Ethnos

Inuit

Inuit (singular, Inuk; also, generally vulgarly, Eskimo) is a general term for a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples of the Arctic who descended from the Thule. The Inuit Circumpolar Conference defines its constitutency to include Canadian Inuit and Inuvialuit, Greenland's Kalaallit people, Alaska's Inupiat and Yupik people, and Russian Yupik.

Canadian Inuit live primarily in Nunavut, Nunavik (a region in northern Quebec defined by the James Bay Agreement) and in Nunatsiavut (a region in Labrador whose borders are yet to be fixed.) The Inuvialuit live primarily in the Mackenzie River delta, on Banks Island and part of Victoria Island in the Northwest Territories. There have been Inuit settlements in Yukon, especially at Herschel Island, but there are none at present. Alaskan Inupiat live on the North Slope of Alaska, while the Yupik live in western Alaska and a part of Chukotka Autonomous Area in Russia.

The Inuit were -- and many still are -- hunters, who hunt whale, walrus, and seal by kayak or by boat or by waiting at their airholes in the ice. They used igloos as hunting or emergency shelters. They made and make ingenious use of animal skins in their clothing (e.g. anorak). Dog sleds, known as qamutiit, were and are used for travel pulled by Inuit Sled Dogs in a fan hitch, though snowmobiles have largely replaced this mode of travel.

Since the European arrival, racist and misguided government policies caused a great deal of damage to the Inuit way of life, causing mass death and other suffering. Circa 1970, strong Inuit leaders came forward and pushed for respect for the Inuit and their territories. One of the resulting land-claims agreements created the Canadian territory of Nunavut, the largest land-claims agreement in Canadian history. In recent years, circumpolar cultural and political groups have come together to promote the Inuit people and to fight against ecological problems, such as the greenhouse effect and resulting global warming, which heavily affects the Inuit population due to the melting and thinning of the arctic ice and die-offs of arctic mammals. Nunavut premier Paul Okalik took the lead in this regard in a First Ministers' meeting discussing the Kyoto Accord.

One of the most famous Inuit artists is Pitseolak Ashoona. Susan Aglukark is a popular Canadian singer. In 2002 the feature film Atanarjuat: the Fast Runner from Isuma Productions (with all dialogue in the Inuktitut language and written, filmed, produced, directed, and acted almost entirely by Inuit of Igloolik) was released world wide to great critical and popular acclaim. ***