RACHEL ATTITUQ QITSUALIKNovember 26, 1998
Ilira (Part 3 of a five-part series)
RACHEL ATTITUQ QITSUALIK
In Part Two, I described an encounter between tourists and an Inuk. The Inuk's work was interrupted by a tourist couple who demanded he pose for their photos. I briefly outlined the mistakes that each party made. In this article, I'm going to write about the Inuk's mistake. The next article will discuss the tourists' screwups.
Traditional Inuit held silence and respect as twin virtues. The value of silence is obvious, since a hunting society isn't going to catch anything if its members are noisy by nature. The ability to keep silent was considered a skill, so that even many Inuit games – such as Aaqsiiq, wherein the first to make noise is the loser – are based upon silence. Because of this culturally ingrained value, Inuit are typically soft-spoken to this day, so that strangers of a comparatively "louder" culture seem aggressive.
Respect for the isuma – personal thoughts and feelings – of others was also fundamental, so that Inuit were reticent about questioning or making demands of others. Inuit relied upon the assumption that each individual would willingly carry out his duties to every other – such as sharing food and shelter.
Conversely, most European-descended cultures are combative in their approach to isuma. A feeling is not considered valid until proven against others. When two European-descended people meet, they subtly (or sometimes overtly) fence with their opinions, weighing and measuring them against each other.
They feel the need to immediately voice an opinion ("Quite the weather, eh?"), submitting it for acceptance or rejection. To this day, many Inuit still cannot fathom the need for reparte. Traditionally, one's opinion belongs to one's self only. Voicing one's opinion, or discussing that of others, seems aggressive.
Behaviour that seems aggressive to Inuit is traditionally met with ilira, a sullen silence and compliance — such as exhibited by the Inuk in the story. It is the old Inuit way of dealing with aggressors, especially strangers.
When met with loudness or argumentation, the Inuk responds with ilira, feeling that it is better to yield, to defuse to conflict by refusing to fight. Violence was once considered wasteful — Inuit preferred conflict resolution over combat.
Ilira worked in traditional society, where ideas and opinions in themselves were not considered worth fighting over. Times have changed, however, forcing Inuit to address the problems that arise when trying to reconcile the opinions of many people living in a single community.
No longer can Inuit afford to allow everyone their own way, for Inuit — like Qallunaat — now rely upon projects where separate opinions conflict, where singular visions are valued. This forces the society to become an arena, its members dueling over the ideas that will prevail. In a project-driven society, ideas are the power for which authoritarians will kill.
So it is his inability to understand his new world that is our fictional Inuk's failing. While there was a time when his ilira would have worked to avoid conflict, his compliance means only one thing to the culture that now occupies his Land: that he is passive, perhaps even cowardly — like a servant, a slave.
His indulgence of the tourists will never resolve the matter. As long as he says nothing, their demands know no limit. Within their own culture, silence means agreement — if the Inuk wishes them to go away, he will tell them.
Our story Inuk needs to understand that he is about to live in a new territory — Nunavut — with those of their culture, and this necessitates learning to communicate differently than with other Inuit. Instead of feeling ilira, he needs to communicate as Qallunaaq would with each other:
"Bu off!"
Pijariiqpunga.
November 19, 1998
Nunani: Ilira
(Part Two of a five part series)
RACHEL ATTITUQ QITSUALIK
Imagine two tourists, husband and wife, nervous grins, rosy noses, heaving lungs unaccustomed to clean air. They sport bright red, puffy parkas, like giant plastic body pillows – bought at a trendy urbanite store located in a shopping mall – shockingly brittle in the sub-zero temperature and wind chill.
Like a cherry topping some hideous cake are their Indian-style mitts, stiff with newness, complete with "dummy" strings to prevent their loss. They wield their camera like a weapon.
At their mercy is a lone Inuk, whom they have caught untangling some dog traces. Earlier, the traces became a bit wet and, whilst routinely tangled from use, froze together into a semi-cylindrical clump. The tourists stand nearby, watching the Inuk, amazed at the sight of him untangling the icy traces with his bare hands. They periodically turn toward each other, commenting excitedly. The Inuk tries to ignore them as they snap a few pictures.
