Inuit religion

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Inuit religion is the shared spiritual beliefs and practices of Inuit, an indigenous people from Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. Their religion shares many similarities with religions of other North Polar peoples. Traditional Inuit religious practices include animism and shamanism, in which spiritual healers mediate with spirits.

 

Today many Inuit follow Christianity, but traditional Inuit spirituality continues as part of a living, oral tradition and part of contemporary Inuit society. Inuit who balance indigenous and Christian theology practice religious syncretism.^[2]

Inuit cosmology provides a narrative about the world and the place of people within it. Rachel Attituq Qitsualik (Inuk) writes:

The Inuit cosmos is ruled by no one. There are no divine mother and father figures. There are no wind gods and solar creators. There are no eternal punishments in the hereafter, as there are no punishments for children or adults in the here and now.^[3]

Traditional stories, rituals, and taboos of the Inuit are often precautions against dangers posed by their harsh Arctic environment. Knud Rasmussen asked his guide and friend Aua, an angakkuq (spiritual healer), about Inuit religious beliefs among the Iglulingmiut (people of Igloolik) and was told: "We don't believe. We fear." Authors Inge Kleivan and Birgitte Sonne debate possible conclusions of Aua's words, because the angakkuq was under the influence of Christian missionaries, and later he even converted to Christianity. Their study also analyses beliefs of several Inuit groups, concluding (among others) that fear was not diffuse.^[4]

First were unipkaaqs : myths, legends, and folktales which took place "back then" in the indefinite past (taimmani).^[5]

Iñupiat dance near Nome, Alaska, 1900

Inuit cultural beliefs

Iglulik

Among the Canadian Inuit, a spiritual healer is known as an angakkuq (Inuktitut^[6]) or Inuvialuk: ᐊᖓᑦᑯᖅ angatkuq.^[7] The duties of an angakkuq includes helping the community when marine animals, kept by Takanaluk-arnaluk or Sea Woman in a pit in her house, become scarce, according to the Aua, an informant and friend of the anthropologist Rasmussen. Aua described the ability of an apprentice angakkuq to see himself as a skeleton,^[8] naming each part using the specific shaman language.^[9][8]

Inuit at Amitsoq Lake

The Inuit at Amitsoq Lake (a rich fishing ground) had seasonal and other prohibitions for sewing certain items. Boot soles, for example, could only be sewn far away from settlements in designated places.^[10] Children at Amitsoq once had a game called tunangusartut in which they imitated the adults behavior towards the spirits, even reciting the same verbal formulae as angakkuit. According to Rasmussen, this game was not considered offensive because a "spirit can understand the joke."^[11]

Netsilik Inuit

The homelands of the Netsilik Inuit (Netsilingmiut meaning "People of the Seal") have extremely long winters and stormy springs. Starvation was a common danger.^[12]

While other Inuit cultures feature protective guardian powers, the Netsilik have traditional beliefs that life's hardships stemmed from the extensive use of such measures. Unlike the Iglulik Inuit, the Netsilik used a large number of amulets. Even dogs could have amulets.^[13] In one recorded instance, a young boy had 80 amulets, so many that he could hardly play.^[14][12] One particular man had 17 names taken from his ancestors and intended to protect him.^[12][15]

Tattooing among Netsilik women provided power and could affect which world they went to after their deaths.^[16]

Nuliajuk, the Sea Woman, was described as "the lubricous one".^[17] If the people breached certain taboos, she held marine animals in the tank of her lamp. When this happened the angakkuq had to visit her to beg for game. In Netsilik oral history, she was originally an orphan girl mistreated by her community.^[18]

Moon Man, another cosmic being, is benevolent towards humans and their souls as they arrived in celestial places.^[19][20] This belief differs from that of the Greenland Inuit, in which the Moon’s wrath could be invoked by breaking taboos.^[19]

Sila, often associated with weather, is conceived of as a power contained within people.^[21] Among the Netsilik, Sila was imagined as male. The Netsilik (and Copper Inuit) believed Sila was originally a giant baby whose parents died fighting giants.^[22]

Caribou Inuit

Caribou Inuit is a collective name for several groups of inland Alaskan Natives (the Krenermiut, Aonarktormiut, Harvaktormiut, Padlermiut, and Ahearmiut) living in an area bordered by the tree line and the west shore of Hudson Bay. They do not form a political unit and maintain only loose contact, but they share an inland lifestyle and some cultural unity. In the recent past, the Padlermiut took part in seal hunts in the ocean.^[23]

