An Education on the Inuit
of the Arctic Region
HRT3M
UNIT II: ABORIGINAL
SPIRITUALITY
The Inuit People
● Aboriginal inhabitants of the North American
Arctic, from Bering Strait to East Greenland, a
distance of over 6000 kilometers.
● As well as Arctic Canada, Inuit also live in
northern Alaska and Greenland, and have close
relatives in Russia.
● They are united by a common cultural heritage
and a common language.
● Until recently, outsiders called the Inuit
"Eskimo." Now they prefer their own term,
"Inuit," meaning simply "people." There are
about 40,000 Inuit in Canada.
Location
Climate
●
●
●
Very cold climate.
Snow and ice cover the
land for up to 9 months
out of the year.
Climate Change: Melting
sea ice changing hunting
patterns
Current Conditions
●First Nations and Inuit in
Canada find themselves
living in "Fourth World"
conditions.
●Canada = wealthy,
industrialized, First World
nation
●Native Communities:
Third World
socioeconomic conditions
●First Nations and Inuit
families and communities
find themselves with
decreased levels of selfsufficiency.
Residential schools =
generations of First
Nations and Inuit unable
to develop traditional
knowledge and skills,
including basic parenting
skills.
The Role of Women
●Family ties of great importance to the Inuit, as is a
large family.
●Traditionally, women have often assumed a
secondary role in Inuit society.
●At mealtime, an Inuit woman required to serve her
husband and any visitors before she herself was
permitted to eat.
●But:"A hunter is what his wife makes him."
●The women gathered firewood, butchered the
animals, and erected tents in summer and igloos in
winter.
Religious Practices
●Christianity and Shamanism
●The Inuit religion was very complex nature
worship.
●Everything had a soul and was spiritually
connected (this is called animism).
●The universe was at harmony with its elements
and the powers of nature possessed a neutral
position towards man. i.e. humanity does not hold
dominion over other forms of life (in contrast with
tenets of Christianity)
Religious Practices
The Role of the Physical:
Traditionally
●The Inuit didn’t have
sacred buildings.
“The nature was sacred,
and the Inuit was a child
of nature; but life was
not a paradise; man’s
capability of doing evil
represented a constant
threat to harmony.”
The Role of the Physical:
Modern
Shelter
Winter Home
●
●
●
●
●
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Igloo means any type of house, not
just a snow house.
The snow-block house not used by
all Inuits.
To make an igloo, hard-packed
snow was cut into blocks . A man
could build an igloo in an hour.
Inuit slept on low snow platform
covered with twigs and caribou
furs.
Each igloo had a skylight made of
freshwater ice.
Summer = igloo melted, and the
family had to move into tents made
of animal skins.
Summer
Home
Inuit built tents
out of driftwood
or poles covered
with animal
skins, mostly
caribou or
sealskin.
A ring of
boulders around
the base held
down the tent
skin covering.
Food/Hunting
●
●
Mainly hunters, and
relied heavily on the
animals of the Arctic as
their main source of
food.
Since very few plants
could survive in the
Arctic climate, the Inuit
could not depend solely
on plants for food.
Food/Hunting
The Inuit fished from
kayaks and holes in the
ground for sea animals.
The Inuit people hunted land and sea mammals.
Clothing
Men and women
generally wore
similar clothing to
one another.
Winter = layers of
boots, trousers,
parkas with hoods,
and mittens.
Caribou was main
material in
Winter, while
sealskin was the
choice in Summer.
An atiqik is a Inuit parka made
with goose down
Boots are known as Kamiks. They
are made from sealskin because
it lasts long, is warm, and isn't
hurt when it gets wet.
The Clash of
Cultures
So what happens to a
people’s educational
needs when traditional
knowledge confronts
modern needs of
government?