RACHEL ATTITUQ QITSUALIK
Special to Nunatsiaq News

I have no name.

At least, such a statement is technically true if you want to know my real Inuktitut name. I was born Attituq, "No Name," and so if you wanted to be completely accurate, there is no way to address me.

Practically speaking, however, I have a few different names. As already mentioned, you can call me Attituq, which is not so much a true name as an Inuktitut variation of, "Hey you!" in the sense that it simply suffices for a method of address, rather than being a real name to describe the characteristics of a person (I'll return to this idea later).

Then there is the name I was called when little, which was Taanaqutikuluk ("One Who Is A Cute Little Thing Belonging To Us"). And there is my father's name, Qitsualik ("One Who Claws"), attributed to me in residential school.

And finally there is my most commonly used name, which is actually two: Raigili and Rachel, depending on whether you're speaking Inuktitut or English.

Many scholars can attest to the difficulty involved in pinning down Inuktitut names — not only for people, but for places and things as well. The difficulty stems in part from the Inuit tendency to name something (or someone) based on attributes and context, which may continually change over time.

Of course, this exists in every culture — take the accumulation of nicknames, for example — but most cultures avoid confusion over names by designating a single title (or at least very few) as being the "official" one, denoting that others are "nicknames" or "familiar" names, somehow improper or unofficial.

One name as good as another

In traditional Inuktitut, ever bent on functionality, one name is as good as another if it works to adequately describe the characteristics of a person or thing in its current context. We once owned a dog, for example, whose name became Qupiruq ('Worm") because of the wriggling, thrashing movements that he made when, as a whelp, he caught himself between two rocks.

An "official" name for the dog was not important — what mattered was only that one person could communicate to another about which dog was being referred to at any given time, as based on its remembered attributes.

Outlined above is the most obvious and least elusive feature of the old Inuit naming practice. The primary incompatibility, however, between Inuktitut and all other languages, is the unique way in which Inuit traditionally regard the use of naming and words, the responsibility involved in speaking a word.

In order to comprehend this, we must first discuss the cosmology of yesterday — what is wrongly termed "spirituality" or "religion" or even "superstition" — that pillar upon which rests the ancient Inuit practice of uttering the least of breaths.

There is a single word that encompasses the old Inuit cosmology: Sila.

Although translated today as "air" or "weather" or even "outside," the modern translations of sila only convey to us non-Inuit ideas associated with English words. When I speak of the "air" to a southerner, what immediately comes to his or her mind is the idea of invisible, breathable gas: the nitrogen, oxygen, and other gases that make up Earth's atmosphere. Today, the vast majority of Inuit will think of the same thing, as well as wind and weather.

Sila — the substance of life

This is a small tragedy, for in old Inuktitut, sila is much more than simple air. Sila is the breathe that circulates into and out of every living thing.

Inuit, in their rich hunting history, have developed intimate cultural ties to life and death, a deep understanding of the relationship between living and dead: without the death of the living, there is no life whatsoever, so the dead are the foundation upon which life exists.

For this reason, death gives rise to to life. Despite some modern concern about sparing the lives of animals: even herbivores — plant eaters — must subsist upon vegetation, which are perfectly viable life forms that fight for life in the same way that animals do; on the cellular and genetic levels, plants and animals are virtually identical. Even aside from plants, our bodies automatically act to kill bacteria — themselves animals trying to thrive in their own way. Therefore, there is no escape from the role of killer.

Inuit observed long ago, perhaps millenia ago, that that which does not live, also does not breathe. Rocks do not breathe, and neither do they live. Similarly, when an animal (or person) breathes, it lives — yet when deprived of breath, it ceases to live, becoming no more animate than a stone.

Inuit noticed that the breathe, a force seemingly no different from wind and being drawn from the air itself, appeared to be the animating principle of life. They logically concluded that life itself was in fact the breath, the sila, and that when the sila was drawn into a body, it was alive and animate. The observation of childbirth may also have contributed to this thinking, since when a baby is born, it is not at first drawing breath.

