetation (coded as 1 on vegetation by us). Blackfoot, Copper Eskimo, Fox and Highland Scots were given a score of 1 on this second dichotomous variable. All other cases, which were given a score of zero on this dichotomous variable, had either warmer climate or more plant cover (1.5 or higher on plant vegetation). The names of all the cases are listed in Ember and Ember (1999:734-735).

Learning to Be Smart: An Exploration of the Culture of Intelligence in a Canadian Inuit Community

The understanding of intelligence and cognitive functioning of culturally diverse peoples has long been an interest of social scientists. It has also long been recognized that environmental factors and cultural values affect both perceptual abilities and the display of cognitive functioning. While some scholars have proposed the existence of multiple forms of intelligence, others have argued that the assessment of intelligence requires the application of local definitions of intelligence and intelligent behavior. In the present paper I explore the concept of intelligence in the small Copper Inuit community of Holman. Data collected between 1978 and 1995 are used to examine the manner in which community members define, assess, and develop intelligence. Modernity has created new conditions in which intelligence is nurtured and assessed. Particular attention is paid to informant efforts to encourage the author to behave intelligently. [Inuit, theories of intelligence, participant-observation]

Modern Food Sharing Networks and Community Integration in the Central Canadian Arctic

From June 1992 to July 1993, research on wildlife harvesting and subsistence was conducted among a sample of householders in the Inuit community of Holman. In an earlier paper, the authors examined the involvement of younger Inuit in subsistence hunting, noting that despite the sweeping political, social, and economic changes that have been experienced in Holman and across the Canadian North, hunting remained an important sociocultural and economic activity for some members of the sample group. This paper focuses specifically on the informal socioeconomic mechanisms employed by Holman Inuit for the distribution of wild resources and compare the present range of such activity to that observed by Stefansson, Jenness, Rasmussen, and Damas in their work on Copper Inuit food sharing. These data indicate 1) that the sharing form most frequently cited ethnographically, obligatory seal-sharing partnerships, is more irregular than formerly; and 2) that voluntary, nonpartnership-based sharing remains an important element in the contemporary economic system.

Value orientation of the Copper Inuit.

Primary health services in the Canadian Arctic are predominantly provided by nurses whose cultural backgrounds differ from that of their clientele. As in other areas, this diversity can result in misunderstanding and conflict between the health care providers and their clients. Greater understanding of the client culture is necessary in order to identify areas in which conflict exists and to plan culturally appropriate health programs and initiatives. This study defines and describes the value orientation profile of some Copper Inuit living in the hamlet of Coppermine (Kugluktuk), Northwest Territories. Data were collected through interviews, using a modification of the Kluckhohn value orientation questionnaire. Data analysis using t-test analysis of the overall value orientations indicated a distinct value orientation profile.

The northern Copper Inuit: a history

The northern Copper Inuit: a history

Blood on the Ice: Status, Self-Esteem, and Ritual Injury among Inuit Hockey Players

Since the 1970s, the pace of social, economic, and political change has accelerated throughout the Canadian Arctic. In the Copper Inuit community of Holman, change has been accompanied by an increase in recreational facilities and activities organized by the local Hamlet Council and paid for by the Government of the Northwest Territories. Recreational involvement, primarily in the form of competitive team sports like hockey, provides a valuable outlet for Inuit teenagers and young adults who find it difficult to adjust to the new northern social order. This article examines the most visible of these sports — hockey — and discusses the effects that game involvement, violence, and ritualization of injury have upon young men's sense of control, status, and self-esteem.

The Northern Copper Inuit: A History, by Richard G. Condon, with Julia Ogina and the Holman Elders

The Northern Copper Inuit: A History, by Richard G. Condon, with Julia Ogina and the Holman Elders

Sanatujut: Pride in Women's Work. Copper and Caribou Inuit Clothing Traditions, by Judy Hall, Jill Oakes and Sally Qimmiu'Naaq Webster.

Sanatujut: Pride in Women's Work. Copper and Caribou Inuit Clothing Traditions, by Judy Hall, Jill Oakes and Sally Qimmiu'Naaq Webster.

The Best Part of Life : Subsistence Hunting, Ethnicity, and Economic Adaptation among Young Adult Inuit Males

This paper examines the economic adaptations and subsistence hunting involvement of households between the ages of 20 and 35 in the Copper Inuit community of Holman. Social, economic, and political changes throughout the Canadian Arctic have made it impossible for young adults to pursue the same mixed economic strategies as previous generations. A general decrease in subsistence hunting involvement is characteristic of the younger generation. Nevertheless, some young householders have made a conscious effort to remain active in subsistence hunting and fishing to provide for themselves and related households. Some have even increased subsistence hunting involvement as their own parents age and become increasingly infirm. Other householders are less active in hunting and fishing, but continue to view land-based harvesting as central to a sense of Inuit identity. The motivations, economic position, and family background of a sample of active and less active young adult hunters are explored in an attempt to understand the pressures experienced by young adults as they strive to make a place in a northern society radically different from that of their parents at a similar age. While the authors recognize the economic value of subsistence harvesting and the foods that result from it, we also emphasize the less easily quantified dimensions of subsistence ideology and its impact upon physical health, psychological well-being, and community integration. Key words: subsistence, harvest effort, Inuit identity, young adults, food sharing, health, self-esteem

The Noice Collection of Copper Inuit Material Culture:The Noice Collection of Copper Inuit Material Culture.

The Noice Collection of Copper Inuit Material Culture. James W. VanStone. Fieldiana, Anthropology, new series, No. 22. Chicago: Field Museum of Natural History, 1994. 71 pp. 44 b/w photographs and line drawings; appendix; bibliography. $17.00 (paper).

Comparison of Factors Influencing Caribou and Copper Inuit Skin Clothing

(1992). Comparison of Factors Influencing Caribou and Copper Inuit Skin Clothing. Dress: Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 47-56.

The Copper Inuit Soapstone Trade

The existence of an important trade in soapstone vessels between Copper Inuit producers and the Inupiat of north Alaska during the 19th century is well known. This paper puts that trade firmly within the context of the Bering Strait intercontinental trade network, of which the Copper Inuit soapstone trade appears to represent the Maximum geographic extent. Archaeological and documentary evidence suggests that it flourished for only about a generation, between about the 1840s and the 1860s, before being circumvented by the Hudson's Bay Company and American trading interests in Alaska. The soapstone trade may have been the first step in the rise to relative prominence of the Kangiryuarmiut of western Victoria Island, one of two Copper Inuit groups that appear to have been directly involved. Key words: Arctic, Inuit, Copper Inuit, history, archaeology, trade, soapstone