The Caribou have a dualistic concept of the soul. The soul associated with respiration is called umaffia (place of life)^[24] and the personal soul of a child is called tarneq (corresponding to the nappan of the Copper Inuit). The tarneq is considered so weak that it needs the guardianship of a name-soul of a dead relative. The presence of the ancestor in the body of the child was felt to contribute to a more gentle behavior, especially among boys.^[25] This belief amounted to a form of reincarnation.^[24][26]

Because of their inland lifestyle, the Caribou have no belief concerning a Sea Woman. Other cosmic beings, named Sila or Pinga, control the caribou, as opposed to marine animals. Some groups have made a distinction between the two figures, while others have considered them the same. Sacrificial offerings to them could promote luck in hunting.^[27]

Caribou angakkuit performed fortune-telling through qilaneq, a technique of asking questions to a qila (spirit). The angakkuq placed his glove on the ground and raised his staff and belt over it. The qila then entered the glove and drew the staff to itself. Qilaneq was practiced among several other Alaskan Native groups and provided "yes" or "no" answers to questions.^[28][29]

Copper Inuit

Spiritual beliefs and practices among Inuit are diverse, just like the cultures themselves. Similar remarks apply for other beliefs: term silap inua / sila, hillap inua / hilla (among Inuit), ellam yua / ella (among Yup'ik) has been used with some diversity among the groups.^[30] In many instances it refers "outer space", "intellect", "weather", "sky", "universe":^{[30][31][32][33][34]} there may be some correspondence with the presocratic concept of logos.^[31][35] In some other groups, this concept was more personified ([sl̥am juɣwa] among Siberian Yupik).^[36]

Among Copper Inuit, this "Wind Indweller" concept is related to spiritual practice: angakkuit were believed to obtain their power from this indweller, moreover, even their helping spirits were termed as silap inue.^[37]

Anirniit

The Inuit believed that all things have a form of spirit or soul (in Inuktitut: anirniq meaning "breath"; plural anirniit), just like humans. These spirits are held to persist after death—a common belief present in most human societies. However, the belief in the pervasiveness of spirits—the root of Inuit worldview—has consequences. According to a customary Inuit saying, "The great peril of our existence lies in the fact that our diet consists entirely of souls." Since all beings possess souls like those of humans, killing an animal is little different from killing a person. Once the anirniq of the dead animal or human is liberated, it is free to take revenge. The spirit of the dead can only be placated by obedience to custom, avoiding taboos, and performing the right rituals.

The harshness and randomness of life in the Arctic ensured that Inuit lived constantly in fear of unseen forces. A run of bad luck could end an entire community and begging potentially angry and vengeful but unseen powers for the necessities of day-to-day survival is a common consequence of a precarious existence. For the Inuit, to offend an anirniq was to risk extinction. The principal role of the angakkuq in Inuit society was to advise and remind people of the rituals and taboos they needed to obey to placate the spirits, since he was held to be able to see and contact them.

The anirniit are seen to be a part of the sila — the sky or air around them — and are merely borrowed from it. Although each person's anirniq is individual, shaped by the life and body it inhabits, at the same time it is part of a larger whole. This enabled Inuit to borrow the powers or characteristics of an anirniq by taking its name. Furthermore, the spirits of a single class of thing — be it sea mammals, polar bears, or plants — are in some sense held to be the same and can be invoked through a keeper or master who is connected with that class of thing. In some cases, it is the anirniq of a human or animal who becomes a figure of respect or influence over animals things through some action, recounted in a traditional tale. In other cases, it is a tuurngaq, as described below.

Since the arrival of Christianity among the Inuit, anirniq has become the accepted word for a soul in the Christian sense. This is the root word for other Christian terms: anirnisiaq means angel and God is rendered as anirnialuk, the great spirit.

Humans were a complex of three main parts: two souls (iñuusiq and iḷitqusiq: perhaps "life force" and "personal spirit") and a name soul (atiq). After death, the iñuusiq departed for the east, but the other soul components could be reborn.^[38]

Tuurngait

Some spirits have never been connected to physical bodies. These are called tuurngait (also tornait, tornat, tornrait, singular tuurngaq, torngak, tornrak, tarngek). Helpful spirits can be called upon in times of need. Some tuurngait are evil, monstrous, and responsible for bad hunts and broken tools. They can possess humans, as recounted in the story of Atanarjuat. An angakkuq with good intentions can use them to heal sickness and find animals to hunt and feed the community. He or she can fight or exorcise bad tuurngait, or they can be held at bay by rituals; However, an angakkuq with harmful intentions can also use tuurngait for their own personal gain, or to attack other people and their tuurngait.

Though once Tuurngaq simply meant "killing spirit", it has, with Christianisation, taken on the meaning of a demon in the Christian belief system.

