Settlement
In all Eskimo areas a yearly cycle took place in which groups spent the winter together in a larger group and then moved into smaller groups. Such seasonal congregating and breaking up of settlements occurred even in Greenland and western Alaska ; during the summer, people would leave the permanent communities and live in animal- skin tents at favourite spots for seal hunting, for fishing, or for collecting birds, eggs, and plants. The igloo (from an Eskimo word meaning "home") was constructed of packed snow and used only during the winter, villages of igloos were built on the firm ocean ice of the central Arctic to help seal hunting through holes in the ice. They were also used as temporary structures in Greenland and in parts of Canada and Alaska.
Food
The traditional method of hunting seals during winter through the frozen ocean ice was most typical of the Eskimo of north central Canada. Since seals are mammals and must breathe, they scratch a number of holes through the ice as it begins to freeze and periodically return to them for air. After the Eskimo hunter located such a hole, often using his dogs to smell it, he stood with a poised harpoon (Weapon), awaiting the quivering of a small, slender piece of baleen, or whalebone, stuck through the thin ice surface, which would signal the seals surfacing. Often the hunter had to stand this way for long hours in the bitter cold. When the baleen marker began to jiggle, he threw the harpoon, one of the fastest throwing weapons ever designed. It would remain fixed in the fat layer of the animal. The head, connected to a float of inflated sealskin by a line about 10 m (33 ft) long, would not only mark the location of the wounded animal but would also hamper its escape. As soon as the animal swam to the surface to breathe, the hunter would attempt to kill it with a knife or lance.
In Greenland and western Alaska, where the ocean surface does not freeze solid, seals and walrus come to open spaces between ice floes for air; in these areas, Eskimo hunters stood by the floes, hoping for a chance to throw their harpoons or catch the seals in kayaks. The Utoq method of hunting seals in the spring was also distinctive of the more northerly Eskimo. Seeking warmth, seals often climb onto the surface of the ice to bask in the sun. A hunter would slowly creep toward a sleeping animal, either pushing a white shield of skin before him or else dressed and act that to the seal he would look like another animal. He would get close enough to fix a harpoon (or, after contact with Europeans, shoot with a rifle) before the seal senses danger and scrambles back into the water.
Clothing and Transportation
Traditionally, nearly all parts of animals killed by the Eskimo were used. Eskimo clothing was made from skins of birds and animals (seal, caribou, and polar bear). Sewn with sinew thread and bone needles, hooded jackets, pants, and waterproof boots were well suited to cold and wet conditions. Skins were also made into tents and boats, and bones were made into weapons.
Two kinds of boats were common. The umiak was a large open boat consisting of a wooden frame covered usually with walrus hide; it was used both to transport people and goods and, especially in northern Alaska, to hunt whales. The other type of craft was the ALEUTS, it was the kayak. This one man hunting vessel was entirely decked over with sealskin or caribou skin. The hunter sat in a cockpit inside, dressed in tight-fitting waterproof clothing made from seal or walrus intestine. The kayak glided silently through the water and enabled the hunter to move very close to his prey. So it would be very easy to get a capture.
Everywhere the Eskimo depended on the DOGSLED as a winter transportation over both land and the frozen sea. The sled was pulled by 2 to 14 huskies (Dogs) and was usually made from wood; where wood was unavailable (as in certain regions of central Canada), dried salmon was sometimes used as a structural material for sleds. In recent years, snowmobiles have largely replaced the dogsled.
Social Organization
There were no tribes in traditional Eskimo society. The basic unit of social organization in most areas was the extended family--a man, his wife and unmarried children, and his married sons and their wives and children. Usually several family groups would join together and exploit the animal resources of a given area.
The leader of the group would be the eldest male still capable of hunting. At times he was called to settle arguments within the group and between it and outsiders. If that way of resolving quarrels did not bring peace, disputants might wrestle each other or join in a public joking and insulting contest to determine the winner.
In Alaska, a village usually used at least one man's house for ceremonies and as a place where men and boys did much of their work and often even ate their meals and spent the night; this house was called a kashgee.
Religion and Art
As for religion, Eskimo religion believed that Human beings had several souls, or spiritual substances, one of which was the name. After death it was believed that the name and the personality of its owner would enter the body of a newborn infant given the same name.
The central religious figure was the SHAMAN (angakok in some of the central Canadian languages). His functions were comprehensive: to divine the causes of poor hunting, which often was believed to be brought on by a group member breaking food or hunting taboos; to diagnose and treat sickness; and to serve as the general source of advice in coping with crisis. Most groups believed in a supreme ruler of the sea animals and in a vague deification of the forces of nature.
Arts and crafts were expressed mainly in etched decorations on ivory harpoon heads, needle cases, and other tools; in carved sculpture in ivory, tooth, or soapstone; in skin sewing; in dancing and the composition of songs; and in storytelling. Detailed wooden masks were also made by the Alaskan Eskimos.
History
Fully developed Eskimo cultures that focused on seal and walrus hunting included the OKVIK and Old Bering Sea cultures; artefacts found in Siberia and on Saint Lawrence Island are dated at around the beginning of the Christian era.
The Vikings were the first Europeans to contact the Eskimo. From the 10th to the 15th century Normal settlements existed in south western Greenland based on farming, cattle, and sheep raising. They disappeared as a result of the effects of sickness and depredation by the Eskimo. Modern contact began in the 18th century, with missionaries establishing education, government, and trade relations under the authority of the church, all of which had considerable impact in changing the traditional culture by the early 20th century.
The Canadian Eskimo were first contacted by European explorers and whaling ships beginning in the 18th century, while in the west, the Alaskan Eskimo were first encountered by the Russians. They were followed by other European explorers and then, during the 1800s, by commercial whaling ships in the North Pacific after Atlantic whaling grounds had become run down. Such ships traded rifles, whiskey, and other goods for whalebone, oil, hides, and ivory. Whaling rapidly declined around the beginning of this century, and the western Eskimos turned--as had the Canadian Eskimo earlier--to fox trapping, a secondary cash-producing occupation. From these many contacts the Eskimos became closely involved in a financial economy and came increasingly to desire the superior technology of rifles, steel knives, and other products available through trade. Institutional features of their social life were also influenced by contacts with Western culture.
Inuit Games
Contact with Europeans after 1700ad influenced some Inuit games and Inuit game playing. Many Inuit games are traditional and require no equipment. These latter games concern physical strength, agility, and endurance. Some traditional games may have been learned in Asia before the Inuit migrated across the Bering Strait (c2000bc), while others were undoubtedly learned after migration, through contact with southern aboriginal peoples who had migrated at an earlier time from Asia into the western hemisphere.
By Zakir Md. Hussain