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Nunani
January
28, 2000
 War:
Part Four
RACHEL ATTITUQ QITSUALIK
rachel.qitsualik@sympatico.ca
Where warfare occurred among Inuit, it represents an escalation
of murderous reprisals, an alternating series of vendetta killings,
each side displaying more savagery and ferocity in response to
the latest attack by the other.
The murder - even accidental killing - of a loved one was
thought by many Inuit peoples to be a just reason to demand vengeance.
It was the avenger's right and duty.
Make no mistake, however. The family of the victim, the males
of which were invariably the avengers, would seek vengeance with
or without the larger society's approval. Having no actual laws,
but instead a series of traditions and taboos, the recognition
of an avenger's right to avenge his dead relative was more like
a sort of societal nod than an actual way of enforcing law.
The society itself - as an institution - would not move to
avenge the dead, but neither would any of its members interfere
if relatives "justly" insisted upon retribution. The
vengeful impulse was, in such a situation, considered to be a
natural one.
I personally remember the time when my "Big Sleeve"
(a kind of cultural partner, of which I've written in past articles)
experienced the death of his son. He was overwrought with grief,
naturally, although the death was a completely accidental one.
The son had been shot by a friend.
Even though my Big Sleeve knew that the friend had not killed
his son intentionally, he was - for a time - extremely tempted
to kill the friend. His tendency to want to exorcise his grief
through vengeance was aggravated by the fact that, by Inuit tradition,
such was his right.
Additionally, his desire was considered by others to be understandable
rather than abominable. Among his people, this was known as akigiaq,
"to win back" - meaning the right to win back the piece
of himself that had been taken from him with the death of his
son.
To his credit, my Big Sleeve realized that he was merely blinded
by grief, and thus chose not to exercise his right.
Nevertheless, akigiaq was very common in old times. The death
of one individual, intentional or not, demanded immediate reprisal.
P would kill Q. Q's family would avenge him by killing P, and
perhaps a couple of P's relatives for good measure.
P's family would avenge these murders by forming a party to
slaughter even more of Q's family. Q's family would retaliate
by attempting to completely wipe out P's family. And et cetera.
Geert Van Den Steenhoven recorded a good example, which I'll
relate below without use of specific names and locations. I don't
want individuals today to feel accountable for the actions of
their ancestors.
Once there was the "Red" group, whose members included
U. There was also the "Green" group, whose headman
was X.
A feud began with the murder of Y by some of X's Green people.
The family of Y was determined to avenge his death. Armed with
bows (with which they were quite skilled), the Red revenge party
soon reached X's hunting grounds. One of X's sons spotted them
and ran off to warn X and the Greens of the approaching Red party.
X realized the carnage that was about to result, and sent
his sons far away to safety. X hid himself away. When the Red
group approached, they began to insist that X and his Green allies
take up their fighting weapons (of different manufacture than
hunting implements), and face them.
Those among the Green group, especially the women, tried to
defuse the situation by insisting that X and the other Greens
did not want to fight. Nevertheless, the Reds insisted until
X (who did not possess any fighting weapons) took up his hunting
gear. He and some other Greens eventually assembled to face the
Reds. Some of the Greens even recognized in-laws among the Reds,
but this did nothing to abate the Reds' fury.
The Reds massacred the Greens. Dying, X admonished the Reds,
claiming that the Red reaction was extremist - that they had
slaughtered more men than was their due.
The Reds remained unmoved, in return pointing out to X that
the Greens had originally overwhelmed poor Y ten to one.
X seemed to agree with this, and his dying wish was that Y's
widow be repaid in precious iron objects.
(Continued next week.)
January
21, 2000
War: Part Three
RACHEL ATTITUQ QITSUALIK
rachel.qitsualik@sympatico.ca
Any Inuit escalation to the level of organized violence has
always been humble in beginnings, originating with one motive:
revenge.
The most common cause for revenge was being made to feel insignificant.
Personal ego was of extreme importance to traditional Inuit,
which in part explains the strong respect dynamic in Inuit culture.
The recognition of one's isuma - personal and untouchable thoughts
and opinions - was of paramount importance.
Additionally, Inuit worthiness was always relative to personal
competence, with one's worth directly measured by one's ability
to survive, and the ability to survive measured by one's skills.
With these facts in mind, it becomes easier to understand
why even the slightest attack upon one's ego was considered tantamount
to physical maiming, and cause for bloody retribution. The most
common slight occurred not in the form of verbal abuse, but instead
in the form of actions that diminished another's significance.
A hunter, for example, might flaunt his superior knowledge, a
bold attack upon other hunters' egos.
Even in Inuit culture today, there remains a tradition of
playing down one's own skills in public, saying for example,
"Ah, I'm no good." This derives not from true humility,
but rather from a tradition of preserving oneself from the retribution
of others.
