Eskimos

Eskimo a general term used to refer to a number of groups inhabiting the coastline from the Bering Sea to Greenland and the Chukchi Peninsula in NE Siberia.

A number of distinct groups, based on differences in patterns of resource exploitation, are commonly identified, including Siberian, St. Lawrence Island, Nunivak, Chugach, Nunamiut, North Alaskan, Mackenzie, Copper, Caribou, Netsilik, Iglulik, Baffinland, Labrador, Coastal Labrador, Polar, and East and West Greenland.

Since the 1970s Eskimo groups in Canada and Greenland have adopted the name Inuit, although the term has not taken hold in Alaska or Siberia.

Languages

In spite of regional differences, Eskimo groups are surprisingly uniform in language, physical type, and culture, and, as a group, are distinct in these traits from all neighbors.

They speak dialects of the same language, Eskimo, which is a major branch of the Eskimo-Aleut family of languages.

Bloodlines

Their antiquity is unknown, but it is generally agreed that they were relatively recent migrants to the Americas from NE Asia, spreading from west to east over the course of the past 5,000 years.

Diet

Traditionally, most groups relied on sea mammals for food, illumination, cooking oil, tools, and weapons. Fish and caribou were next in importance in their economy. The practice of eating raw meat, disapproved of by their Native American neighbors, saved scarce fuel and provided their limited diet with essential nutritional elements that cooking would destroy. Except for the Caribou Eskimo of central Canada, they were a littoral people who roved inland in the summer for freshwater fishing and game hunting.

Today the native food supply has been reduced through the use of firearms, but, as a result of increased contact with other cultures, the Eskimo are no longer completely dependent on their traditional sources of sustenance.

Homes

Eskimos traditionally used various types of houses. Tents of caribou skins or sealskins provided adequate summer dwellings; in colder seasons shelter was constructed of sod, driftwood, or sometimes stone, placed over excavated floors. Among some Eskimo groups the snow hut was used as a winter residence. More commonly, however, such structures were used as temporary overnight shelters during journeys.

Travel

The dogsled was used for the hauling of heavy loads over long distances, made necessary by the Eskimos' nomadic hunting life.

Their skin canoe, known as a kayak, is one of the most highly maneuverable small craft ever constructed. Hunting technologies included several types of harpoons, the bow and arrow, knives, and fish spears and weirs.

In modern times, their mode of transportation is typically the all-terrain vehicle or the snowmobile.

Weapons

While iron and guns have come into common use in the 20th cent., previously weapons were crafted from ivory, bone, copper, or stone.

Clothing

Their clothing was sewn largely of caribou hide and included parkas, breeches, mittens, snow goggles, and boots. Finely crafted items such as needles, combs, awls, figurines, and decorative carvings on weapons were executed with the rotary bow drill.

Culture and Art

Particularly when compared to other hunting and gathering populations, Eskimo groups were justly famous for elaborate technologies, artisanship, and well-developed art.

Communities

They lived in small bands, in voluntary association under a leader recognized for his ability to provide for the group. Only the most personal property was considered private; any equipment reverted through disuse to those who had need for it.

Economy

In the traditional Eskimo economy, the division of labor between the sexes was strict; men constructed homes and hunted, and women took care of the homes.

Today Eskimos in the United States and Canada live largely in settled communities, working for wages and using guns for hunting.

Spiritual

Their religion was imbued with a rich mythology, and shamanism was practiced. In Shamanism , the religious practitioner in various, generally small-scale societies who is believed to be able to diagnose, cure, and sometimes cause illness because of a special relationship with, or control over, spirits. Different forms of shamanism are found around the world; they are also known as medicine men and witch doctors.

Shamanism is based on the belief that the visible world is pervaded by invisible forces or spirits that affect the lives of the living. Shamans are not, however, organized within full-time ritual or spiritual associations, as are priests.

Shamans enter into trances through such methods as autohypnosis, the ingestion of hallucinogens, fasting, and self-mortification, during which time they are said to be in contact with the spirit world. Shamanism requires specialized knowledge or abilities, which are often thought to be obtained through heredity or supernatural calling.

Among the Siberian Chukchee, one may behave in ways that Western clinicians would characterize as psychotic, but which they interpret as possession by a spirit demanding that one assume the shamanic vocation.

Among the South American Tapirap�, shamans are called in their dreams. In yet other societies, shamans choose their career: Native Americans of the Plains would seek a communion with spirits through a vision quest,,/A> while South American Shuar, seeking the power to defend their family against enemies, apprentice themselves to accomplished shamans.

Shamans often observe special fasts and taboos particular to their vocation. Oftentimes the shaman has, or acquires, one or more familiars, usually spirits in animal form, or (sometimes) of departed shamans.

Shamans can manipulate these spirits to diagnose and cure victims of witchcraft . Some societies distinguish shamans who cure from sorcerers who harm; others believe that all shamans have both curative and deadly powers.

The shaman is usually paid for his services, and generally enjoys great power and prestige in the community, but he may also be suspected of harming others, and may thus be feared.

Most shamans are men, but there are societies in which women may also be shamans. In some societies, the male shaman denies his own sexual identity by assuming the dress and attributes of a woman; this practice is rare but has been found among the Chukchee. See Dyak , Araucanians , Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Ute.

ESKIMO WOMAN PROPHECIES

Land Distribution

The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 granted Alaska natives some 44 million acres of land and established native village and regional corporations to encourage economic growth.

In 1990 the Eskimo population of the United States was some 57,000, with most living in Alaska.

There are over 33,000 Inuit in Canada, the majority living in Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, North Quebec, and Labrador.

In 1999 a separate, predominantly Inuit territory, Nunavut, was created out of the Northwest Territories.

There are also Eskimo populations in Greenland and Siberia.

- Encyclopedia.com

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