Angakkuq

An angakkuq (Inuktitut^[39]) is a spiritual healer and ceremonial person in traditional Alaskan Native religion. Angakuit is the plural of angakkuq. The angakkuq has largely disappeared in Christianised Inuit society, but has traditionally functioned as a mediator with (or defender against) the spirits, as well as a healer and counselor. Angakkug are held to be born with their gifts and not trained, although they have employed traditional ceremonies that involve drumming, singing, and dancing.

Deities

Below is an incomplete list of Inuit deities believed to hold power over some specific part of the Inuit world:

• Agloolik: evil god of the sea who can hurt boats by biting them; spirit which lives under the ice and helps wanderers in hunting and fishing
• Akna: mother goddess of fertility
• Amaguq/Amarok: wolf god who takes those foolish to hunt alone at night
• Anguta: gatherer of the dead; he carries them into the underworld, where they must sleep with him for a year.
• Igaluk: the moon god and brother to the sun who chases her across the sky
• Nanook: (Nanuq or Nanuk in the modern spelling) the master of polar bears
• Pinga: the goddess of the hunt, fertility and medicine
• Qailertetang: weather spirit, guardian of animals, and matron of fishers and hunters. Qailertetang is the companion of Sedna.
• Sedna: the mistress of sea animals. Sedna (Sanna in modern Inuktitut spelling) is known under many names, including Nerrivik, Arnapkapfaaluk, Arnakuagsak, and Nuliajuk.
• Sila: personification of the air
• Tekkeitsertok: the master of caribou.

Creatures and spirits

• Qalupalik is a myth/legend told by Inuit parents and elders to prevent children from wandering to the shore. Qalupalik are human-like creatures with long hair, green skin, and long finger nails that live in the sea. They wear amautiit, in which they carry away babies and children who disobey their parents or wander off alone. They take the children underwater, where they adopt them as their own. Qalupaliks have a distinctive humming sound, and the elders have said you can hear the Qalupaliks humming when they are near. Up to today the Qalupalik story is still being told in schools and books, and by parents who don’t want their children to wander off to the dangerous shore. The myth was adapted as a 2010 stop motion animation short, Qalupalik, by Ame Papatsie.^[40]

• Ahkiyyini is a skeleton spirit
• Saumen kars or 'Tornits' are the Inuit version of the hairy man or yeti myth.
• Tizheruk are snake-like monsters.
• Qallupilluit are "troll-like" creature that come after misbehaving children.

New machine-learning algorithms may revolutionize drug discovery — and our understanding of life

February 8, 2017
Original link:  http://www.kurzweilai.net/new-machine-learning-algorithms-may-revolutionize-drug-discover-and-our-understanding-of-life

A new set of machine-learning algorithms can generate 3D structures of complex nanoscale protein molecules like this complex proteasome map refined to 2.8 Angstroms (.28 nanometer) in 70 min with 49,954 particle images (credit: Structura Biotechnology Inc.)

A new set of machine-learning algorithms developed by researchers at the University of Toronto Scarborough can generate 3D structures of nanoscale protein molecules that could not be achieved in the past. The algorithms may revolutionize the development of new drug therapies for a range of diseases and may even lead to better understand how life works at the atomic level, the researchers say.

Drugs work by binding to a specific protein molecule and changing the protein’s 3D shape, which alters the way the drug works once inside the body. The ideal drug is designed in a shape that will only bind to a specific protein or group of proteins that are involved in a disease, while eliminating side effects that occur when drugs bind to other proteins in the body.

A significant computational problem

Since proteins are tiny — about 1 to 100 nanometers — even smaller than the shortest wavelength of visible light, they can’t be seen directly without using sophisticated techniques like electron cryomicroscopy (cryo-EM). Cryo-EM uses high-power microscopes to take tens of thousands of low-resolution images of a frozen protein sample from different positions.

The computational problem is to then piece together the correct high-resolution 3D structure from these 2D images.

Existing techniques take several days or even weeks to generate a 3D structure on a cluster of computers, requiring as much as 500,000 CPU hours, according to the researchers. Also, existing techniques often generate incorrect structures unless an expert user provides an accurate guess of the molecule being studied.

CryoSPARC machine learning algorithms can generate 3-D structures of nanoscale protein molecules (credit: Structura Biotechnology Inc)

New high-speed, deep-learning algorithms


That’s where the new set of algorithms* comes in. It reconstructs 3D structures of protein molecules using these images. “Our approach solves some of the major problems in terms of speed and number of structures you can determine,” says Professor David Fleet, chair of the Computer and Mathematical Sciences Department at U of Toronto Scarborough.

The algorithms could significantly aid in the development of new drugs because they provide a faster, more efficient means at arriving at the correct protein structure.

