Nunani

August 27, 1999

Cannibal: Part Four

RACHEL ATTITUQ QITSUALIK

One reason for the Inuit fear of cannibalism was its very real threat.

The truth, however, is that while Inuit believed the Athapaskan and Algonkian Indians to be cannibalistic, the real cannibalism occurred instead as aberrations that cropped up among Inuit themselves. There may be a kernel of truth within the ancient Inuit stories of hunters lost out on the land, accidentally blundering into a "strange" people whom, it turns out, want him as quaq.

Yet while such "lost among the cannibals" tales constitute wonderful horror folklore — occurring the world over — it seems far more likely that the real cannibals were individuals born of madness and starvation.

Knud Rasmussen, in his informative travels, was told of many instances of cannibalism by various Inuit peoples, the most lurid of which is perhaps that related by Qaqortingneq — an old camp leader of the Netsilingmiut — regarding a middle-aged man named Tuneq:

One winter, many years ago, hunting was a failure. Day after day went by and nobody had anything to eat. People died of hunger or froze to death, and the quick lived on the dead.

Then Tuneq suddenly became disturbed in his head. He began to consult the spirits, and it was not long before he began to do so through his own wife. He used her as a medium: qilaq. He did it in this way: he tied a line to one of her legs and made her lie on the platform; then he tugged at her leg and let the spirits answer through her leg. He did this often, and it was not long before he said he had received the answer that he was to save his own life by eating his wife.

At first he only cut small pieces from her clothing and ate them, drinking water with it to help him to swallow it. People who saw him say that he behaved like a man possessed of a wild and evil spirit. Bigger and bigger were the pieces he cut from her clothing; at last her body was quite exposed in many places.

The wife knew that the spirits had said her husband should eat her, but she was so exhausted that it made no impression on her. She did not care. It was only when he began to feel her, when it occurred to him to stick his fingers in her side to feel if there was flesh on her, that she suddenly felt a terrible fear; so she, who had never been afraid of dying, now tried to escape.

With her feeble strength she ran for her life, and then it was as if Tuneq saw her only as a quarry that was about to escape him; he ran after her and stabbed her to death.

After that, he lived on her, and he collected her bones in a heap over by the side platform for the purpose of fulfilling the taboo rule required of all who die. He was going to hold death-taboo over her for five days.

But people say that the ghost of his wife often walked through her own bones, Tuneq waking up at night as the bones he himself had gnawed began to rattle. Sometimes they moved up and down, and it happened that the man sitting up on the platform would be hauled off during the night by some invisible power. And when he then suddenly awoke there was no one in the snow hut, only the bones lying over by the side platform, rattling.

— Knud Rasmussen The Netsilik Eskimos, Reports of the Fifth Thule Expedition, Vol. VIII. Copenhagen. 1931: 137

For me, the story above (which Qaqortingneq and Rasmussen both seem to relate with ghoulish delight),affirms my suspicion that the tales of the cannibal "societies" are merely that, since they seem to follow a universal folkloric pattern that occurs from Africa to Asia.

Meanwhile, the stories of true cannibalism, as above, are obviously cases of isolated, monstrous behaviour, rather than of monstrous culture.

But, then again, I haven't gotten to the Indians yet. There still remain the Mohawks and the Aztecs. Were they cannibal cultures, or were such accusations fabricated by priests and explorers?

I guess I'll have a look at it all next week.

Pijariiqpunga.

August 20, 1999

Cannibal: Part Three

RACHEL ATTITUQ QITSUALIK

While Inuit displayed in their tales a traditional dread of Indians, the Algonkian and Athapaskan peoples were all too eager to return the favour, filling their own folklore with stories of the loathesome northern cannibals, the Eskimantsik, or "Eaters of Raw Meat" (from which comes the word "Eskimo").

The Algonkian-speaking and Athapaskan-speaking Indians occupied a great deal of sub-Arctic land in Canada, in the form of similar yet distinct nations that ranged all along the treeline. Depending upon their respective areas, Inuit had to contend with a great number of tribes, fighting a sort of "cold" war with elusive, and therefore grossly misunderstood, treeline peoples.

Even at a glance, one can appreciate the vast potential for cross-cultural misunderstanding. From southeast to northwest, the Inuit clashed with Naskapi and Montagnais (both known today as Innu), west main Cree, western woods Cree, and Athapaskan peoples such as the Chipewyan, Yellowknife, Hare, Kutchin, Koyukon, and Holikachuk.

The problem is that the taiga has always acted as a sort of fence, keeping either super-culture from fully knowing each other. The treeline is the dividing line between two distinct worlds.

On the northern side were Inuit, whose technology had already been so superbly adapted to the Arctic environment that Inuit were fearful to leave it for the "cannibal" Iqiliit-infested woodlands.