Eventually, because the Inuk hasn't reacted negatively, the tourists decide to get some better shots. Soon, they are leaning in close to him, asking him to position the traces at this angle and that, to pose, to redo some shots they were not happy with.
The Inuk obliges them. He does everything they ask of him, thus wasting about an hour, so that he has to work harder to finish the traces. But he doesn't say a word the entire time. The tourists eventually move on. The photography has cheered them and made them hungry, so they are off to the inn to get a hamburger. On their way, they discuss how nice the locals – the "Innooits" – are, how shy and kindly, just like in the movies.
Another tourist has witnessed the whole thing. He watches the couple on their way to their hamburger, placing his hands on his hips and snorting with derision. He is disgusted at how rudely they treated that poor Innooit, at how they bullied him into posing for their insipid snapshots, at how they have no respect for the traditional culture.
He shakes his head in disgust, resolving to step in next time, to fend away the tourists from these gentle native people who are inherently shy, quiet, and ready to do anything to please strangers. Poor, passive Innooit.
Everyone in the above scenario is wrong.
The first person who is mistaken, believe it or not, is the Inuk. He is following a cultural cue best reserved for other Inuit who understand it. He is obliging the tourists because they have made him ilirasuktuq – feeling ilira. He needs to remember that they are not of his culture, that in order to help himself and others, he must communicate with them in their own way – by telling them to jump into the nearest lake.
The second mistake is made by the tourist couple, not in their rudeness, but in their belief that the Inuk harbours no ill feelings toward them. They are mistaken in thinking that he obliged them out of kindness, for he was really feeling ilira – the need to obey in order to avoid a messy confrontation. He probably hates their guts.
The last mistaken one is the lone tourist who felt indignation, believing that the Inuk indulged the tourist couple out of passivity, an inability or unwillingness to defend himself. He doesn't realize that the Inuk practiced ilira – losing an hour rather than risking hostile confrontation, an efficient and very old cultural method of dealing with strangers.
Old Inuit culture reduces waste, even of emotional energy.
This article is introductory to the next three, each of which shall discuss the points above. It's time to air some cross-cultural theatre.
Pijariiqpunga (for Part Two).
November 12, 1998
Nunani
Ilira: Part One
RACHEL ATTITUQ QITSUALIK
I never look forward to explaining that different cultures can think in different ways, that language does not necessarily bear concepts universal from one people to the next.
There is an assumption by too many individuals (many of whom, tragically, are policy makers) that the concepts held by their own culture automatically exist in others.
A great number of people, for example, ask of me the Inuktitut word for "traditional law." When I explain that there is no such word, in fact, no such concept in old Inuit culture, that the contemporary word "piqujaq" misleadingly means "command," I am typically met with a blank stare. Even worse are scientific terms, such as "bacteria," to which Inuktitut can only best approximate "qupirruit" (worms).
It works in reverse, as well. There are a great number of Inuktitut concepts that refuse to lend themselves to translation into foreign mindsets.
My favourite example is the concept of "ilira." In the simplest English translations, ilira has been labeled fear. In the most complex translations, ilira has been described as fear of authority or ill will.
Differing cultural lenses are at work here. In truth, ilira owns elements of all such translations, yet its nature is characterized by a depth impossible to comprehend unless absorbed through actual life within Inuit culture. In order to understand it, you have to be able to feel it. I know that there are those readers out there who are shaking their heads at this, perhaps muttering,
"Impossible. One human is the same as the next. All human beings experience the same thoughts, emotions, and experiences. They simply use different words..."
Untrue. While many thoughts and feelings overlap to an extent that they can be commonly recognized, I submit that every human experience is unique. Each thinking creature is a separate Universe unto itself, unable to be perfectly understood by any other.
Just as the immeasurable combinations of wind, pressure, temperature, and density ensure that each flake of snow is unlike another, so the infinitude of life events ensure that no soul – no thought or experience – is exactly alike to another.
Imagine, then, the greater gulfs existent from culture to culture, as spawned by environments of lethal extremes – such as the Arctic evolution that has crafted Inuit mind and body since the ages when glaciers caressed the world's temperate regions.