In traditional culture, one had to constantly take care not
to accidentally offend others by openly parading one's ego. The
dynamic has been mistakenly labelled as "envy" by observers,
but it is actually one of assault and revenge.
Where care has not been taken to avoid this dynamic, the results
have often been bloody, setting the stage for ongoing feuds.
Thus has Inuit culture established a system where relative peace
is maintained through the observation of tradition — a sort
of balance where every individual's isuma is respected, yet no
individual is to be considered "greater" than another,
lest all hell break loose.
Nevertheless, this was not a perfect system, for in a culture
where no one was allowed to dictate the behaviour of another,
it also became impossible to prevent conflict between two individuals
who insisted upon antagonizing each other. Since Inuit culture
is traditionally quite sensitive to the feelings that kindle
an act of violence, rather than focusing upon the act itself,
Inuit societies tended to recognize that controlled expression
of ill feelings had the best chance of exorcising violent tendencies
from people.
For this reason, many Inuit societies developed safe forums,
such as song duels or punching contests, where the aggressors
could publicly express their pent-up feelings towards one another,
and thus achieve a kind of catharsis.
Such devices denote an understanding among traditional societies
of just how delicate the balance of peace could be, of how hard
a society might work to keep the peace within a small group.
And it is interesting to note just how easily this balance is
disrupted by rapid change, such as the presence of southern observers.
Observers - through no fault of their own - naturally tended
to praise the skills of a given hunter that they had come to
focus their studies upon. By attaching themselves to a specific
Inuk, making him the "star of the show", so to speak,
they had inadvertently caused others in the group to feel small,
and thus had made their "star" a target.
Asen Balikci, for example, tells with bewilderment of a sudden
conflict between two fishermen who had always been good friends.
Fisherman A had formerly been studied and filmed as the "exemplary"
Inuit hunter, while his friend B had not.
While fishing, A stopped to cut up two fish for them to eat,
one from his own catch, the other from B's. B mistakenly thought
that both fish were from his own catch, and angrily rebuked A,
who treated the whole matter as a joke.
Suddenly, B attacked A, so that a third nearby fisherman had
to step in and separate the two men. This is a clear case of
ill feelings derived from the placement of one individual above
others, thus upsetting the cultural balance of ego.
Yet there was not always a third person to step in and separate
two aggressors, so that the ultimate result was murder - an event
that often sparked a conflagration of vengeance killings between
families, at times escalating without limit. While revenge precipitated
murder, murder precipitated warfare.
(Continued next week.)
January
14, 2000
War: Part Two
RACHEL ATTITUQ QITSUALIK
Where conflict occurred among Inuit, it mainly originated
with passion.
The Inuit exterior, one of respectful quietude, might, over
time give non-Inuit observers the idea that Inuit are entirely
non-violent. Seeing the lack of public displays of aggression,
a lack of fist-fighting or open combat, for example, observers
might get the idea that Inuit have always found ways to get along
with each other peacefully.
This illusion, where it occurs, belies the reality of human
nature: violence will always find expression in one form or another.
Traditionally, Inuit violence has typically been internalized,
like most of the Inuit passions. In an unforgiving environment,
it has been of benefit to learn how to suppress individual emotions
in the face of larger concerns — for example, famine, storms,
cold, and so on.
It is not that Inuit were unemotional, but rather that they
had decided for themselves when it was appropriate to express
certain emotions - such as in the safety of the home, for example.
Due to necessity, emotional displays became selective, often
finding unconscious expression in dances, gaming, and song. Because
survival was a constant challenge, the group could not afford
to let an individual's random displays of emotion disrupt their
lifestyle.
Aggressive displays, in particular, were reviled by Inuit
as a sign of madness, chaos that could not be tolerated. Invariably,
such displays were not worth one's trouble, since they could
cause a person to be ostracized, and perhaps even physically
removed from the group.
Yet the emotions themselves remained, and often popped out
at the strangest times. Non-Inuit observers, given enough time,
have nearly all recorded a similar phenomenon: Inuit at first
seem stolid, highly disciplined, and unaffected by any emotion
whatsoever. Faced with a crisis or failure, the response - so
popularly recorded by explorers as being typical of Inuit - is
invariably the traditional expression, "It can't be helped."
Yet, just as the explorer resigns himself to what he perceives
as Inuit stoicism, he is shocked to witness or hear of an Inuk
exploding into sudden violence.
Geert Van Den Steenhoven, for example, has related in Legal
Concepts Among the Netsilik Eskimos of Pelly Bay, N.W.T. a story
that was told to him as follows (1959:73):
I. traveled on Kellett River together with A., S., and some
others, who on their sleds had been visiting their caches. The
weather was beautiful and we walked to and from each other's
sleds, while the sleds were moving all the time. A. was seated
on the back of S.'s sled and the latter sat in front of him.
A. was eating a fish. I was driving my sled behind his. One moment
when S. was turning towards his dogs or so, I saw A. suddenly
make a lightning stab with his knife at S.'s back — a would-be
stab, to be sure. Then he immediately looked around himself.
