Nunamiut
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

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 exhibit

North 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 Campaign

A heritage of whales and whaling among the Nunamiut Inupiat
ancient days, traditional times, commercial whaling, whaling today. {{Authority control Alaska Native ethnic groups Inupiat