The true world of the Inuit ancestors – the realm of safety, joy, warmth – was the family. There was no variety of experiences in the Inuit world to compare to the intricacies of fellow human minds.
Consequently, the Inuit identification of the range of human feelings exceeds even that of modern psychology, so that Inuktitut today contains dozens of unique terms for emotions not immediately recognized by other cultures.
One such emotion is that of ilira, a feeling that is not quite fear, and yet may cause traditional Inuit to seem as though they are yielding to authority. Ilira is an emotion that only features in interpersonal conflicts, when there is the potential for argumentation – occurring only when opinions collide, and only in the one who "backs down" from confrontation.
And this is where Inuit culture becomes important, for since traditional Inuit find conflict loathsome, an Inuk may come to feel "ilirasuktuq," — a state in which they are distinctly unsatisfied (perhaps even angry), and yet will give in simply for the sake of dissipating the conflict.
Again, Inuit culture becomes a key factor here, for one who is ilirasuktuq does not give in from a sense of duty, or a fear of punishment. Interestingly, the reaction stems from the fundamental principle of Inuit wisdom most estranged from this age.
Pragmatism.
Pijariiqpunga (for Part One).
November 6, 1998
Nunani: Not Run Away
RACHEL ATTITUQ QITSUALIK
"Bullies don't want to fight you. They just want to beat you up."
— John Steakley
There was a lot of violence at boarding school, most of it hidden. Some classes were let out early, racing home to Stringer Hall, taking short cuts to avoid the bullies. Most bullies were "town" kids, envious of what they thought was our "uppity" institutional life. They could never know that we envied them what we were denied: a family.
My older half-sister and I were kept separated, so we could not support one another. She would, however, smuggle me what little money she could find, sneaking it to me on the weekends, so that I could buy an occasional treat. The few pleasures we were allowed were counterbalanced by some horrific episodes, such as fierce attacks by the bullies. When I think back on the earliest days, one attack especially springs to mind.
In a lot of ways I was a typical little Inuit girl, struggling with English, adjusting to school, living with 199 other kids virtually devoid of privacy. My half-sister and I were tough, having been brought up like boys by my father. Constant training had imbued us with stamina. Although my father had anticipated a different environment – not residential school — that training saw us through some very dangerous times.
In early fall, my half-sister and I went berry-picking behind a hill near Stringer Hall. We had been released for the weekend. We had picked nearly an entire bag of cranberries, when two much bigger boys suddenly appeared.
They had sling shots, the kind that sported thick rubber slings for killing rabbits and birds, and they were aiming them at us.
"Let go of the bag," one of them commanded, firing a warning shot that went wide. I was terrified, my heart hammering away. Looking them straight in the eye only brought silence for a few minutes. They were serious.
I looked over at my sister. She stood still, defiant, even when she was told the second time to let go of the bag.
They shot her hand.
Still, she would not let go of the bag. Blood ran down her fingers, mixing with the colour of the berries. We both remained, reaching for whatever reserves we possessed of bravery.
I broke, snarling,
"Look what you did!"
I started yelling, running to my sister. I grabbed the bag that she had dropped – only because her hand had now swollen, preventing her from gripping – and defied the boys to try again. My sister was gasping in pain, trying to stem the blood which now steadily streamed.
The boys departed, the fun taken out of their threats. My sister bandaged the wound as best as she could, tears now welling up with her pained sobs.
"Let's go before they come back." I said. "I'm proud of us anyway. We didn't run away."
Somehow, years later, only that fact is important. With fondness, I can still picture my sister when I close my eyes, standing there, holding her ground with fierce pride, refusing to be a victim.
I think I learned then that it takes two to make a victim: both the bully and one's self. Will is the key. You cannot be a victim if you refuse.
Strangely, from then on, I didn't succumb to bullying. Later, when a senior girl dumped me out of my bed – mattress and all – I merely stared her down, daring her to continue. As before, she walked away, confused at her failure to evoke submission.
The best gifts are the ones that arm you against life.
Pijariiqpunga.