The new approach, called cryoSPARC, developed by the team’s startup, Structura Biotechnology Inc., eliminates the need for that prior knowledge and can make the computations possible in minutes on a single computer, using a standalone graphics processing unit (GPU) accelerated software package, according to the researchers.

The research was published in the current edition of the journal Nature Methods. It received funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). The new cryo-EM platform is already being used in labs across North America, the researchers note.

* “We use an SGD [stochastic gradient descent] optimization scheme to quickly identify one or several low-resolution 3D structures that are consistent with a set of observed images. This algorithm allows for ab initio heterogeneous structure determination with no prior model of the molecule’s structure. Once approximate structures are determined, a branch-and-bound algorithm for image alignment helps rapidly refine structures to high resolution. The speed and robustness of these approaches allow structure determination in a matter of minutes or hours on a single inexpensive desktop workstation. … SGD was popularized as a key tool in deep learning for the optimization of nonconvex functions, and it results in near human-level performance in tasks like image and speech recognition.” — Ali Punjani et al./Nature Methods

University of Toronto Scarborough | New algorithms may revolutionize drug discoveries and our understanding of life

---

Abstract of cryoSPARC: algorithms for rapid unsupervised cryo-EM structure determination

Single-particle electron cryomicroscopy (cryo-EM) is a powerful method for determining the structures of biological macromolecules. With automated microscopes, cryo-EM data can often be obtained in a few days. However, processing cryo-EM image data to reveal heterogeneity in the protein structure and to refine 3D maps to high resolution frequently becomes a severe bottleneck, requiring expert intervention, prior structural knowledge, and weeks of calculations on expensive computer clusters. Here we show that stochastic gradient descent (SGD) and branch-and-bound maximum likelihood optimization algorithms permit the major steps in cryo-EM structure determination to be performed in hours or minutes on an inexpensive desktop computer. Furthermore, SGD with Bayesian marginalization allows ab initio 3D classification, enabling automated analysis and discovery of unexpected structures without bias from a reference map. These algorithms are combined in a user-friendly computer program named cryoSPARC

References:

• Ali Punjani, John L Rubinstein, David J Fleet & Marcus A Brubaker. cryoSPARC: algorithms for rapid unsupervised cryo-EM structure determination. Nature Methods (2017) doi:10.1038/nmeth.4169
• Supplementary information

Eskimo

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Eskimo

Map of the Inuit Circumpolar Council of Eskimo peoples, showing the Yupik (Yup'ik, Siberian Yupik) and Inuit (Iñupiat, Inuvialuit, Nunavut, Nunavik, Nunatsiavut, Greenlandic Inuit)
Regions with significant populations
Russia -  Chukotka Autonomous Okrug  United States -  Alaska  Canada -  Yukon -  Northwest Territories -  Nunavut -  Quebec - Newfoundland and Labrador  Denmark -  Greenland
Languages
Russian, English, French, Danish, Greenlandic and other Eskimo–Aleut languages.
Religion
Christianity (Russian Orthodox Church, Orthodox Church in America, Roman Catholicism, Anglican Church of Canada, Church of Denmark), Animism
Related ethnic groups
Aleut

Eskimo (/ˈɛskɪmoʊ/) is an English term for the indigenous peoples who have traditionally inhabited the northern circumpolar region from eastern Siberia (Russia) to across Alaska (of the United States), Canada, and Greenland.

The two main peoples known as "Eskimo" are: (1) the Alaskan Iñupiat peoples, Greenlandic Inuit, and the mass-grouping Inuit peoples of Canada, and (2) the Yupik of eastern Siberia and Alaska. The Yupik comprise speakers of four distinct Yupik languages: one used in the Russian Far East and the others among people of Western Alaska, Southcentral Alaska and along the Gulf of Alaska coast. A third northern group, the Aleut, is closely related to these two. They share a relatively recent common ancestor, and a language group (Eskimo-Aleut).

The word "Eskimo" derives from phrases that Algonquin tribes used for their northern neighbors. The Inuit and Yupik peoples generally do not use it to refer to themselves, and the governments in Canada and Greenland have ceased using it in official documents.^[2]

Description

Illustration of a Greenlandic Inuit man

In its linguistic origins,^[3] the word Eskimo comes from Innu-aimun (Montagnais) 'ayas̆kimew' meaning "a person who laces a snowshoe" and is related to "husky", so does not originally have a pejorative meaning.^[4]

In Canada and Greenland, the term "Eskimo" is predominately seen as pejorative and has been widely replaced by the term "Inuit" or terms specific to a particular group or community.^[2][5][6] This has resulted in a trend whereby some Canadians and Americans believe that they should not use the word "Eskimo" and use the Canadian word "Inuit" instead, even for Yupik speakers.^[7] In section 25^[8] of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and section 35^[9] of the Canadian Constitution Act of 1982, recognized the Inuit as a distinctive group of Aboriginal peoples in Canada.

