The Inuit Collections

The Inuit

The Inuits are indigenous to arctic areas of Canada, Alaska and Greenland. Within Canada there are 5 main Inuit dialects, 3 dialects of Inuktitut are spoken in addition to Inuvialuktun and Inuinnaqtun.

Inuit (/ˈɪnjuɪt/; Inuktitut: ᐃᓄᐃᑦ 'the people', singular: Inuk, ᐃᓄᒃ, dual: Inuuk, ᐃᓅᒃ) are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, and Alaska. Inuit languages are part of the Eskimo–Aleut languages, also known as Inuit-Yupik-Unangan, and also as Eskaleut. Inuit Sign Language is a critically endangered language isolate used in Nunavut. Inuit live throughout most of Northern Canada in the territory of Nunavut, Nunavik in the northern third of Quebec, Nunatsiavut and NunatuKavut in Labrador, and in various parts of the Northwest Territories, particularly around the Arctic Ocean, in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region. with the exception of NunatuKavut, these areas are known, primarily by Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, as Inuit Nunangat.

In Canada, sections 25 and 35 of the Constitution Act of 1982 classify Inuit as a distinctive group of Aboriginal Canadians who are not included under either the First Nations or the Métis. Greenlandic Inuit are descendants of Thule migrations from Canada by 1100 CE. Although Greenland withdrew from the European Communities in 1985, Inuit of Greenland are Danish citizens and, as such, remain citizens of the European Union. In the United States, the Alaskan Iñupiat are traditionally located in the Northwest Arctic Borough, on the Alaska North Slope, and on Little Diomede Island.

Many individuals who would have historically been referred to as "Eskimo" find that term offensive or forced upon them in a colonial way; "Inuit" is now a common autonym for a large sub-group of these people. The word "Inuit" (varying forms Iñupiat, Inuvialuit, Inughuit, etc.), however, is an ancient self-referential to a group of peoples which includes at most the Iñupiat of northern Alaska, the four broad groups of Inuit in Canada, and the Greenlandic Inuit. This usage has long been employed to the exclusion of other, closely related groups (e.g. Yupik, Aleut). Therefore, the Aleut (Unangan) and Yupik peoples (Alutiiq/Sugpiaq, Central Yup'ik, Siberian Yupik), who live in Alaska and Siberia, at least at an individual and local level, generally do not self-identify as "Inuit".

Inuit are the descendants of what anthropologists call the Thule people, who emerged from western Alaska around 1000 CE. They had split from the related Aleut group about 4000 years ago and from northeastern Siberian migrants. They spread eastward across the Arctic.[27] They displaced the related Dorset culture, called the Tuniit in Inuktitut, which was the last major Paleo-Eskimo culture.

Traditional Beliefs

Inuit religion and Inuit astronomy Some Inuit (including Alaska Natives) believed that the spirits of their ancestors could be seen in the aurora borealis. The environment in which the Inuit lived inspired a mythology filled with adventure tales of whale and walrus hunts. Long winter months of waiting for caribou herds or sitting near breathing holes hunting seals gave birth to stories of the mysterious and sudden appearance of ghosts and fantastic creatures. Some Inuit looked into the aurora borealis, or northern lights, to find images of their family and friends dancing in the next life.

However, some Inuit believed that the lights were more sinister and if you whistled at them, they would come down and cut off your head. This tale is still told to children today. For others they were invisible giants, the souls of animals, a guide to hunting and as a spirit for the angakkuq/angakut to help with healing.They relied upon the angakkuq (shaman) for spiritual interpretation.

The nearest thing to a central deity was the Old Woman (Sedna), who lived beneath the sea. The waters, a central food source, were believed to contain great gods. The Inuit practiced a form of shamanism based on animist principles. They believed that all things had a form of spirit, including humans, and that to some extent these spirits could be influenced by a pantheon of supernatural entities that could be appeased when one required some animal or inanimate thing to act in a certain way.

The angakkuq of a community of Inuit was not the leader, but rather a sort of healer and psychotherapist, who tended wounds and offered advice, as well as invoking the spirits to assist people in their lives. Their role was to see, interpret and exhort the subtle and unseen. Angakkuit were not trained; they were held to be born with the ability and recognized by the community as they approached adulthood. Inuit religion was closely tied to a system of rituals integrated into the daily life of the people. These rituals were simple but held to be necessary. According to a customary Inuit saying, "The great peril of our existence lies in the fact that our diet consists entirely of souls".

By believing that all things, including animals, have souls like those of humans, any hunt that failed to show appropriate respect and customary supplication would only give the liberated spirits cause to avenge themselves. The harshness and unpredictability of life in the Arctic ensured that Inuit lived with concern for the uncontrollable, where a streak of bad luck could destroy an entire community. To offend a spirit was to risk its interference with an already marginal existence. The Inuit understood that they had to work in harmony with supernatural powers to provide the necessities of day-to-day life.

(Source Wikipedia)

11 Collections of Inuit Music

01) Traditional Inuit Songs from the Thule Area

Collected by Michael Hauser Museum Tusculanum Press University of Copenhagen 2010

Description

In 1937, Professor Erik Holtved recorded traditional songs from the Thule area, mostly drum-songs. These recordings are from Uummannaq-Upernavik in 1912, from the Copper Inuit areas in 1914-16, Bent Jensen and Hauser's 1962 recordings from Thule, and from Baffin Island in the 1970s.

Synopsis

This study provides a comprehensive description of the rich song culture of the people in the Thule area, the Inughuit. Transcriptions and scientific processing of traditional songs recorded by archaeologist and folklorist Erik Holtved in Thule in 1937 – as well as a collection of Inughuit songs recorded in 1962 by Bent Jensen and the author – constitute the nucleus of this work.

02) Songs of the Inuit II Drum Dance Songs in Inuvik - World Sounds

JVC World Sounds

Recorded By – Josip I.Olginsin, Mark Cass

Date of recording: May, 1997

Place of recording: Inuvik, N.W.T., Canada

03) Songs of the Inuit Iglulik Canada, Inuit Traditional Music

These recordings were made in 1964, 1976, 1977 and 1985 in the villages of Pond Inlet Iglulik and Arctic Bay.

04) Inuit - Historical Recordings - Traditional Music from Greenland 1905-1987

05) Canada Inuit Games and Songs

06) Traditional Inuit Music LP

07) Inuit Throat and Harp Songs Women's Music of Povungnituk

08) Traditional Inuit Music 1986 CBC Northern Service Double LP

09) Jean Malaurie Chants et Tambours Inuit de Thule au Detroit de Bering

10) The Inuit Of The Arctic Circle Volumes 1 and 2 Double LPs

11) The Eskimos of Hudson Bay and Alaska: Ethnic Folkways Library

The Inuit Collections

(MP3 Googledrive Access)