Critical Inuit Studies: An Anthology of Contemporary Arctic Ethnography

13. Inuit Geographical Knowledge One Hundred Years Apart

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 [First Page] [217], (1) Lines: 0 to 26 ——— 0.538pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [217], (1) thirteen Inuit Geographical Knowledge One Hundred Years Apart Ludger Müller-Wille and Linna Weber Müller-Wille “Why is it that Germans had Inuit maps already in 1885 and till today Canada still has none with Inuit place names on it?” Allan Angmarlik and Josephie Keenainak Pangnirtuuq (Pangnirtung), August 4, 1984 Parallel events occurred one hundred years apart in the history of arctic social sciences in the Tinijjuarvik region on Cumberland Sound in Nunavut in the Canadian Eastern Arctic. Visiting researchers—Franz Boas in 1883– 84 and the authors in 1984—conferred with the local Inuit about the same places and sites. Among other topics, these encounters centered on the documentationofInuitgeographicalknowledgeandlandusepracticesthrough place names. In both cases the research activities led to a list of toponyms andthecreationofmaps.ThesemapswereeitherdrawnbyInuitthemselves or surveyed by the researchers using western cartographic means. The 1883–84 event was the first attempt to record Inuit place names systematically and in their totality from oral tradition throughout a contiguous geographicregion.The1984eventwasareviewofthattoponymiccollection to validate the temporal depth and dynamics of Inuit geographic knowledge and to connect Inuit with their written ethnographic past related to topography and toponymy. It was also a cooperative effort to react to and fulfill priorities set by local Inuit residents and organizations to preserve, maintain, and enhance Inuit cultural heritage for future generations (Allan Angmarlik, pers. comm. and correspondence with the authors, 1984). The juxtaposition and interpretation of these two events a century apart provide insight into the approaches and methodologies applied. Further- Müller-Wille and Weber Müller-Wille 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 [218], (2) Lines: 26 ——— 6.4pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: T [218], (2) more,comparisonallowsustodelveintohowhumankindconstructsplaces within specific natural environments through the shaping of frameworks for understanding and knowledge. These frameworks change according to how spaces and sites are filled and organized mentally through human presence—the interchange between people and environment being in a constant temporal and spatial flux. In this context, the concept of critical topography (Bordo 2000) allows us to probe human-environmental interactions in temporal and spatial dimensions in which space, the landscape, is seen as a “witness” to events that permeate cultural memories situated in geography. Inuit and Western Perceptions of Arctic Landscapes The circumpolar arctic environment has been scientifically defined since the nineteenth century as treeless lands with areas of continuous ice as glaciers or sea ice, lying under permafrost conditions, with certain climatologicalandecologicalcharacteristics .IthasbeenthelivingspaceoftheInuit and their predecessors for several millennia. Cultural, linguistic, socioeconomic , and political expressions and institutions have been manifested and altered through the continuum of Inuit interacting with their environment in these lived arctic spaces. Life, culture, and nature for the Inuit, are clearly one and not separate; in fact, this is not at all unusual. However, it needs to be emphasized because the Arctic, the North, has often been interpreted from the outside as “inhospitable.” This mental and practiced relationship of the Inuit with the environment is expressed deeply, for example, through place names, which provide detailed indicators of the heightened quality of human-environment interactions. The specificity of the arctic environment has been fully integrated in its totality by the philosophy of life and knowledge of the Inuit. Inwesternhistory,Europeans(Euro-Canadians)havebeenunderstoodas theoutsidersandintrudersattractedtospacesbeyondthereachoftheirown realms. For a long time the North and in particular the Arctic have held the notion of the Other—unknown, pristine, sublime, in sum Ultima Thule— its myth and magic there to be explored and conquered in colonial fashion, by prying the knowledge of places from the environment itself or from its aboriginal inhabitants. Their lives and livelihoods were often perceived and presented as an indescribable burden, a matter of pain in facing the inhospitable elements. Clearly, the Arctic was not the living space for European explorers and scientists but rather a playground to unravel the geographi218 Inuit Geographical Knowledge 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8...