On the southern side were the Algonkian and Athapaskan nations, whose lifestyles were perfectly suited to their sub-arctic forest lands, and who feared straying too far north, away from the cover of the pines, and into the clutches of the man-eating Eskimantsik.

The Algonkian folklore was brimming with exceptionally ancient legions of woodland cannibal ghosts and monsters, the most famous of which was the dreaded "Wendigo," a man who had transformed himself into a monster by eating human flesh, and who was doomed to forever stalk the woods and northern "wastes" in a mad search for raw, human flesh.

Already armed with such beliefs, it was not difficult for the northernmost treeline Algonkians to identify the Wendigo with Inuit, for the Inuit tendency to eat uncooked meat was vastly monstrous to them (few of the Algonkians ate quaq.)

Unfortunately, the treeline only served to keep the super-cultures just far enough apart that there could be little understanding between them. Each super-culture could only observe the other from afar, generally consumed with ignorant fear.

With the only contact consisting of occasional encounters (wherein neither party understood the other's language or customs), often in the form of raids or skirmishes occurring over millenia, is it any wonder that lurid rumours developed on both sides?

Nor is it any wonder that the most common accusations were those of cannibalism, for human beings naturally have a tendency to dwell upon, to study and examine, their worst fears — evoking maximum terror in their effort to imagine "just how bad it gets". And the key tool in such primal psychotherapy is the alienation of others, the need to define oneself as opposed to the "monsters."

Yet a monster is a difficult thing to concretize, for the truly inhuman monsters of nature are only, in the end, mere animals: the bear, the shark, the venomous serpent. These animals may possess fearsome or deadly traits, but they generally avoid humanity, and are easily dealt with.

Therefore, man turns to himself, looking at his own kind for those who might play the monsters. And it just so happens that cannibals fit the bill exactly. The unspoken assumption is that, unlike beasts and birds, cannibals have made a conscious choice in their diet. They are the perfect monsters, for they masquerade as humans, having human traits and talents, while perversely eating their own. They live among their food.

But make no mistake: I'm not saying that cannibal legends are entirely the result of cross-cultural fear. Are the claims of Indians and Inuit completely false? Are there true cases of cannibalism among either super-culture?

Based upon the evidence available, the answer might appear to be ... yes.

In fact, there are many documented accounts of cannibalism occurring among Indians and Inuit, but not necessarily each toward the other. Where cannibalism does occur, each super-culture, it seems, tends to "keep it in the family". But you'll see exactly what I mean next week.

Pijariiqpunga (for Part Three).

Nunani

August 13, 1999

Cannibal: Part Two

RACHEL ATTITUQ QITSUALIK

In folklore, cannibals make the very best villains. In a way, they are the ultimate symbol of gluttony, the lust for food taken to such an extreme that even one's fellow humans are no longer exempt from consumption.

Similarly, cannibals are a symbol of betrayal. As predators, there exists an unspoken understanding between humans that they are not to turn their predatory skills against each other — but will instead cooperate against those animals that are not human.

Cannibals, however, have violated this most fundamental social contract — not to prey upon those of their own species — having removed themselves to a plane of thought that is seemingly alien to the rest of us. The cannibal is a creature of chaos, choosing to remain outside of the usual social contracts that ensure human safety: in other words, a monster. The monster is not predictable, so the monster, the cannibal, is unsafe.

And to whom is the monster image most useful? Well, parents, of course. A most difficult task, faced by any parent, is in making their child understand the dangers of the unknown.

Children incessantly wander off while parents aren't looking, meandering into nebulous dangers. It would be easy if the parents could simply explain such dangers, cautioning the children against them.

Unfortunately, most explanations of danger only confuse children, or simply don't impress them. For this reason, societies across the ages have developed strikingly similar children's stories — mostly cautionary tales against wandering away from the safety of home, at the risk of being eaten by semi-human monsters that exist "over there."

Unlike many subjects, eating is something that even the smallest child can comprehend, and therefore the idea of a monster that gobbles up children is easy to grasp. The cannibal is the parental metaphor for the thief, the abuser, the kidnapper, the pedophile — all the horrors an adult can imagine, but cannot adequately explain to a child.

Yet, over an extended period of time, cultures do pay an inevitable price for the cannibal-fears that parents convey. An accumulation of such fears, over generations, can result in a society that defines its sense of integrity only against other, more supposedly "savage" cultures.

If such stories are not explained to children as they grow — if they are not eventually taught that those "others" are not actually cannibalistic, but that the tales were only to serve the purpose of disciplining them when they were younger and less comprehending — there exists the good chance that the children will retain their fears unto adulthood, passing on to their own progeny an exaggerated, brand of xenophobia (or perhaps we could could say "anthropophagiphobia").

We can easily see the effects of such compounded xenophobia — whether deriving from cannibal hatred, or from other sources — manifested in the various ethnic conflicts entrenched in the histories of nearly all societies, from the most basic and ancient band-level groups to the youngest and most sophisticated nations.

