Inuit culture
The Inuit are an indigenous people of the Arctic and subarctic regions of North America (parts of Alaska, Canada, and Greenland). The ancestors of the present-day Inuit are culturally related to Iñupiat (northern Alaska), and Yupik (Siberia and western Alaska),[1] and the Aleut who live in the Aleutian Islands of Siberia and Alaska. The term culture of the Inuit, therefore, refers primarily to these areas; however, parallels to other Eskimo groups can also be drawn.
The word "Eskimo" has been used to encompass the Inuit and Yupik, and other indigenous Alaskan and Siberian peoples,[2][3][4] but this usage is in decline.[5][6]
Various groups of Inuit in Canada live throughout the Inuvialuit Settlement Region of the Northwest Territories, the territory of Nunavut, Nunavik in northern Quebec and Nunatsiavut in Labrador and the unrecognised area known as NunatuKavut. With the exception of NunatuKavut these areas are sometimes known as Inuit Nunangat.
The traditional lifestyle of the Inuit is adapted to extreme climatic conditions; their essential skills for survival are hunting and trapping, as well as the construction of fur clothing for survival. Agriculture was never possible in the millions of square kilometres of tundra and icy coasts from Siberia to Northern America including Greenland. Therefore, hunting became the core of the culture and cultural history of the Inuit. They used harpoons and bows and arrows to take down animals of all sizes. Thus, the everyday life in modern Inuit settlements, established only some decades ago, still reflects the 5,000-year-long history of a hunting culture which allowed the Inuit and their ancestors to populate the Arctic.
Inuit Circumpolar Council[edit]
The Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC), formerly Inuit Circumpolar Conference, is a multinational non-governmental organization (NGO) and indigenous peoples' organization (IPO) representing the 180,000 Inuit, Yupik, and Chukchi peoples (sometimes referred to as Eskimo) living in Alaska (United States), Canada, Greenland (Denmark), and Chukotka, Siberia (Russia).
The Conference, which first met in June 1977, initially represented Native Peoples from Canada, Alaska and Greenland. In 1980 the charter and by-laws of ICC were adopted. The Conference agreed to replace the term Eskimo with the term Inuit. This has not however met with widespread acceptance by some groups, most pre-eminently the Yupik. The principal goals of the ICC are to strengthen unity among Inuit of the circumpolar region; to promote Inuit rights and interests on an international level; to develop and encourage long-term policies that safeguard the Arctic environment; and to seek full and active partnership in the political, economic, and social development of circumpolar regions.,[18] or in short: to strengthen ties between Arctic peoples and to promote human, cultural, political and environmental rights and polities at the international level.[19]