Nunamiut

The Nunamiut people are a semi-nomadic inland Inupiaq Eskimos located in northern and northwestern Alaska, mostly around the Anaktuvuk Pass, Alaska, whose ancestors date back hundreds of years.

History

Early Nunamiut lived by hunting caribou instead of the marine mammals and fish hunted by coastal Inupiat. When caribou populations declined around 1900 and again in the 1920s, many Nunamiut moved to the coastal villages. In 1938, several Nunamiut families returned to the Brooks Range, around Chandler Lake and the Killik River. In 1949, the Chandler Lake Nunamiuts moved to Anaktuvuk Pass; later, the Killik River group moved there also. Anaktuvuk Pass is the only Nunamiut settlement. A federally-recognized tribe is located Anaktuvuk—the Village of Anaktuvuk Pass (a.k.a. Naqsragmiut Tribal Council).

Recording of culture and history

The Nunamiut were visited after World War II by Norwegian explorer and author Helge Ingstad. He stayed for a period in the Brooks Range in northern Alaska among the Nunamiut, and afterwards wrote Nunamiut - blant Alaskas innlandseskimoer (translation: "Nunamiut - Inland Eskimos of Alaska"). During the last few years of his life, he worked on categorizing and annotating the large quantity of photos and audio recordings (141 songs) he had made while living with the Nunamiut in 1950. The effort resulted in a booklet, Songs of the Nunamiut, with an accompanying CD containing the audio material. This is an extremely valuable contribution to the preservation of the Nunamiut culture, because it turned out that much of what he had gathered in the mid-20th century was now lost locally and was only preserved in his recordings.

Culture

According to archaeologist Lewis Binford, the Nunamiut depend on meat more so than any other living hunter-gatherer group. The annual cycle of Nunamiut life revolves around the annual migrations of caribou. Spring: The main caribou migrations happen in March and April, when caribou move north through Anaktuvuk Pass to feed on the plains. Summer: The plains thaw and become a marshland swarming with blackflies and mosquitoes. Autumn: The caribou hunting cycle repeats in September and October when caribou retreat south again. Winter: There are about 72 days of total winter darkness starting around November 15.^[1]

Language

The native language of the Nunamiut is a dialect of the Inupiaq language. In the late 1960s, University of California, Berkeley undergraduate linguistics student (now Arctic explorer) Dennis Schmitt was sent by Noam Chomsky^{[dubious – discuss]} to the Nunamiut to study their dialect. There are few native speakers today.^[2]

The Nunamiut speak English. Their culture is contrasted by strong collectivist and individualist tendencies, both of which are a reflected in their "uncertainty language game". This involves one of five statements as part of a response: "I don't know," "maybe," "probably," I guess," and "might be." Choosing the neutral "maybe" over "yes" or "no" reflects the cultural importance of a collectivist community. It also reflects behavior avoidance of an individual making a false statement.^[3]

Notes

1. ^ "The Nunamiut Eskimo". http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/dept/d10/asb/anthro2003/lifeways/eskimos.html. Retrieved 2007-09-23. 
2. ^ "Dennis Schmitt, Arctic Explorer" (The Warming Island Project). Archived from the original on 2011-10-04. http://web.archive.org/web/20071225224527/http://www.warmingisland.org/dennis-schmitt/. Retrieved 2007-09-23. 
3. ^ Erin M. Cline, Belmont University. "Finding the Riverbed: Language Uncertainty in a Nunamiut Eskimo Village". http://www.harding.edu/alphachi/PDF/ONLINEPUBLISHES/2002Under/FindingtheRiverbed.pdf. Retrieved 2007-09-23. ^{[dead link]}

Further reading

• Binford, Lewis Roberts. Nunamiut Ethnoarchaeology. New York: Academic Press, 1978. ISBN 0121000400
• Blackman, Margaret B. Upside Down: Seasons Among the Nunamiut. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004. ISBN 0803213352
• Gubser, Nicholas J. The Nunamiut Eskimos, Hunters of Caribou. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965.
• Ingstad, Helge. Nunamiut; Among Alaska's Inland Eskimos. New York: W.W. Norton, 1954.
• Ingstad, Helge. Songs of the Nunamiut historical recordings of an Alaskan Eskimo community. [Oslo, Norway]: Tano Aschehoug, 1998. ISBN 8251837782
• Kakinya, Elijah, et al. Nunamiut Unipkaanich = Nunamiut Stories: Told in Inupiaq Eskimo. Fairbanks: Alaska Native Language Center, 1987.
• Rausch, Robert. Notes on the Nunamiu Eskimo and mammals of the Anaktuvuk Pass Region, Brooks Range, Alaska
• Spearman, Grant R. Nunamiut History. [Alaska]: North Slope Borough School District, Title IV, Indian Education Program, 1982.

External links

• Documentary- 50 Years of Northern Light, a look at Anaktuvuk Pass as reflected by the village church building. Directed by Caven Keith, 2011
• Documentary- Tradition Meets Modernity in Native Alaska, Wil Carson uses filmmaking to explore the changes in traditional Nunamiut village life, 1998
• Faces of the Nunamiut: Tourist Art and Traditional Knowledge in Northern Alaska- National Science Foundation grant
• Gates of the Arctic National Park Sights Page- the establishment of Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve in 1980 placed Anaktuvuk Pass, the Nunamiut's historic land, in the middle of a national park.
• Interview with Dennis Schmitt-Dennis Schmitt, linguist, Arctic explorer, discoverer of Warming Island, researched the Nunamiut dialect in the 1960s, under Noam Chomsky
• Mask making exhibit
• North Slope Borough School District- public school system
• Restore Nunamiut Kayak-The University of Alaska Museum, Fairbanks, and the Simon Paneak Memorial Museum, Anaktuvuk Pass, are restoring the only remaining Nunamiut (inland) kayak.
• Simon Paneak Memorial Museum- created by the Nunamiut people, located in Anaktuvuk Pass, Aipanni, the newsletter of the Simon Paneak Memorial Museum Endowment Campaign
• A heritage of whales and whaling among the Nunamiut Inupiat- ancient days, traditional times, commercial whaling, whaling today.