Inuit Culture

Quick facts:

– Inuit never built igloos as permanent homes but as temporary bases during winter seal-hunting season. For much of the time, they lived partly underground in dwellings made on a frame of driftwood or whalebone and covered by turf.

– Animal carvings were believed to give a hunter special powers.

– Both men and women wear sealskin boots called ‘Kamiks’.

Inuit, Inupiat, and Yupik people, called Eskimos by 19th century Europeans, are the original inhabitants of the Arctic tundra of northern Canada, Alaska, Russia and Greenland. About 100,000 of them still live there. They were nomadic hunter-gatherers and lived near the coast in summer, building up food reserves for the winter. The rest of the year, they travelled hunting caribou, seals, polar bears, and whales; they used every part of the animals they caught for food, shelter, clothing, weapons, and tools. Their society was organized in extended family groups, with each member carrying out a specific job according to sex, age, and status. Games, music, and storytelling helped to pass the long winter hours. Most Inuit, Inupiat, and Yupik people now live in permanent settlements, often combining a regular job with hunting trips.

Traditional clothing made up of skins was sewed by women using sinew and a bone needle; the clothing was sometimes decorated with beadwork or embroidery; strips of white hide from the underside of caribou were often used decoratively. Only the families of good hunters had clothes that they replaced each year. Poor families unable to get autumn caribou skins wore their clothes for more than a year, or had to make their parkas out of sealskins.

The Inuit used kayaks to hunt sea mammals such as seals and whales. Kayaks were one-man hunting crafts, completely enclosed except for an opening for the hunter to climb in at the top. They were covered with sealskins to keep them water-tight. A seal bladder float was attached to any large catch so that it would float behind the kayak.

The cruel seas, savage, unpredictable climates, and inhospitable terrain of the Arctic meant Inuits had developed special ways of surviving over the centuries. The history of polar exploration is one of appalling hardship and terrible toll of human life. European explorers learned much from the Inuit way of life and gradually applied this knowledge to their own ability to live in and explore these harsh environments. Today, the lifestyle at the poles for both Inuit and other polar dwellers is very similar. Scientific advances in clothing, transport, food, and building have ensured a way of life far removed from the hardships of earlier times.

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