Inuit

Hello, this is Emuk, an Inuit of Greenland. Welcome to the Arctic, the world of the taiga, the tundra and the ice!

We are generally known as Skimos, but we don't like much this term, because it means starving for row meat, sort of thing. You wouldn't like to be known as veggies or meaters instead of Canadians or Catalans, would you? So, for us, inhabitants of the iced lands of Alaska, Canada and Greenland would like to be known as INUIT, which in our language, Skimo-Aleutian, means people.

Some say we come from Asia, that we went across the Bering Strait in order to arrive to North-America and Greenland. They also say we have an expertise on cartography, since the maps we draw in our minds are as trustable as the modern ones; that we are smiling people, cordial and that we survive by living a sided-life in a hard environment, because we adapt ourselves to nature and respect the environment.

But not so many people know that our people have been nomads and hunters, who used to move according to the trace of animals. Whales, walruses and seals have been basic to feed us, to provide us with coats and to get oil for our lamps.

Being nomads, we had to build refuges more or less provisionals where to protect ourselves from the cold. Our hunters refuges were made only with ice. Yes, they are known as igloos, an Inuit invention.

Still now, we are basically hunter people, although our traditional way of hunting does not put in danger any species. We no longer build igloos because we are no longer nomads. Nowadays we live in houses made out of tundra or whales beards, and we only build igloos for tourists or for our kids to play with. I, myself, made my first igloo last year, with my own hands.

Just like our ancestries, we have two ways of transport: sleigh and kayak. Inuits were the first ones to use Kayaks, which means "person-boat" or “clothes to walk on water”. This is why every Inuit has one Kayak made for his/her own size, as there is a belief that if one does not come back from hunting it means that s/he has used someone else's Kayak.

Whatever, we use them to fish in open waters even though they are light weight. In groups, we can even fish whales! The all-times sleigh has always been pushed by dogs, although nowadays there are also moto-sleighs. I don't like them much because they make noises and stink the pure air . L

However, moto-sleighs aren't so bad. The worse is that we are being obliged to stick to the welfare culture and a different religion. Inuit use amulet/charm to protect ourselves from disasters, we use chamans and we adore our mythology. We also have our own concept of mutual help and respect to the animals we feed ourselves with. We keep strong family bonds and have good relationships with tenants and crews. Why do we have to change all this?

Thanks to the Circumpolar Inuit Conference (CIC) we request an education more focused on our traditions in order not to loose our values. We also pretend to promote our self-suficience and the demilitarisation of the Arctic. We want to preserve and promote our culture, and to make possible to future generations to maintain our ancestors traditions.