Closest to home, there exists the ancient Indian-Inuit enmity, as I've already noted in the first article of this series, an enmity revolving around cannibal fears projected from each society toward the other.

As one follows the northern side of the taiga up into the northwest, from the peoples of the Padlermiut to the Haningayormiut to the Kogluktomiut to the Avvagmiut to the Kittegaryumiut to the Kikiktarugmiut, one finds an increasing prevalence of traditional myths and stories that refer to conflicts with numerous Algonkian-speaking Indian peoples along the treeline.

Such tales normally refer to raids by Indians upon Inuit, and follow a distinct pattern: the Inuit men go hunting, only to later return to find that Indians (nastily termed Iqiliit, or "People With Lice Eggs") have raided their village, and either exterminated or captured the Inuit women and children.

Wrathful, the hunters track the Indians to their camp to find them gathered around the fire, alternately congratulating themselves on a successful raid, or snacking on some leftover Inuk. Sated and thereby unaware, the Indians fail to notice the Inuit circling round their camp, whereupon the Inuit leap up and fill the Indians full of arrows.

Some Inuit cultures, in fact, actually were so used to such skirmishes that they had developed a special barbed arrow for killing people.

Pijariiqpunga (continued in Cannibal: Part Three).

August 6, 1999

Polly's Inuit Project

RACHEL ATTITUQ QITSUALIK

It is difficult, sometimes, to field the e-mails I get from students and educators of various countries, especially when they obviously expect to hear about Inuit as being one of the last innocent peoples of the world, untouched by social or political problems. The peoples of many other countries really do believe that Inuit live their day-to-day existence as in the "Nanook of the North" film, igloos and all.

With inevitable awkwardness, I try to inform whomever I can. Invariably, my own difficulty lies in trying not to seem angry, for it is embarrassing for me to have to explain that Inuit now run so many well-funded institutions, and a few enjoy so many modern amenities, at the same time that poverty and crime and substance abuse run rampant.

How do I reconcile such facts, for example, with descriptions of traditional Inuit sharing practices?

It is rare, then, that those from other cultures can comprehend this paradox of Inuit modernity. But over the last few days, I corresponded with a New Zealand father and daughter who did understand. The daughter immediately seemed to grasp the inadequacy of her class questions, while the father understood the importance of what he termed "harsh reality." It greatly heartened me.

So I wanted to share this event, as well as to thank Polly and her dad.

***

Dear Rachel:

My name is Polly. I am 9 years old, and I live in New Zealand. I have some questions for you:

Do Inuit eat seals, seaweed, polar bears, and cows? What do Inuit spend their time doing apart from, hunting, fishing, traveling, building igloos and playing in the snow?

These are questions my class asked for a school project. Don't blame me if they're really stupid!

***

Hi Polly:

Coastal Inuit eat seals (but then again, so do Scandinavian and African coastal peoples — since seals are yummy). The seal specialists were always those known as the Netsilingmiut (pronounced net-sil-ING-mee-oot), which means "People of the Seal" in Inuktitut, the most common Inuit language.

Coastal Inuit eat seaweed (then again, so do people from the Maritimes provinces of Canada).

Some Inuit eat polar bears, except for the liver, which contains so much Vitamin A that it is highly poisonous.

Inuit eat beef imported from the south into stores in northern communities. Inuit go grocery shopping like everyone else, since they can't all hunt all the time.

Today, Inuit pretty much live as southerners do. They live in houses. They watch cable TV and use the Internet. The government and churches have pressured Inuit to stop hunting, fishing, traveling, and playing in the snow, because they want them to go to church and pay taxes.

Unfortunately, there is not a lot of business in the northern communities, so many are unemployed. They get angry, frustrated, and sad.

Unfortunately, many kill themselves, use drugs, drink alcohol, or sniff solvents to escape from their unhappy lives. The children attend elementary and high school, college or university if they can. The adults hold any jobs that they can find, and generally have to work in offices all day long. Only on their days off of school or work can children or adults go hunting, fishing, or traveling (or the children can play in the snow).

Very few Inuit know how to build igloos anymore.

***

Dear Rachel:

I'm Polly's dad, and I just wanted to say thanks to you for your detailed reply to her questions. She's very excited to have made contact with a "real" Inuit person on the other side of the world! I was sad to read about the ways that colonization has affected the Inuit people. In New Zealand a very similar thing has happened to the indigenous people ( the Maori), who have mostly suffered after being colonized by European people in all kinds of ways, with high rates of unemployment, drug abuse etc. Your answers to Polly's questions have injected a bit of "harsh reality" into her class project. I think that's a good thing. I don't like the idea of school projects that treat other peoples like objects of interest and gloss over the uncomfortable facts. Once again, thanks for your reply, Polly will write back herself sometime soon.

***

Thanks, Polly, to you and your dad.

Pijariiqpunga.