[OT] Inuit? Eskimo?

[Floyd Davidson]

Geoff Gerrietts <geoff at gerrietts.net> wrote:
>
>Where the original question tried to sort out "What term has replaced
>Eskimo in the same way Native American has replaced American Indian?"
>But it appears that Native American hasn't really replaced American
>Indian in the simple way we thought it had. Meanwhile, for some prior
>usages of "Eskimo", that term is still correct: it identifies a
>specific cultural/ethnic/tribal group. 

You were doing great until this last paragraph.  Eskimo does not
refer to any tribe or tribal group.  It refers to a language
group, a cultural/ethnic group or to a genetic group.  But there
are literally hundreds of unique tribes within the cultural
group known as Eskimos.  For that matter, and this may come as a
surprise to some, the term tribe isn't necessarily the best
description of Eskimo governance, and "nation" might be a much
better term.  There is little doubt that before Europeans
brought diseases to Northwestern Alaska there were what can only
be described as a very well delineated group of Eskimo Nations
there (Earnest S. Birch Jr. has published detailed studies).
By the time anyone was interested in learning what Eskimos were,
they had been decimated, and tribal relationships were just
about all that was left.

One might speculate that the same was/is true of American Indian
governance.  We can certainly say for example that the Iroquois
and several other Confederations that were very functional well
into the 1800's met the "nation" criteria too.

Some of them were exceedingly sophisticated governments, and
most of them were very sophisticated social cultures too.
They've been portrayed as "savage" and "primitive" to make it
easier to justify taking what they owned away from them.  But
the simple fact is that in many ways they were far more advanced
in 1500 than the average European society was at that time.

>In other ways, there doesn't
>appear to be a real equivalent. While "all descendents of indigineous
>peoples" seem to have some kind of collective identity, it does not
>appear that "all descendents of indigineous peoples that lived north
>of the Arctic" do.

There is more to that than you can probably imagine!

Rest assured that almost *anything* you hear about Eskimos on
the Internet is false.  That is equally true of almost any
anthropology book published prior to about 1970.  The problem is
that all of these sources have a lot of just really good
information, but it takes an expert to wade through what is
presented to throw out the garbage.

You've all heard, for example, that the "Eskimos have xxxx words
for snow" business is not true.

How about...

  Eskimos (and or all other Native Americans) had no concept of
  private property or land ownership.

      FACT:  The penalty for trespass on private property for
             the purpose of illegal use was death.

  Eskimos had no form of governance.

      FACT:  The Europeans who visited Eskimos were unable to
             comprehend that government does not necessarily
             involve noise and violence.  It also does not 
             necessarily exclude women.   There is not a single
             description of Eskimo governance prior to 1965 in
             any anthropology text I've ever heard of.  But in
             the late 60's the Yupiit Nation decided they had
             to write it down, because their children were being
             taught in Western schools and not learning it.  As
             of about 1975 there isn't a single anthropology text
             that I know of which still claims they had no form
             of governance!  1741 to 1970 is a long time to miss
             a very simple fact like that...

   Eskimo men offer their wives to visitors.

      FACT:  In a matrilineal society where the woman owns the
             house, it most certainly would not be possible for
             a man to offer what he doesn't own and has no 
             authority over.  Consider the plight of a poor lady,
             though, who finds a stranger somewhat interesting
             but also finds that he's too dumb to talk to a woman.
             So she just orders the nearest man, "Tell that tall
             dumb one that he's staying in my igloo."

   Eskimos put old people out on the ice.

      FACT:  In a society with an oral history, that is the same
             as burning the books in your library.   Insane.
             The older an elder is, the more precious and more
             protected they are.

   Eskimos and Indians killed each other on sight.

      FACT:  In several places there have traditionally been Indian
             and Eskimo villages on opposite sides of a river within
             1/2 a mile of each other!

I could go on for an hour at least, and worse yet I could
probably write two or three pages of commentary on each of these
things.

-- 
Floyd L. Davidson           <http://web.newsguy.com/floyd_davidson>
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)                         floyd at barrow.com