Eskimo
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Eskimos, or Esquimaux, are terms used to refer to people who inhabit the circumpolar region (excluding Scandinavia and most of Russia, but including the easternmost portions of Siberia). There are two main groups of Eskimos: the Inuit (in northern Alaska, Canada and Greenland) and the Yupik (of western Alaska and the Russian Far East).
The Eskimos are related to the Aleuts and the Alutiiq from the Aleutian Islands in Alaska as well as the Sug'piak from the Kodiak Islands and as far as the Prince William Sound in southcentral Alaska.
Eastern Eskimo people - the Inuit - speak Inuktitut, and western Alaskan Eskimo communities - the Yup'ik - speak Yup'ik. There is something of a dialect continuum between the two, and the westernmost dialects of Inuktitut could be viewed as forms of Yup'ik. Kinship culture also differs between east and west, as eastern Inuit lived with cousins of both parents, but western Inuit lived in paternal kinship groups.
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Use and origin of the term
The term "Eskimo" is an exonym that is not generally used by Eskimos themselves. The term "Inuit" is sometimes used instead, but it does not properly include the Yupik.
Some Algonquian languages call Eskimos by names that mean "eaters of raw meat" or something that sounds similar. The Plains Ojibwe, for example, use the word êškipot ("one who eats raw," from ašk-, "raw," and -po-, "to eat") to refer to Eskimos. But in the period of the earliest attested French use of the word, the Plains Ojibwe were not in contact with Europeans, nor did they have very much direct contact with the Inuit in pre-colonial times. It is entirely possible that the Ojibwe have adopted words resembling "Eskimo" by borrowing them from French, and the French word merely sounds like Ojibwe words that can be interpreted as "eaters of raw meat". Furthermore, since Cree people also traditionally consumed raw meat, a pejorative significance based on this etymology seems unlikely.
The Montagnais language, a dialect of Cree which was known to French traders at the time of the earliest attestation of esquimaux, does not have vocabulary fitting this etymological analysis. A variety of competing etymologies have been proposed over the years, but the most likely source is the Montagnais word meaning "snowshoe-netter". Since Montagnais speakers refer to the neighbouring Mi'kmaq people using words that sound very much like eskimo, many researchers have concluded that this is the more likely origin of the word. (Mailhot, J. L'étymologie de «Esquimau» revue et corrigée Etudes Inuit/Inuit Studies 2-2:59-70 1978; Goddard 1984 in Campbell 1997.)
The term "Eskimo" is still used in Alaska to refer to the state's Arctic peoples in general, whether or not they are Eskimos culturally or linguistically. For example, while some Yupik people prefer to be called "Yup'ik", they do not generally object to being called "Eskimo", but they do not consider themselves "Inuit". [1]
Among many non-Eskimos, the word "Eskimo" is falling out of use to refer to the Eskimo peoples in favor of the term "Inuit", which leads to much confusion as to the relationship between the Inuit and the Yup'ik. Much of the impetus behind this change probably traces to the books of Farley Mowat, particularly People of the Deer and The Desperate People. However, in Canada at least, a belief in the pejorative etymology of the word and the rejection of the term by the Inuit peoples were a major factor.
The term "Eskimos" is now used by some to refer to rugged and brave individuals who are able to deal with cold and ice even if they are not natives of the far North. For example, the Cambridge Eskimos, established in the 1930s and still active, are an ice hockey team based at the University of Cambridge in Britain. In somewhat the same vein, the Canadian Football League's Edmonton team is called the Eskimos.
See also
- Aleut
- Athabaskan
- Chukchi
- Nenets
- Sami people
- Yupik
- Inuit
- Inupiaq
- Eskimo kinship
- Eskimo words for snow
References
- Campbell, Lyle (1997). American Indian Languages: The Historical Linguistics of Native America, pg. 394. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Goddard, Ives (1984). "Synonymy." In Arctic, ed. David Damas. Vol. 5 of Handbook of North American Indians, ed. William C. Sturtevant, pp. 5-7. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. Cited in Campbell 1997.