A Lesson on Comprehension, and the Inuit, and Textiles
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Trusted Clothes (Unpublished)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2016
I have noticed that some of the benefits about writing seriously and sincerely about a subject does do something to learning. It motivates, and guides. I don’t know about you, and it might be similar for some of you. You need less of a threshold for it than me. And kudos to you for it if so. But there’s a sense in which the process of writing something seems to inculcate a love for something, knowledge breaks barriers – which makes barriers likely signs of ignorance, ruh roh.
Its principles are simply wonderful: ethical, sustainable, and fashionable. And so I think I’ve hit upon a niche past the point of writing about the Hopi. Their textiles. Their rights. Their status as indigenous persons and peoples. And if you think about it more homeward bound, I come to indigenous persons and peoples in Canada. I feel as though you can relate with the idea and reality of indigenous peoples. Its title is relevant to hundreds of millions of people after all.
You might think about the Maori in New Zealand, or the Blackfoot or Iroquois in the United States, or the First Nations, Inuit and Metis in Canada. What one matters the most? It depends on the individual, I guess. And as I learn about the ways and customs of each, I like most that I’ve seen or read about a bit.
But I gave my ace of spades with the Hopi, I think. Probably to do with the language use of these peoples and persona and linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf’s controversy about it, and with the involvement of Steven J. Pinker too. You can look at that whole thing here.
So there’s that. But there’s more, always (?, probably). So let’s have a look at one national example, relative to Trusted Clothes (Ontario, Canada) and myself (British Columbia, Canada). That leaves three main groupings: First Nations, Inuit and Metis. What d’ya think? Let’s do Inuit, the far north of one of the hugest, biggest plots of land in the world. Canada: Home.
There are about 135,000 Inuit in the world, self-identified. That’s a large minority of the country with only 36,000,000 peeps, and the size of a decent sized city. They fall within the standard societal classification of indigenous peoples along with the, as noted before, Metis and the First Nations. Each have their own subdivisions as well.
So there’s also that. It’s unlike the Hopi who have only ten or twenty thousand in their total population. There’s some dark history to depict that narrative, the unfortunate narrative. I don’t know about this particular photo with respect to tribes and nations and so on, but these are definitely Norse fighting and killing Aboriginals, and vice versa.
So who are the Inuit? Encyclopedia Britannica says these can be people with the title Innuit, Inuit, or Eskimo. One might need to bear in mind sensitivities about particular words and their associations for some people, and even that consideration can depend on personality and context too. These people relate to the Aleuts, and are basically the chief inhabitants of the Arctic north of Canada, Greenland, the United States, and even Russia.
Of those 135,000 that live in the Arctic north, there are about 85,000 in North America and 50,000 in Greenland, and some super-minority in Siberia. And as with many, many peoples throughout the world, whether European or African or Australian or Latin America or South American, or Indigenous for that matter, these populations are diverse within themselves. Not only between their grouped selves.
The self-status of the Inuit can be Inupiat, Yupik, or Alutiit, too. And that basically into the meaning of the basis of the differences but unity. In that, the translation, into English, is pretty much “the people” or, more properly, “the real people.” That makes senses, I think. What do you think? It could be a bit of an issue with the kinds of individuals within the group. We’re all human after all, right?
So the same pluses and minuses of grouped and community living should come out cross-culturally. The name Eskimo was given in the 16th century by the Europeans to the those in the Arctic. That could be a point of contention. I wouldn’t feel well if I was given a name against my will from another group, likely. Eskimo itself is a reference to snowshoes – not “eaters of raw flesh. The culture developed in landscapes and geographic environments akin to Siberia. Very cold, very snowy, long winters.
What about the clothing, Scott? Okay, okay, (or okie dokie), it’s great. Clothing isn’t just fashion. It’s survival too. It’s a way to keep from the bitter cold. That’s an important question about adapting fashion, right? What’s the kind of stuff that can help with that kind of extreme weather? Our genomes as a species haven’t changed substantially in over 200,000 years. So we’re not like polar bears or something that has these adaptations of thick winter coats, but our tool use is a major advantage to adapt more rapidly to the environment.
The main types of clothing material used by them are furs and skins. Over enough time, this becomes instantiated in culture. It becomes a means of connecting with ancestors emotionally from person to person. It’s a way to connect to the earth, and a sort of edificative or spiritual practice to make one’s own clothes. I feel. Though I’d be bad at it, but from many of their persons’ points of view, I suspect a consistency there.
The Inuit textiles can come and scarves which one can see. For instance, see below, the various text off of the Inuit. And I don’t know about you, but one of the more interesting things to note about the textiles is that today, as with most cultures, you can probably note the consistency amongst the cultural productions and the milieu in which a society or culture lived and worked and created these objects.
And as discussed about the environment and the need for survival as a primary and then the fashion of the culture as a secondary, the clothing and textiles and materials themselves are going to reflect this necessity for survival. So, you can look at some of the aspects of the scarfs the tubes the hats coats and so on. And many, many aspects of this or simply reflection of the dire need to not be cold and stay cozy-ish warm. Or to simply ass on the cultural stories, mythologies, traditions, lessons, allegories, etc, onto the next generation:
And one of the little cool things I have noticed, if you look at the clothing and the styled, lovely frizziness, it’s bot fashionable and functional. If I’d be in the freezing cold, and with the biting nature of the cold, I’m trying to prevent that from hitting me too much. It’s to buffer the wind chill and the regular cold.
For instance, temperatures in the Arctic north weather in Siberia, Canada, Russia, and elsewhere can be an issue. So if it is something to do with survival pressure and basic needs, the ability to keep a consistent a culture from which individuals within a group, that is, this particular indigenous culture, then passing on the cultural rituals rights to making skills and textiles is really key. And these simply aren’t things that had occurred to me off the bat. It’s these kind of small things, realizations, and readings, and so on, that I feel are humbling.
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