Under U.S. and Alaskan law (as well as the linguistic and cultural traditions of Alaska), "Alaska Native" refers to all indigenous peoples of Alaska.^[10] This includes not only the Iñupiat and the Yupik, but also groups such as the Aleut, who share a recent ancestor, as well as the largely unrelated^[11] indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast and the Alaskan Athabaskans. As a result, the term Eskimo is still in use in Alaska.^[1] Alternative terms, such as Inuit-Yupik, have been proposed,^[12] but none has gained widespread acceptance.

History

Inuit building an igloo, by George Francis Lyon, 1824

Several earlier indigenous peoples existed in the region. The earliest positively identified Paleo-Eskimo cultures (Early Paleo-Eskimo) date to 5,000 years ago. They appear to have developed in Alaska from people related to the Arctic small tool tradition in eastern Asia, whose ancestors had probably migrated to Alaska at least 3,000 to 5,000 years earlier. Similar artifacts have been found in Siberia that date to perhaps 18,000 years ago.

The Yupik languages and cultures in Alaska evolved in place (and migrated back to Siberia), beginning with the original pre-Dorset indigenous culture developed in Alaska. Approximately 4000 years ago, the Unangan culture of the Aleut became distinct. It is not generally considered an Eskimo culture.

Approximately 1,500–2,000 years ago, apparently in northwestern Alaska, two other distinct variations appeared. Inuit language became distinct and, over a period of several centuries, its speakers migrated across northern Alaska, through Canada and into Greenland. The distinct culture of the Thule people developed in northwestern Alaska and very quickly spread over the entire area occupied by Eskimo people, though it was not necessarily adopted by all of them.

Nomenclature

Origin

Two principal competing etymologies have been proposed for the name "Eskimo", both derived from the Innu-aimun (Montagnais) language, an Algonquian language of the Atlantic Ocean coast. The most commonly accepted today appears to be the proposal of Ives Goddard at the Smithsonian Institution, who derives the term from the Montagnais word meaning "snowshoe-netter"^[4] or "to net snowshoes."^[3] The word assime·w means "she laces a snowshoe" in Montagnais. Montagnais speakers refer to the neighbouring Mi'kmaq people using words that sound like eskimo.^[13][14]

In 1978, Jose Mailhot, a Quebec anthropologist who speaks Montagnais, published a paper suggesting that Eskimo meant "people who speak a different language".^[15][16] French traders who encountered the Montagnais in the eastern areas, adopted their word for the more western peoples and spelled it as Esquimau in a transliteration.

Some people consider Eskimo derogatory because it is widely perceived to mean^{[4][16][17][18]} "eaters of raw meat" in Algonquian languages common to people along the Atlantic coast.^[3][19][20] One Cree speaker suggested the original word that became corrupted to Eskimo might have been askamiciw (which means "he eats it raw"); the Inuit are referred to in some Cree texts as askipiw (which means "eats something raw").^{[19][20][21][22]}

The first printed use of the word^{[citation needed]} 'Esquimaux' comes from Samuel Hearne's A Journey from Prince of Wales's Fort in Hudson's Bay to the Northern Ocean in the Years 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772 first published in 1795.^[23] Hearne, an Englishman employed by the Hudson Bay Company, traveled to Fort Prince of Wales at present day Churchill via ship, and not overland. He is highly unlikely to have encountered French traders or their allies in his travels to have picked up a word for the present-day Inuit from them, as the fall of Quebec and the end of French activity in North America was just 6 years prior to his arrival. On the contrary, trade at Fort Prince of Wales was conducted with the Cree and the Chipewyans, and conducted at the shores of Hudson Bay at that time. Trade, by ship, with the Esquimaux was one of Hearne's first assignments. It would be on Hearne's watch that inland exploration would begin. It was in the company of Matonabbee on his third attempt to find the sources of the copper in use by indigenous peoples that Hearne encountered the Inuit as described in Massacre at Bloody Falls. That the word 'esquimaux' as applying to the Inuit would have come from French sources, and from such southerly peoples as the Algonquians seems highly unlikely, but Hearne's use of the term and his manner of spelling it suggest that the term was already in use prior to his arrival in 1766.^{[citation needed]}

General

Laminar armour from hardened leather reinforced by wood and bones worn by native Siberians and Eskimos

Lamellar armour worn by native Siberians and Eskimos

In Canada and Greenland, the term Eskimo has largely been supplanted by the term Inuit.^{[3][21][22][24]} While Inuit can be accurately applied to all of the Eskimo peoples in Canada and Greenland, that is not true in Alaska and Siberia. In Alaska the term Eskimo is commonly used, because it includes both Yupik and Iñupiat. Inuit is not accepted as a collective term and it is not used specifically for Iñupiat (although they are related to the Canadian Inuit peoples).^[3]

