Inuvialuit
is the Inuit name for the people formerly known as Mackenzie Delta Eskimo or western (Canadian) Arctic Eskimo.
Location The homeland of this group is the Mackenzie Delta region, specifically from Herschel Island to the Baillie Islands, northwest Northwest Territories.
Population From between 2,000 and 2,500 people in the mid-eighteenth century, the Inuvialuit population was reduced to about 150 in 1910 and perhaps 10 in 1930. The mid-1990s Inuit population was about 5,000.
Language Inuvialuits speak a dialect of Inuit-Inupiaq (Inuktitut), a member of the Eskaleut language family.
Historical Information
History The people offered a generally friendly reception when they first met non-native traders in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. However, relations soon soured. Missionaries were active in the region by mid-nineteenth century, although few Inuvialuit accepted Christianity before 1900.
The heyday of the whaling period began in 1888, when some 1,000 non-native whalers wintered near the Mackenzie River; the region soon became a trade center as well as a haven for "frontier living" that included alcohol abuse, sexual promiscuity, and death from firearms. Traditional life declined sharply, as did the population, which was further beset by a host of hitherto unknown diseases such as scarlet fever, syphilis, smallpox, and influenza. By 1920 the Inuvialuit had all but disappeared from the Yukon. Most modern Inuvialuit are descended from Inupiat groups who moved east from Alaska about that time. Indians and non-natives moved in as well.
The far north took on strategic importance during the Cold War. In 1954, the federal Department of Northern Affairs and Natural Resources encouraged the Inuit to abandon their nomadic life. The department oversaw the construction of housing developments, schools, and clinics. Local political decisions were made by a community council subject to non-native approval and review. In 1959, the "government" town of Inuvik was founded as an administrative center.
Inuits generally found only unskilled and menial work. They also survived through dependence on government payments. With radical diet changes, the adoption of a sedentary life, and the appearance of drugs and alcohol, health declined markedly. The Committee for Original People’s Entitlement (COPE), founded in 1969, soon became the political voice of the Inuvialuit. Oil and gas deposits were found in the Beaufort Sea in the 1970s.
Religion Religious belief and practice were based on the need to appease spirit entities found in nature. Hunting, and specifically the land-sea dichotomy, was the focus of most rituals and taboos, such as that prohibiting sewing caribou skin clothing in certain seasons. The people also recognized generative spirits, conceived of as female and identified with natural forces and cycles.
Male and female shamans (angakok) provided religious leadership by virtue of their connection with guardian spirits. They could also control the weather, improve conditions for hunting, cure disease, and divine the future. Illness was perceived as stemming from soul loss and/or the violation of taboos and/or the anger of the dead. Curing methods included interrogation about taboo adherence, trancelike communication with spirit helpers, and performance.
German missionaries pose with the native population of a small village. The missionaries spread out all across the Arctic, trading with the Inuit and teaching Christianity.
Government Nuclear families were loosely organized into local groups associated with geographical areas (-miuts). These groups occasionally came together as perhaps five small, fluid bands or subgroups: Kittegaryumiut, Kupugmiut, Kigirktarugmiut, Nuvouigmiut, and Avvagmiut. The bands were also geographically identified. Informal or ad hoc village leaders (isumataq) were usually older men, with little formal authority and no power. They embodied Inuit values, such as generosity, and were also good hunters, perhaps especially good whalers.
Contact with neighboring Inuit groups may have influenced the development of a somewhat stronger village leadership structure, including inheritance in the male line, around the time of contact. The Inuvialuit population was generally less dispersed than that of other Inuit groups. Their largest summer village, for instance, contained up to 1,000 people.
Customs Descent was bilateral. Intermarriage was common between members of the five bands. People married simply by announcing their intentions, although infants were regularly betrothed. Men might have more than one wife, but most had only one. Divorce was easy to obtain. Some wife exchanges took place within defined partnerships between men; the relationship between a man and his partner’s wife was considered as a kind of marriage.
Infanticide was rare and, when practiced, was usually directed against females. Children were highly valued and loved, especially males. Their names generally came from deceased relatives and were bestowed by shamans. Male adolescents had some teeth filed down and their cheeks and earlobes pierced. The sick or aged were sometimes abandoned, especially in times of scarcity. Corpses were not removed from houses through the door but rather through a specially made hole in the wall. They were then placed on the ground and covered with driftwood. Personal items were placed on top of the grave.
Tensions were relieved through games; duels of drums and songs, in which the competing people tried to outdo each other in parody; and some "joking" relationships. Ostracism and even death were reserved for the most serious cases of socially inappropriate behavior, such as murder, wife stealing, and theft. Relations between the Inuvialuit and their Indian neighbors were both cordial, including intermarriage, and hostile. Regular social gatherings might feature drum dances and bouncing on stretched walrus skins.
Dwellings The typical winter dwelling was a semiexcavated, rectangular, turf-covered, log framework house. Each one held about three families. Sleeping chambers were appended, giving the whole a cross shape. Each family had a separate cooking area as well. Entrance was via an underground tunnel. Houses were named. Windows or skylights were made of gut. Storage was located along the tunnel or in niches within.
The people occasionally used temporary domed snow houses in winter, mainly when traveling. Entrance was gained through a door. There were some larger open-roofed sod and wood houses as well for ceremonial purposes, although these may reflect a later Inupiat influence. Conical caribou-skin tents used in summer were strengthened by a hoop lashed to the frame about 6 feet from the ground. Also, each village had a men’s house (kashim) up to 60 feet long.
