was about twenty-eight years and falling, considerably less than half that of southern Canadians.
Inuit bring up their offspring in a particular way. In the Inuit world, babies are born without
ihuma
, the part of the mind that has ideas, constructs order from impressions and experiences, solves problems and remembers their solutions.
Ihuma
develops with experience and the only way to get that is to live. So, like all Inuit children, Josephie would have been allowed to make his own mistakes, even when they were alarming and potentially dangerous ones, like putting his fingers in the
qulliq
, or teasing the sled dogs. He wouldn't have been scolded. Whenever he had temper tantrums or expressed childish frustration his family would simply have laughed them off until he had grown out of them. This he would have been encouraged and expected to do. Inuit value serenity and self-possession. To them explosions of rage or pique are childish characteristics.
Arctic explorers of the early twentieth century like Robert Peary and even Roald Amundsen often made note in their diaries and other writings of the impassivity or inscrutability of Inuit, littleunderstanding that without great emotional self-restraint, life in Arctic conditions would, for human beings of any kind, be impossible. To be inscrutable, which is to say, restrained and self-contained, is a good thing in the Inuit world. More than that, it is a tool for survival. Almost by definition, the Arctic's white explorers failed to understand this. For the most part they were vainglorious, self-serving men. The Arctic was a very expensive place to explore. Funds would not have flowed to wallflowers. But they were not the kind of men who would readily have understood the Inuit.
In Robert Flaherty's day Inuit beleived that the only fixed part of a person's personality was their
atiq
, or soul. All the rest was
ihuma
, the gradual deposition of experience. Even now a bad-tempered or hysterical person is said to be
nutaraqpaluktuq
or childish, and his
ihuma
stunted, making him ebullient and oversensitive. A person with too much
ihuma
, on the other hand, is said to be narrow-minded, overdemanding and analytical. In the Arctic, each condition is a liability. The man with too much
ihuma
will allow his brooding to take him away from the real world, until he falls through the ice one day, or stumbles into a crevasse. A person with too little is bound, sooner or later, to go crazy. The ideal Inuit type, a man or woman with just enough
ihuma
, is cheerful, calm and patient in adversity, immune to irritation, sulking or to the hostility of others. He takes his life as it comes, recognises its limits and accepts its various outcomes. The most important words in his vocabulary are
immaga
, perhaps, and
ayunqnaq
, it can't be helped.
Which is not to say the Inuit value dourness or solemnity. On the contrary, Inuit children are brought up to be happy, or, leastwise, to look it. When a person feels happy, or
quiva
, people are drawn to him. In this respect we are not so different. As much as life in the temperate zones, or in the tropics, leading a successful life in the Arctic is all about having people on your side.
Displays of rage, frustration or depression are so disapproved of among the Inuit that many grow up without any conscious sense of having these feelings. In every community, of course, there are misfits,men and women whose inner selves grind against their outward expression, men and women, in other words, who live a gentle, or not so gentle, lie. In the past, these more tortured souls might find outlets as shamans or
anatoq
, and their internal ruffles might become a sign of peculiar power. Unable to find their place in conventional life, they would be honoured and respected as exceptions. This had always been the way Inuit managed the unconventional, the eccentric and the mentally ill, and it remained so until missionaries stamped out shamanism in the late nineteenth century.
Inuit bring up their offspring in a particular way. In the Inuit world, babies are born without
ihuma
, the part of the mind that has ideas, constructs order from impressions and experiences, solves problems and remembers their solutions.
Ihuma
develops with experience and the only way to get that is to live. So, like all Inuit children, Josephie would have been allowed to make his own mistakes, even when they were alarming and potentially dangerous ones, like putting his fingers in the
qulliq
, or teasing the sled dogs. He wouldn't have been scolded. Whenever he had temper tantrums or expressed childish frustration his family would simply have laughed them off until he had grown out of them. This he would have been encouraged and expected to do. Inuit value serenity and self-possession. To them explosions of rage or pique are childish characteristics.
Arctic explorers of the early twentieth century like Robert Peary and even Roald Amundsen often made note in their diaries and other writings of the impassivity or inscrutability of Inuit, littleunderstanding that without great emotional self-restraint, life in Arctic conditions would, for human beings of any kind, be impossible. To be inscrutable, which is to say, restrained and self-contained, is a good thing in the Inuit world. More than that, it is a tool for survival. Almost by definition, the Arctic's white explorers failed to understand this. For the most part they were vainglorious, self-serving men. The Arctic was a very expensive place to explore. Funds would not have flowed to wallflowers. But they were not the kind of men who would readily have understood the Inuit.
In Robert Flaherty's day Inuit beleived that the only fixed part of a person's personality was their
atiq
, or soul. All the rest was
ihuma
, the gradual deposition of experience. Even now a bad-tempered or hysterical person is said to be
nutaraqpaluktuq
or childish, and his
ihuma
stunted, making him ebullient and oversensitive. A person with too much
ihuma
, on the other hand, is said to be narrow-minded, overdemanding and analytical. In the Arctic, each condition is a liability. The man with too much
ihuma
will allow his brooding to take him away from the real world, until he falls through the ice one day, or stumbles into a crevasse. A person with too little is bound, sooner or later, to go crazy. The ideal Inuit type, a man or woman with just enough
ihuma
, is cheerful, calm and patient in adversity, immune to irritation, sulking or to the hostility of others. He takes his life as it comes, recognises its limits and accepts its various outcomes. The most important words in his vocabulary are
immaga
, perhaps, and
ayunqnaq
, it can't be helped.
Which is not to say the Inuit value dourness or solemnity. On the contrary, Inuit children are brought up to be happy, or, leastwise, to look it. When a person feels happy, or
quiva
, people are drawn to him. In this respect we are not so different. As much as life in the temperate zones, or in the tropics, leading a successful life in the Arctic is all about having people on your side.
Displays of rage, frustration or depression are so disapproved of among the Inuit that many grow up without any conscious sense of having these feelings. In every community, of course, there are misfits,men and women whose inner selves grind against their outward expression, men and women, in other words, who live a gentle, or not so gentle, lie. In the past, these more tortured souls might find outlets as shamans or
anatoq
, and their internal ruffles might become a sign of peculiar power. Unable to find their place in conventional life, they would be honoured and respected as exceptions. This had always been the way Inuit managed the unconventional, the eccentric and the mentally ill, and it remained so until missionaries stamped out shamanism in the late nineteenth century.
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