In 1977, the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC) meeting in Barrow, Alaska, officially adopted Inuit as a designation for all circumpolar native peoples, regardless of their local view on an appropriate term. As a result, the Canadian government usage has replaced the (locally) defunct term Eskimo with Inuit (Inuk in singular). The preferred term in Canada's Central Arctic is Inuinnaq,^[25] and in the eastern Canadian Arctic Inuit. The language is often called Inuktitut, though other local designations are also used. Despite the ICC's 1977 decision to adopt the term Inuit, this was never accepted by the Yupik peoples, who likened it to calling all Native American Indians Navajo simply because the Navajo felt that that's what all tribes should be called.

The Inuit of Greenland refer to themselves as "Greenlanders" and speak the Greenlandic language.^[26]

Because of the linguistic, ethnic, and cultural differences between Yupik and Inuit peoples, it seems unlikely that any umbrella term will be acceptable. There has been some movement to use Inuit, and the Inuit Circumpolar Council, representing a circumpolar population of 150,000 Inuit and Yupik people of Greenland, Northern Canada, Alaska, and Siberia, in its charter defines Inuit for use within that ICC document as including "the Inupiat, Yupik (Alaska), Inuit, Inuvialuit (Canada), Kalaallit (Greenland) and Yupik (Russia)."^[27]

In 2010, the ICC passed a resolution in which they implored scientists to use "Inuit" and "Paleo-Inuit" instead of "Eskimo" or "Paleo-Eskimo".^[28] American linguist Lenore Grenoble has explicitly deferred to this resolution and used "Inuit–Yupik" instead of "Eskimo" with regards to the language branch.^[29] In a 2015 commentary in the journal Arctic, Canadian archaeologist Max Friesen argued fellow Arctic archaeologists should follow the ICC and use "Paleo-Inuit" instead of "Paleo-Eskimo".^[30]

But, in Alaska, the Inuit people refer to themselves as Iñupiat, plural, and Iñupiaq, singular (their North Alaskan Inupiatun language is also called Iñupiaq). They do not commonly use the term Inuit. In Alaska, Eskimo is in common usage.^[3]

Alaskans also use the term Alaska Native, which is inclusive of all Eskimo, Aleut and other Native American people of Alaska. It does not apply to Inuit or Yupik people originating outside the state. The term Alaska Native has important legal usage in Alaska and the rest of the United States as a result of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971.

The term "Eskimo" is also used in linguistic or ethnographic works to denote the larger branch of Eskimo–Aleut languages, the smaller branch being Aleut.

Languages

English ("Welcome to Barrow") and Iñupiaq (Paġlagivsigiñ Utqiaġvigmun), Barrow, Alaska, framed by whale jawbones

The Eskimo–Aleut family of languages includes two cognate branches: the Aleut (Unangan) branch and the Eskimo branch.

The number of cases varies, with Aleut languages having a greatly reduced case system compared to those of the Eskimo subfamily. Eskimo–Aleut languages possess voiceless plosives at the bilabial, coronal, velar and uvular positions in all languages except Aleut, which has lost the bilabial stops but retained the nasal. In the Eskimo subfamily a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative is also present.

The Eskimo sub-family consists of the Inuit language and Yupik language sub-groups.^[31] The Sirenikski language, which is virtually extinct, is sometimes regarded as a third branch of the Eskimo language family. Other sources regard it as a group belonging to the Yupik branch.^[31][32]

Inuit languages comprise a dialect continuum, or dialect chain, that stretches from Unalakleet and Norton Sound in Alaska, across northern Alaska and Canada, and east to Greenland. Changes from western (Iñupiaq) to eastern dialects are marked by the dropping of vestigial Yupik-related features, increasing consonant assimilation (e.g., kumlu, meaning "thumb", changes to kuvlu, changes to kublu,^[33] changes to kulluk,^[33] changes to kulluq^[33]), and increased consonant lengthening, and lexical change. Thus, speakers of two adjacent Inuit dialects would usually be able to understand one another, but speakers from dialects distant from each other on the dialect continuum would have difficulty understanding one another.^[32] Seward Peninsula dialects in western Alaska, where much of the Iñupiat culture has been in place for perhaps less than 500 years, are greatly affected by phonological influence from the Yupik languages. Eastern Greenlandic, at the opposite end of the Inuit range, has had significant word replacement due to a unique form of ritual name avoidance.^[31][32]