But I looked already in another direction. S. is the son of I.
And it was known that A. and I. did not get along well. It was
my impression that this stab was prompted by an altogether subconscious
impulse and that A. only became aware of it after he had done
it. I believe he could just as well have really stabbed S. out
of these feelings of resentment.
Knud Rasmussen, during his famous Fifth Thule Expedition,
encountered this phenomenon first- hand. He wrote that he had
come to consider one of his Inuit guides to be a close friend,
a gentle and friendly soul.
He was surprised, then, when huddled together one evening
with his guide in a snow- shelter, the guide suddenly attacked
Rasmussen without warning. A struggle ensued, and Rasmussen repeatedly
tried to calm the guide and remind him of their friendship, while
the guide continually shrieked his disgust at Rasmussen's ego
and displays of wealth.
Apparently, Rasmussen's access to southern technology, and
his willingness to distribute it throughout his expedition, had
gradually built up a deep envy and resentment within the guide.
The guide, however, had kept his feelings under control, so
that Rasmussen had not even noticed. Finally, once he felt safe
and away from public scrutiny, the guide let it all out.
It is this old Inuit tendency to repress, and thus pressurize,
violent impulses that forms the basis of Inuit conflict.
Next week: Revenge.
January
7, 2000
War: Part One
RACHEL ATTITUQ QITSUALIK
As everyone knows, Inuit have always been the most gentle,
peaceful people in the world. Right?
Well, as with most things, the truth regarding such a topic
resides within some shade of gray. Just as there are no true
absolutes in life, so there is no absolute truth to the idea
that Inuit are strangers to violence, or even warfare.
The need for organized violence in any society is of course
shaped by necessity, the environmental and social parameters
within which varying forms of violence become options.
Violence is always in origin a "problem-solver."
Whether effective or not, it is always intended to right a wrong,
to address a lack — whether deemed defensive (resisting
assault, theft, or invasion), acquisitive (taking food, slaves,
territory, etc.), retaliatory (avenging murder, rape, vandalism,
or insult), or merely as a cathartic expression of frustrated
rage.
The simple fact is that Inuit, over the broad range of peoples
who lived from one end of North America to the other, actually
engaged in a startling amount of violence, much of which was
organized. In this series of articles, I'm going to be using
my own definition of war, which is essentially that of organized
violence. Webster's defines war as "armed conflict between
nations, tribes, or other groups," which doesn't necessarily
refute my own, so I'm sticking to my guns.
Also, I'm going to cite a lot of examples of Inuit violence
— tastefully, of course. The examples will derive from peoples
ranging across the North. Naturally, I don't want to put a bee
in anyone's bonnet by dredging up some unsavoury fact about their
ancestry.
All of our ancestors — this is addressed to non-Inuit
out there as well — have displayed some sort of depravity
at one time or another. So, wherever possible, I intend to omit
references to specific peoples, whether they be Igloolik, Netsilingmiut,
Copper, or Aleutian. These articles are intended to inform and
evoke thought, not to make some readers ashamed of their ancestry.
With all of that out, I'd first like to admit that you will
have to look pretty hard among Inuit histories and folklore in
order to find anything that obviously resembles war as it is
fought today.
After all, Inuit have always been nomadic. In its most recognizable
and organized form, war derives from stability. It is based upon
the principles of land, territory, and cultural solidarity. It
is necessarily launched from a base-point, a home ground, and
most often involves the specific goals of seizing ground from
an enemy, who also campaigns to do likewise from his own base.
Having had no permanent bases, and lacking even the concept
of land as property to be held or defended, the culture of war
took no root in any Inuit society. The very idea of territorial
warfare might have been laughable to pre-colonial Inuit.
As I've pointed out before, the Land - Nuna - was always considered
an environment within which animals and people resided, not as
an object with distinct parts that could be divided up and actually
owned. There were therefore no constant bases from which to launch
campaigns, nor was there any ground to take even if there had
been.
So what about resources? Again, resources — such as food
or slaves — were no reasons for Inuit to go to war. Inuit
tended to follow their food (caribou, for example) to wherever
it was seasonally available. The caches and larders of other
peoples were rarely worth stealing, since this sort of theft
would invariably have taken up too much time, energy and risk
for what amounted to a very small prize, especially when compared
to the availability of animal prey.
Slaves, a very real reason for raiding among most cultures,
were kept by Inuit only rarely. They were not highly valued,
since they merely represented another mouth to feed. In the south,
you can make a slave tend a crop for you, but you can't send
him out hunting, since this is tantamount to setting him free.
Instead, the most common reasons for Inuit conflicts tend
to derive from the most ancient and primal human characteristics,
old like the culture itself: passion. In fact, the recognition
of this fact by ancient Inuit offers us some clues as to why
various traditions have come to exist.
We'll have a look next week.
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Nunavut 99
