The Nunamiut or Nunatamiut (, , "People of the Land") are semi-nomadic inland
Iñupiat
The Inupiat (singular: Iñupiaq), also known as Alaskan Inuit, are a group of Alaska Natives whose traditional territory roughly spans northeast from Norton Sound on the Bering Sea to the northernmost part of the Canada–United States borde ...
located in the northern and northwestern
Alaska
Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...
n interior, mostly around
Anaktuvuk Pass, Alaska.
History
Early Nunamiut lived by hunting caribou instead of the marine mammals and fish hunted by coastal Iñupiat. After 1850 the interior became depopulated because of
disease
A disease is a particular abnormal condition that adversely affects the structure or function (biology), function of all or part of an organism and is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical condi ...
s, the decline of the
caribou and the
migration to the coast (including the Mackenzie Delta area in
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
, where they are called
Uummarmiut
The Uummarmiut or Uummaġmiut (, ''people of the green trees'') is the name given to the Inuvialuit who live predominantly in the Mackenzie Delta communities of Aklavik and Inuvik, Northwest Territories, Canada. Their language is known as Uumm ...
) where whaling and fox trapping provided a temporarily promising alternative.
Historically, the Nunamiut hunted
caribou. When caribou numbers dwindled in the 19th century, some Nunamiut migrated towards the
Mackenzie River
The Mackenzie River (French: ; Slavey language, Slavey: ' èh tʃʰò literally ''big river''; Inuvialuktun: ' uːkpɑk literally ''great river'') is a river in the Canadian Canadian boreal forest, boreal forest and tundra. It forms, ...
delta.
Around 1910, with caribou continuing to be insufficient to sustain the native hunting, Nunatamiut migrated further into the
Siglit area. They were spurred by increased demand for furs by the
Hudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), originally the Governor and Company of Adventurers of England Trading Into Hudson’s Bay, is a Canadian holding company of department stores, and the oldest corporation in North America. It was the owner of the ...
and the possibility of jobs within the
whaling
Whaling is the hunting of whales for their products such as meat and blubber, which can be turned into a type of oil that was important in the Industrial Revolution. Whaling was practiced as an organized industry as early as 875 AD. By the 16t ...
industry. The
Inuvialuit of the Siglit area were unhappy with the arrival of the Nunatamiut, afraid that the Nunatamuit would deplete the Inuvialuit's Bluenose caribou herd. But the Nunatamiut, inland hunters of the Iñupiat region, were in high demand by the American whalers.
Eventually, the Nunatamiut who settled in the Siglit area became known as the
Uummarmiut
The Uummarmiut or Uummaġmiut (, ''people of the green trees'') is the name given to the Inuvialuit who live predominantly in the Mackenzie Delta communities of Aklavik and Inuvik, Northwest Territories, Canada. Their language is known as Uumm ...
(''people of the green trees'') and intermarried with the local Inuvialuit.
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 Alaskan village is located Anaktuvuk—the Village of Anaktuvuk Pass, the Naqsragmiut Tribal Council.
Recording of culture and history
The Nunamiut were visited after
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
by Norwegian explorer and author
Helge Ingstad. He stayed for a period in the Brooks Range in northern Alaska among the Nunamiut, and afterward 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. Representatives from the Nunamiut later suggested naming a mountain in the Brooks range after him. Five years after Ingstad's death, it was named
Ingstad mountain.
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.
Language
The native language of the Nunamiut is a dialect of
Iñupiaq. In the late 1960s, the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...
sent undergraduate linguistics student (now Arctic explorer)
Dennis Schmitt to the Nunamiut to study their dialect. There are few native speakers today.
References
Further reading
* Binford, Lewis Roberts. ''Nunamiut Ethnoarchaeology''. New York: Academic Press, 1978.
* Blackman, Margaret B.
Upside Down: Seasons Among the Nunamiut'. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004.
* Gubser, Nicholas J. ''The Nunamiut Eskimos, Hunters of Caribou''. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965.
* Ingstad, Helge.
'. New York: W.W. Norton, 1954.
* Ingstad, Helge. ''Songs of the Nunamiut historical recordings of an Alaskan Eskimo community''.
slo, Norway Tano Aschehoug, 1998.
* 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.
laska 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
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
The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...
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
Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a ...
Mask making exhibitNorth Slope Borough School District public school system
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 CampaignA heritage of whales and whaling among the Nunamiut Inupiat ancient days, traditional times, commercial whaling, whaling today.
{{Authority control
Alaska Native ethnic groups
Inupiat