The belief naturally evolved over time. Eventually, sila became associated with incorporeal power, quite understandable, since not only does sila — through breath — convey the energy that drives life, but sila also manifests itself as tangible weather phenomena, such as the slightest touch of breeze, or as the flesh-stripping power of a storm. Sila, for Inuit, became a raw life force that lay over the entire Land; that could be felt as air, seen as the sky, and lived as breath.

At some point, the angakuit (wrongly termed "shamans") seized upon this idea, and perhaps they were in turn developed through it so that they viewed Sila (which I shall hereafter capitalize) as a singular, nebulous, yet all-pervasive force.

They came to regard it as possessing something akin to intelligence, for since it was the animating force, it seemed logical that it should also own a mind. Was not a living thing also a thinking thing? (Perhaps not, if you talk to some politicians.)

The angakuit eventually built upon this idea, reckoning that if the Sila possessed a mind of its own, it must be a superior mind. Further, if it possessed such a mind, it might also be reasoned with — even pleaded with.

This is why, when explorers such as Knud Rasmussen inquired among angakuit about their beliefs in "God" or "gods," many angakuit replied with various vagueries concerning "sila," what at the time was mistakenly taken to be "the air," a worship of some primitive sky deity.

But some of the angakuit went so far as to speak of initiation rituals in which an aspiring angakuq was required (after the obligatory fasting and celibacy common to nearly all cultures' mystic traditions) to live alone and naked out on the Land for a time, suffering until he "became one with Sila," or came to "know" it.

Scholars of North American Indian spiritual traditions will recognize this ritual as sounding very similar to what is loosely termed the "vision quest," or "crying for a vision," where an Indian youth seeks a vision of personal relevance after a term of fasting, celibacy, and seclusion (usually in the wilderness).

It's not known whether the Inuit angakuq ritual was borrowed from such Indian traditions, or whether angakuit somehow developed it on their own. One way or another, it is interesting to note that the Inuit ritual of "Knowing Sila" (for lack of a better term) has always been described as having nothing at all to do with tunraaq (wrongly termed "spirits").

Instead, as angakuit have told explorers, "Knowing Sila" is an older and more skillful tradition, originating from the days when Inuit somehow possessed a "lost" knowledge. It was thought that, in older days, Inuit possessed a special knowledge that gave them superhuman powers, but that this knowledge had been lost, so that angakuit now relied upon tunraaq to assist them, a reliance which was deemed feeble, inferior, and the mark of an ignorant angakuq.

Conversely, the lost knowledge was far more powerful, and only very little of it had survived throughout the ages. The knowledge was so formidable that even a non-angakuq could use some of it.

Rasmussen himself was given a few bits of it, by an old Innusuit (Polar Inuit) angakuq who had taken a liking to him. He was given seven different word formulae for various purposes, ranging from spotting hidden animals, to speeding up his dog sled. Such bits of the old knowledge were supposedly usable by anyone (although they were still jealously guarded by angakuit) who accessed them, because they were based solely upon two vital principles: word and will.

Unlike many other cultures, intention, or will, alone meant little or nothing to Inuit. The will was considered capricious, and a thought was no more substantial than one's reflection in water. Only substance, tangibility, was considered to be of importance, and tangibility was typically defined by Inuit as any phenomenon that was capable of affecting others.

Will alone could not affect anything, so it was not considered important until it was given substance — and it could only be given substance by the use of words. Words were terribly important because they were formed with breath, with Sila, which was not specifically one's own, but was part of an amorphous whole, a great life force that a body sort of "borrowed" when animate.

The life force could neither be created nor destroyed, since it simply recycled itself continually into creature after creature. When any creature — human or beast — perished, its Sila (breath/life) was essentially believed to leave that particular body, after which it could linger for a time, dissipate into the larger whole, or find its way into a new form (although the life force tended to stick to its own species).

Words with will behind them

For this reason, that the Sila was believed to reside in a creature, it was thought that words — uttered with breath — were thought to be the physical expression of thoughts, which, in a sense, they are, and therefore portions of the Sila itself. Since the Sila was power incarnate, portions of it (words with will behind them), also contained power. When one both thought and spoke something, that something became real.

