The Inuit Argumentative Essay

The article “the inuit paradox” starts off with an Inupiat woman describing the most common foods that she consumed growing up in an Inuit community in which foraging is necessary for survival. She describes that the traditional Inuit diet focused primarily on meat that was foraged from the environment.

              The Inuit tribe has used many natural resources in assisting them to provide food. As they hunt, many of their game don’t just provide food, yet more than that. The Inuit hunters have used sealskin and blubber, from seals they have caught, were used to make clothing, materials for boats, tents, harpoon lines, and fuel for heat and light. Their boats, harpoons lines, clothing, help them gather even more food.

Many people, when they think of Native Americans, will think of dancing and strange rituals, which is not the case with the Inuit Tribe. The Inuit Tribe are located in the far Arctic North. Also known as the Eskimo, the Inuit people have adapted to live in the freezing temperatures. They live by some of the most common ways Native Americans do. They practice not to waste anything they kill and also practice making arts. The Inuit Tribe have many ways to survive in the wild even with the hardships and scarce resources around them (Sontella 5).

Nanook of the North is an interesting film that documents the lifestyle of an Inuit family in Quebec, Canada. Robert J. Flaherty, the writer, producer and director of the film makes sure to film every aspect of the family’s daily struggles and duties. With nearly everything but cold weather in limited supply, it becomes very obvious that every aspect in their lives serves a specific role aimed towards survival; they have no space extraneous luxuries.

You just learned about how dissimilar, and the same two tribes can be to each other, and how they are comparable, how the Dene’s style varies, and how the Inuit are distinct. The Dene and the Inuit are similar on caribou, clothing, and location. The Dene is different because of the houses they live in. The Inuit is different because more of their territory is close to water. Think about this; how unlike do you live, than a person your age living in another place, like London, Paris, Moscow, or the

The people of Inuit, Yup’ik, Unangan, and other Native Americans Indians have lived in the harshest environment on Earth from Siberia, across Alaska and Canada, and to the East of Greenland along the coast of the Bering Sea and Arctic Ocean. From Labrador to the interior of Alaska the Athapaskan, Cree, Innu, and other Native’s people lived in the subarctic region of the land. These people had the ability to depend on their years of knowledge of the sky, ice, ocean, land, and animal behaviors in order to survive. Living in the area that was vast and dealing with seasonal dynamic extremes these Native people of the Artic and Subarctic had a honorable endurance for an millennia of exchanged goods, ceremonies, and shared feasts with neighboring goods that has help them throughout the years.

The Canadian Inuit were a domestic, tribal, egalitarian society in the 19th century. And some cultural changes occurred; making the Inuit adapt and become more aware of other resources they could get hold of, for gathering and hunting for food. In the 19th Century, the Europeans discovered the Inuit culture and this provided new resources for the Inuit to gain an easier way to gather and hunt for food. But because of the European influence, the Inuit’s culture changed to adapt with European Individuals living in their land, and European resources that had been made access to them. By this cultural change in the 19th century there was “an increased diversity in the social structure and material culture of the Labrador Inuit society” (Auger, 1993:27). The Labrador Inuit was a significant Inuit Society to have an ethnographical research made to understand a little bit more to; how the Inuit was affected and how the food process was changed. It will also be discussed the significant ideas and techniques that the Inuit used to gather and hunt for resources.

To begin with, in 1869, The Government of Canada, Great Britain, and the Hudson's Bay Company sign an agreement whereby Rupert's land is sold to the Dominion of Canada. Métis, Indians, and settlers are not consulted. And this event affects at least 10,000 Metis and other people who already living in Rupert’s land.

In the film “Eskimo Fight for Life” the Inuit winter camp has a defined social structure. From generation to generation the roles of men and women remain the same. The most important role for men is to hunt to feed the camp. They hunt seal which is a symbol within the camp because it conveys the meaning of survival. The women are responsible for supplying the camp with the necessary clothing such as fur coats and boots. The women also teach their daughters these skills so that they can make their own clothes and boots. The Inuit camp also has their own language which enables them to communicate with one another. With the use of language, the elders, especially the grandmothers, can tell the children stories. These stories are one way they pass

The Inuit developed a way of life well-suited to their Arctic environment, based on fishing; hunting seals, whales, and walruses in the ocean; and hunting caribou, polar bears, and other game on land. They lived in tents or travelled in skin-covered boats called kayaks and umiaks in summer, and stayed in

The Inuit peoples shown in the film live in the Artic, where temperatures average -30 degrees Celsius and the land is barren. This extreme weather greatly impacts both the material and non-material culture of their society to ensure survival. For instance, this barren landscape forces the Inuit to make igloos out of snow in order to insulate themselves from the harsh winds, resulting in a community effort

The Inuit are very spiritual people and they do not believe in a lot of the same things we do. They believe in something called Animism, all living and nonliving things have a spirit. When someone or something dies they believe that things spirit goes to the spiritual world. They only people powerful enough to talk or communicate with these spirits are religious leaders, Shamans or “Angakoks”. The way these religious leader speak with them is through dances or charms. They wear masks and clothes of an animal because they believe it helps them to communicate with them better. Not all spirits are good ones, when the weather was bad or there was an illness going around they believed it to be a displeased spirit, but the Inuit used guidelines to try to make the spirit happy. There was five rules that need to be followed in order to please the spirits, 1) women are not allowed to sew caribou skins on the inside of there igloo on sea ice in the winter. 2) Inuit can not eat sea mammal and land mammal at the same meal. 3) A knife used to kill whales had to wrapped in sealskin, not caribou skin. 4) After killing a seal melted snow had to dripped into its mouth to quench the spirit's thirst. 5) The Inuit saved the bladder of the hunted because they believed that’s where the spirit was found inside. One of the most important spirits was Sedna, The Goddess of the Sea. She provided them with food from the sea, which made the Inuit most happy.

The belief in kinship with creation is widely supported within most indigenous religions. In this way of thinking, there is more importance placed on the concept of “we” than there is on the concept of “I”. Here, the family or village is where strong emphasis lies. In many indigenous traditions, developing and maintaining a respectful relationship with spiritual energy is paramount. This concept doesn’t only apply to humans, but also, in many cases to the immediate natural environment as well. The oneness of the body and the land is vital. Many think of themselves as mere ‘caretakers’ of the earth, and nothing more, who has a duty to nurture and preserve it for future generations. Certain animals are seen as spiritual conduits, just as certain trees are seen to impart herbal healing secrets.

In the video it states , that “The ice is melting and the inuits don’t know if they're going to fall into the water . ” It also states that , “ The environment has gotten less predictable . ” The inuits have to be careful so they don’t fall through the ice and die . Because they’re caring a lot of weight with their snow mobile . And since they have global warming the ice has gotten thinner and the environment as gotten less predictable . ”

The Inuits live in really harsh conditions in the Arctic. They have lived there for a really long time. They live in a place called Nunavut. They are brave to live there. They are not able to make wooden homes, because of their climate region, so they make snow houses called “Igloos”. In the summer, when the snow melts, they cannot make igloos. They live in tent like huts made of animal skins. Inuit communities are found in the: Northwest Territories, Labrador, and Quebec.