The four Yupik languages, by contrast, including Alutiiq (Sugpiaq), Central Alaskan Yup'ik, Naukan (Naukanski), and Siberian Yupik, are distinct languages with phonological, morphological, and lexical differences. They demonstrate limited mutual intelligibility.^[31] Additionally, both Alutiiq and Central Yup'ik have considerable dialect diversity. The northernmost Yupik languages – Siberian Yupik and Naukan Yupik – are linguistically only slightly closer to Inuit than is Alutiiq, which is the southernmost of the Yupik languages. Although the grammatical structures of Yupik and Inuit languages are similar, they have pronounced differences phonologically. Differences of vocabulary between Inuit and any one of the Yupik languages are greater than between any two Yupik languages.^[32] Even the dialectal differences within Alutiiq and Central Alaskan Yup'ik sometimes are relatively great for locations that are relatively close geographically.^[32]

The Sirenikski language is sometimes regarded as a third branch of the Eskimo language family, but other sources regard it as a group belonging to the Yupik branch.^[32]

Iñupiat woman, Alaska, circa 1907

An Inuit family, c.1917

An overview of the Eskimo–Aleut languages family is given below:

Aleut

Aleut language

Western-Central dialects: Atkan, Attuan, Unangan, Bering (60–80 speakers)

Eastern dialect: Unalaskan, Pribilof (400 speakers)

Eskimo (Yup'ik, Yuit, and Inuit)

Yupik

Central Alaskan Yup'ik (10,000 speakers)

Alutiiq or Pacific Gulf Yup'ik (400 speakers)

Central Siberian Yupik or Yuit (Chaplinon and St Lawrence Island, 1,400 speakers)

Naukan (700 speakers)

Inuit or Inupik (75,000 speakers)

Iñupiaq (northern Alaska, 3,500 speakers)

Inuvialuktun (western Canada; together with Siglitun, Natsilingmiutut, Inuinnaqtun and Uummarmiutun 765 speakers)

Inuktitut (eastern Canada; together with Inuktun and Inuinnaqtun, 30,000 speakers)

Kalaallisut (Greenlandic (Greenland, 47,000 speakers)

Inuktun (Avanersuarmiutut, Thule dialect or Polar Eskimo, approximately 1,000 speakers)

Tunumiit oraasiat (East Greenlandic known as Tunumiisut, 3,500 speakers)

Sirenik Eskimo language (Sirenikskiy) (extinct)

Inuit

Eskimo (Yup'ik of Nelson Island) fisherman's summer house

The Inuit inhabit the Arctic and northern Bering Sea coasts of Alaska in the United States, and Arctic coasts of the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Quebec, and Labrador in Canada, and Greenland (associated with Denmark). Until fairly recent times, there has been a remarkable homogeneity in the culture throughout this area, which traditionally relied on fish, marine mammals, and land animals for food, heat, light, clothing, and tools. They maintain a unique Inuit culture.

Greenland's Inuit

Greenlandic Inuit make up 90% of Greenland's population.^[34] They belong to three major groups:

• Kalaallit of west Greenland, who speak Kalaallisut
• Tunumiit of east Greenland, who speak Tunumiisut
• Inughuit of north Greenland, who speak Inuktun or Polar Eskimo.^[26]

Inuit of Canada's Eastern Arctic

Canadian Inuit live primarily in Nunavut (a territory of Canada), Nunavik (the northern part of Quebec) and in Nunatsiavut (the Inuit settlement region in Labrador).

Inuvialuit of Canada's Western Arctic

An Iñupiat family from Noatak, Alaska, 1929

The Inuvialuit live in the western Canadian Arctic region. Their homeland – the Inuvialuit Settlement Region – covers the Arctic Ocean coastline area from the Alaskan border east to Amundsen Gulf and includes the western Canadian Arctic Islands. The land was demarked in 1984 by the Inuvialuit Final Agreement.

Alaska's Iñupiat

The Iñupiat are the Inuit of Alaska's Northwest Arctic and North Slope boroughs and the Bering Straits region, including the Seward Peninsula. Barrow, the northernmost city in the United States, is above the Arctic Circle and in the Iñupiat region. Their language is known as Iñupiaq.

Yupik

Alutiiq dancer during the biennial "Celebration" cultural event

The Yupik are indigenous or aboriginal peoples who live along the coast of western Alaska, especially on the Yukon-Kuskokwim delta and along the Kuskokwim River (Central Alaskan Yup'ik); in southern Alaska (the Alutiiq); and along the eastern coast of Chukotka in the Russian Far East and St. Lawrence Island in western Alaska (the Siberian Yupik). The Yupik economy has traditionally been strongly dominated by the harvest of marine mammals, especially seals, walrus, and whales.^[35]

Alutiiq

The Alutiiq, also called Pacific Yupik or Sugpiaq, are a southern, coastal branch of Yupik. They are not to be confused with the Aleut, who live further to the southwest, including along the Aleutian Islands. They traditionally lived a coastal lifestyle, subsisting primarily on ocean resources such as salmon, halibut, and whales, as well as rich land resources such as berries and land mammals. Alutiiq people today live in coastal fishing communities, where they work in all aspects of the modern economy. They also maintain the cultural value of a subsistence lifestyle.