It is for this reason that Inuit became very careful with their words, a practice whose meaning and purpose eventually became lost in the mists of time (except perhaps among angakuit). Until recently it has become a simple cultural habit. And this is the primary, the oldest, source of the difficulty that scholars of other cultures typically experience when trying to pry cultural facts or linguistic information out of Inuit.

Their questions are often met with complete silence, a shrug of the shoulders, or at best some vague or cryptic answer. The few bits that scholars have managed to wring from Inuit are considered anthropological gems.

Sometimes, the explanation for the lack of communication is classic shyness, or an inability to adequately express oneself, but most often it is that Inuit have unconsciously followed cultural tendencies constructed of old, based upon ancient cosmological ideas that what is spoken is given substance, and that what has substance may pose danger, and what may pose danger must be treated with respect.

Inuit well understood the solemnity with which missionaries offered them the One God, and the prayers both spoken and sung to Him, for the groundwork of such beliefs had already been developing among Inuit for ages.

Naming has a different meaning

So, when armed with the knowledge of how Inuit once viewed the world around them and their part within it, the practice of naming takes on a whole different meaning. In ancient Inuktitut tradition (I want to make it clear that this is not a modern belief), giving something a name means that you are shaping your own part of the Sila towards it, thereby making concrete that thing's characteristics

The name becomes then, not simply a reference term, a mere method of identification, but a physical mark that bestows characteristics upon the thing. The name (word), being real with the issuance of Sila and will, remains with the named object/person.

It becomes both the empowerment and anchor of the named thing, so that the will of the namer is imprinted upon it, amplifying its traits. In this way, a dog, for example, named "fast" is not merely fleet of foot because nature has imbued him with those qualities, but because those qualities have been recognized and reflected back at him with word and will. It is his name that makes him fast, not his simply his own natural gifts.

Among Inuit, it suddenly becomes apparent that it is advantageous to have a variety of names. In a society in which it is believed that word and will together have tangible influence, each individual must guard against the possibility that another will bring the force of ill will and words to bear against him.

In order to do so, the attacker must of course know the identity of whomever he is cursing. The would-be target is then advantaged if he has several names, for if the attacker does not know all of his names, it reduces the chance of the attacker being able to effectively identify his target.

Without an identified target, the will and words of an attacker, his Sila, have nothing to be directed against. The Netsilingmiut, in particular, were very concerned with this principle, for safety's sake making a practice of applying many different names — some of which were deliberately kept secret — to each individual.

When Asen Balikci studied the Netsilingmiut people, he noted one woman who had at least 12 different names, including: pack ice, the little one with the cut feet, fish leister, butterfly, the one who likes women's genitals, the little one with the bib, the one who has been beaten with a piece of wood, the one who has just defecated, the round one, the admirable one, the coarse stitch, the unlucky one.

Caution with words

I know this may sound confusing to some readers, but please remember I am describing a process that has developed unconsciously and over time, without the government-sponsored organization and deliberation that we have become so used to in today's somewhat burlesque attempts to engineer Inuit culture and language.

I'm trying to illustrate the reason why Inuit have formerly been cautious with what they say to others, and I am arguing that it is a deeply ingrained habit — a responsibility toward the spoken word and its effects upon others — evolved over perhaps millenia of life in the Arctic.

It is my personal belief that Inuit cannot — must not — dismiss their history, and I do not refer only to the history as recorded by the scholars of other cultures. It is of vital importance that Inuit tear their eyes from industry and investment long enough to rebuild their past, to reconstruct and teach themselves what their ancestors lived and felt, thus learning why they do what they do today, where and how their cultural beliefs have developed.

What did the ancestors experience, that led them to lay down the ways whose traces can still be found in communities today? This is the true "old knowledge" that has been lost.

Inuit cannot rely upon other cultures to study and interpret their history for them. If you allow others to define your past, there is nothing to stop them from defining your future.

Inuit have the right to delve into their past, to learn, to explore the heritage that has become a profitable industry to all but Inuit themselves today. And because it is profitable to others, and my words herein will interfere with such profits, such others will curse my name for it.

But let them try: I have none.

Pijariiqpunga.