Taissumani, Jan. 22
Uisaakassak: The Big Liar
Uisaakassak, seated second from left, in New York City.
KENN HARPER
In 1897, Robert Peary took six Inuit from northern Greenland to the United States for exhibition in the American Museum of Natural History.
One of those was a young man named Uisaakassak. It had been decided that 12-year-old Aviaq, who was travelling to America with her parents, should someday be his wife, and he did not want to part from her. A brief entry in Peary’s journal for August 26, 1897 reports, “Uisaakassak wants to go to America & I take him.”
Four of the six Inuit succumbed to disease during that tragic winter away. Only the boy, Minik, and Uisaakassak survived. But whereas Minik remained in America for the next twelve years, Uisaakassak was sent back north on a Peary expedition vessel in 1898.
Uisaakassak was 23 years old when he returned to his people, the first adult Inuk from north-western Greenland ever to visit the land of the white men and return to tell about it. That telling was to colour his fellows’ perceptions of him for the rest of his life.
Once back among his people Uisaakassak assembled an audience of his campmates and began to describe his experiences among the “man-made mountains” of New York:
“The ships sailed in and out there, like eiders on the brooding cliffs when their young begin to swim. There weren’t many free drops of water in the harbour itself: it was filled with ships. You’d risk your life if you tried to go out there in a kayak, you’d simply not be noticed, and you’d be run down unmercifully. People lived up in the air like auks on a bird cliff. The houses are as big as icebergs on a glacial bank, and they stretch inland as far as you can see, like a steep chain of mountains with innumerable canyons that serve as roads.
“And the people. Yes, there are so many of them that when smoke rises from the chimneys and the women are about to make breakfast, clouds fill the sky and the sun is eclipsed.”
Encouraged by his listeners’ incredulous expressions, he went on. He told about “the streetcars, big as houses, with masses of glass windows as transparent as freshwater ice. They raced on without dogs to haul them, without smoke, and full of smiling people who had no fear of their fate. And all this just because a man pulled on a cord.”
The amazement turned to amusement and finally to disbelief. The final straw was his description of the “distance shrinker.” He, Uisaakassak, had stood and talked to Peary, who was visiting another village. Without shouting to one another, they had talked together through a funnel, along a cord.
This was too much. Old Soqqaq rose and told him, “Uisaakassak, go tell your big lies to the women!”
He got the message. A few years later, another Inuk commented to a white explorer that Uisaakassak “can tell a lot from over there [America], but he really doesn’t want to, for nobody believes him. To begin with, when he came home, he told us so much about Peary’s land that it can’t possibly be true. Now he’s fortunately stopped trying to make us believe more of his tales.”
From that point on Uisaakassak was known by the unfortunate nickname, “The Big Liar.” He was an excellent hunter, but he was relegated to a position of low prestige within the community because of his tales.
Next week I’ll recount the rest of the life of the unfortunate Uisaakassak.
Taissumani recounts a specific event of historic interest. Kenn Harper is a historian, writer and linguist who lives in Iqaluit. Feedback? Send your comments and questions to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
(1) Comments:
I love to read Taissumani, every since when Kenn Harper started to post his stories at Nunatsiaq news, i always spended my time on computer reading Taissumani. I won’t never stop listening or reading from our past history of Inuit. I don’t care how old is the story. Keep it up Ken.