The Alutiiq language is relatively close to that spoken by the Yupik in the Bethel, Alaska area. But, it is considered a distinct language with two major dialects: the Koniag dialect, spoken on the Alaska Peninsula and on Kodiak Island, and the Chugach dialect, spoken on the southern Kenai Peninsula and in Prince William Sound. Residents of Nanwalek, located on southern part of the Kenai Peninsula near Seldovia, speak what they call Sugpiaq. They are able to understand those who speak Yupik in Bethel. With a population of approximately 3,000, and the number of speakers in the hundreds, Alutiiq communities are working to revitalize their language. ^[36]

Central Alaskan Yup'ik

Yup'ik, with an apostrophe, denotes the speakers of the Central Alaskan Yup'ik language, who live in western Alaska and southwestern Alaska from southern Norton Sound to the north side of Bristol Bay, on the Yukon–Kuskokwim Delta, and on Nelson Island. The use of the apostrophe in the name Yup'ik is a written convention to denote the long pronunciation of the p sound; but it is spoken the same in other Yupik languages. Of all the Alaska Native languages, Central Alaskan Yup'ik has the most speakers, with about 10,000 of a total Yup'ik population of 21,000 still speaking the language. The five dialects of Central Alaskan Yup'ik include General Central Yup'ik, and the Egegik, Norton Sound, Hooper Bay-Chevak, and Nunivak dialects. In the latter two dialects, both the language and the people are called Cup'ik.^[37]

Siberian Yupik

Siberian Yupik aboard the steamer Bowhead

Siberian Yupik reside along the Bering Sea coast of the Chukchi Peninsula in Siberia in the Russian Far East^[32] and in the villages of Gambell and Savoonga on St. Lawrence Island in Alaska.^[38] The Central Siberian Yupik spoken on the Chukchi Peninsula and on St. Lawrence Island is nearly identical. About 1,050 of a total Alaska population of 1,100 Siberian Yupik people in Alaska speak the language. It is the first language of the home for most St. Lawrence Island children. In Siberia, about 300 of a total of 900 Siberian Yupik people still learn and study the language, though it is no longer learned as a first language by children.^[38]

Naukan

About 70 of 400 Naukan people still speak Naukanski. The Naukan originate on the Chukot Peninsula in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug in Siberia.^[32]

Sirenik Eskimos

Model of an Ice Scoop, Eskimo, 1900–1930, Brooklyn Museum

Some speakers of Siberian Yupik languages used to speak an Eskimo variant in the past, before they underwent a language shift. These former speakers of Sirenik Eskimo language inhabited the settlements of Sireniki, Imtuk, and some small villages stretching to the west from Sireniki along south-eastern coasts of Chukchi Peninsula.^[39] They lived in neighborhoods with Siberian Yupik and Chukchi peoples.

As early as in 1895, Imtuk was a settlement with a mixed population of Sirenik Eskimos and Ungazigmit^[40] (the latter belonging to Siberian Yupik). Sirenik Eskimo culture has been influenced by that of Chukchi, and the language shows Chukchi language influences.^[41] Folktale motifs also show the influence of Chuckchi culture.^[42]

The above peculiarities of this (already extinct) Eskimo language amounted to mutual unintelligibility even with its nearest language relatives:^[43] in the past, Sirenik Eskimos had to use the unrelated Chukchi language as a lingua franca for communicating with Siberian Yupik.^[41]

Many words are formed from entirely different roots from in Siberian Yupik,^[44] but even the grammar has several peculiarities distinct not only among Eskimo languages, but even compared to Aleut. For example, dual number is not known in Sirenik Eskimo, while most Eskimo–Aleut languages have dual,^[45] including its neighboring Siberian Yupikax relatives.^[46]

Little is known about the origin of this diversity. The peculiarities of this language may be the result of a supposed long isolation from other Eskimo groups,^[47][48] and being in contact only with speakers of unrelated languages for many centuries. The influence of the Chukchi language is clear.^[41]

Because of all these factors, the classification of Sireniki Eskimo language is not settled yet:^[49] Sireniki language is sometimes regarded as a third branch of Eskimo (at least, its possibility is mentioned).^[49][50][51] Sometimes it is regarded rather as a group belonging to the Yupik branch.