Inuit art carved stone depicting a little auk seated on a walrus. Dated 1983 next to unknown marks on bottom. Walrus has removable dusks.

Size: 11 x 8 x 5 in. 

#7261 . 

The Inuit are a group of Indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Canada, Alaska, and the Chukotsky District of Russia. The term “eskimo” is considered offensive and colonialist; Inuit is now a common autonym for the whole group. Inuit are the descendants of the Thule people, who emerged about 4000 years ago from Siberian migrants, spreading eastward across the Arctic. They were fishermen and hunters, harvesting whales, seals, polar bears, fish and more, and were some of the earliest people to domesticate wolves. The ancient art of face tattooing among Inuit women, called kakiniit, dates back to the Thule people, and details who their family is, their life achievements, and their position in the community. They invented sealskin-covered longboats called qajaq that remained buoyant and stable under nearly all weather conditions, which the Europeans later copied and renamed the kayak. Clothing and footwear were made from animal skins sewn together using needles made from bones and threads made from sinew. Early industry and trade relied on animal hides, driftwood, and bones, with some tools made out of soapstone. Art played a big part in Inuit society, with small sculptures of animals and human figures carved from walrus ivory and bone. The Inuit dominated the lands above the tree-line, and were known by other tribes as mysterious, hardy, stout people who had a highly insular, deeply spiritual culture. Martin Frobisher’s 1576 search for the Northwest Passage was the first documented contact between Europeans and Inuit, and almost all early interactions with French and Spanish whalers were friendly, but mass death was caused by European infectious diseases, to which the Indigenous peoples had no acquired immunity. The expedition of 1821 led by Commander William Edward Parry provided the first thorough account of the economic, social, and religious life of Inuit, with meticulous pen and ink illustrations of everyday activities. In 1939 the Supreme Court of Canada found that Inuit should be under the jurisdiction of the federal government. Native customs were worn down by law, many Inuit were systematically converted to Christianity, and World War II and the Cold War made the Far North strategically important for the first time. In the 1950s the Government of Canada undertook the High Arctic Relocation, seeking assimilation of the people and the end of their culture by settling Inuit into permanent villages against their will. Nomadic migrations collapsed, and the Inuit, a once self-sufficient people, transformed into a small impoverished minority in just a few generations. In the 1960s the Canadian government established secular high schools in Inuit areas, which exposed them to the rhetoric of civil and human rights. Inuit activists emerged who became pivotal voices speaking out for the preservation of the ways of their elders, many of whom could still not speak, read, or write in English or other colonizer languages. Canada’s 1982 Constitution Act recognized Inuit as Aboriginal peoples in Canada, and in 2005 new agreements were made that preserved and restored significant land areas and autonomy to the Inuit. However, the Inuit living in Greenland are still considered Danish citizens under their control of the island, and Inuit in Siberia continue to face ongoing racism and oppression despite global protests at their treatment by the Russian government.