Diet The Inuvialuit were nomadic hunters. The most important game animals were seals and baleen whales, especially beluga. Whales were hunted communally by driving up to 200 of them into shallow water with kayaks. Seals were netted on the edges of ice floes and hunted at their breathing holes in winter.
The people also hunted caribou (fall drives), moose, mountain sheep, hares, bears, musk ox, muskrat, beaver, and birds. Fishing took place especially in spring and summer, mainly for whitefish and herring. Most fish and meat were dried, frozen, or preserved in oil and stored for winter. Other than fish, which was often eaten raw, food was boiled or roasted and eaten with various oils and fats. Other foods included berries and some roots. People generally drank water or stock.
Key Technology Hunting equipment included several kinds of whale harpoons, lances, and spears as well as bow and arrow, knives, and bird bolas. Seals were also netted under the ice. Fishing equipment included hooks and weirs. Most tools were made from caribou antler tools as well as wood (including driftwood), ivory, and bone. There were some stone items as well, especially steatite (soapstone) ornaments and pots.
The people used some carved steatite lamps (that burned seal oil), although most cooking was done over an outdoor wood fire. They also carved wooden trays, dishes, spoons, and other objects. Bow drills were used to make fire. Wolves and foxes were killed when they ate sharpened baleen spring traps placed in fat.
Trade Goods were exchanged with the Kutchin and Hare Indians as well as with the Inupiat to the west. Individual formal trade partnerships were a part of this process. The people exported wood, which they procured in the southern part of their territory.
Notable Arts Sewn clothing and carved wooden and ivory figurines were developed to artistic levels.
Transportation One- or two-person kayaks were used mostly for sea mammal hunting. Several men hunted whales in umiaks, or larger open boats covered with beluga skin. Overland travel was facilitated by the use of wooden dogsleds with iced-over runners of bone or antler.
Dress Clothing consisted mainly of sewn caribou skins. Men and women wore two layers, the under layer with the hair turned in and the outer layer with the hair turned out. Coats and pants were trimmed with fur, as were parka hoods. Men’s hoods were made from caribou or wolf-head skin, the latter with the ears left on. Women’s parkas were knee length and double flapped, as opposed to mens’, which ended at the hip. Women’s parka hoods were also made bigger to cover their double bun-shaped hairstyles. Other clothing included caribou-leg boots with beluga-skin soles and caribou mittens.
In summer, most people wore old inner garments with the hair turned out. Men who had killed a bear wore pieces of stone or ivory through their cheeks. Most men also wore polished stone or ivory labrets in their lips. Both sexes wore ornaments in pierced ears and nasal septa. Both men and women applied small tattoos on their faces and bodies. Children who had reached puberty had their teeth filed down; boys’ cheeks and ears were pierced as well.
War and Weapons The Inuvialuit fought mainly with nearby Athapaskan Indians. Hunting equipment generally doubled as war weapons.
Contemporary Information
Government/Reservations Contemporary communities include Aklaavik, Ikaahuk (Sachs Harbour), Paulatuuq, Uluksartuuq (Homlan), and Tuktuujaqtuuq (Tuktoyaktuk). Government is provided by locally elected councils. These communities control the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation (IRC), formed in 1985 to administer the Inuvialuit Final Agreement (IFA) (see "Legal Status").
Economy The Inuvialuit Development Corporation (IDC) owns a multimillion-dollar transportation concern as well as air, energy, manufacturing, and real estate businesses. It also works to provide markets for musk ox meat and wool. The IDC also pays individuals annuities from corporate profits.
Subsistence hunting, trapping, and fishing are still important, as are various types of wage work and government assistance. Native-owned and -operated cooperatives have been an important part of the Inuit economy for some time. Activities range from arts and crafts to retail to commercial fishing to construction.
Legal Status The Western Arctic Claim Agreement (or IFA), signed in 1984, was the first comprehensive land claims settlement worked out by natives living in the Northwest Territories. It provides for the extinguishing of aboriginal title to the western Canadian Arctic in exchange for native ownership of approximately 91,000 square kilometers of land and payments of $45 million in benefits and $10 million for economic development, the latter to be administered by the IDC. However, federal and territorial laws apply in the region; the people have yet to work out a framework for self-government.
Daily Life The people never abandoned their land, which is still central to their identity. Traditional and modern coexist, sometimes uneasily, for many Inuit. Although people use television (there is even radio and television programming in Inuktitut), snowmobiles, and manufactured items, women also carry babies in the traditional hooded parkas, chew caribou skin to make it soft, and use the semilunar knives to cut seal meat. Full-time doctors are rare in the communities. Housing is often of poor quality. Most people are Christians. Culturally, although many stabilizing patterns of traditional culture have been destroyed, many remain. Many people live as part of extended families. Adoption is widely practiced. Decisions are often taken by consensus.
Politically, community councils have gained considerably more autonomy over the past decade or two. There is also a significant Inuit presence in the Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly and some presence at the federal level as well. The disastrous effects of government-run schools have been mitigated to some degree by local control of education, including more culturally relevant curricula in schools. Many people still speak Inuktitut, which is also taught in most schools, especially in the earlier grades. Children attend school in their community through grade nine; the high school is in Frobisher Bay. Adult education is also available.
