Interactions with Eastern culture

The first contact the Inuits had with eastern civilizations was with the Norse culture of Greenland. Once they had disappeared it would be hundreds of years, until the mid 1500's when people started hunting whales up and down the Labrador coast. The Inuits didn't have much contact or trade with these people except that the natives would sometimes conduct raids of the whaling stations and steal the metal tools used by the whalers for their own uses. Once Eastern cultures started inhabiting Alaska, the government started having missionaries sent out to supply the Inuits with the tools they were once stealing, so that the relationships between the groups could be more "peaceful." The explorers and whalers coming to the country often transferred deadly diseases to the native groups, but the Inuits living in higher latitudes would remain relatively untouched by outside civilizations until around the 1920's. At this time, the royal mounted police of Canada began to oppress the Inuits and would arrest them for breaking laws which they had no idea they were breaking, and by converting them to Christianity. It wasn't until the 1960's that the Inuits began coming back by standing up to the government that basically stole their country, however they still hadn't been fully compensated until around 2005.

"Countries and Their Cultures." Inuit. N.p., n.d. Web. Apr. 2013.

Sports and Games

The Inuits are a wonderful indigenous people who love tradition and culture. This tribe’s culture is far from boring or ordinary. When it comes to entertainment in the Artic, the Inuit tribe has several sports and games to entertain their people. Many of these sports are multi-purposed and play a role to further develop many areas of life. The Inuit sports and games are based off the necessity to improve characteristics such as strength, coordination, endurance, agility, and fitness. These characteristics improve hunting abilities and survival skills. Sports are meant to be fun, entertaining, and challenging. Some sports played include wrestling, jumping contest, weightlifting and even ball games. The stronger and more fit you are the better you able to fight illness, traverse distances, maintain mental discipline etc. The other need for many of the games entertained those during long hours out on the land, especially during long periods of darkness. Here is a list of other sports, games, and challenges such as the kneel jump, knuckle hop, Alaskan, high kick one, foot high kick, two foot high kick, back push, musox push or mushox fight, leg wrestle.

Bibliography: Unknown Author, "Inuit Sports and Games," Inuit Online cultural Resources,  http://icor.ottawainuitchildrens.com/node/39  (accessed April 7, 2013).

Diet

Throughout history the Inuit have been known as hunters, gathers, and fishers. This indigenous tribe hunted, and still hunt, whales, walruses, caribou, seals, polar bears, muskoxen, birds. In rare cases, they will hunt smaller animals such as small foxes. Growing crops and traditional foods like vegetables and fruits are not likely due to the extreme temperatures in the Arctic. The Inuit mostly rely on gathering naturally available materials and resources. These resources include roots, tubers, grasses, stems, seaweed, and berries. These plants are essential in adding a variety in the Inuit’s diets. Also, food items that weren't eaten immediately were preserved and stored carefully depending on the conditions and seasons that were present. The typical Inuit diet is meat based and very high in protein from animals and fats. Noted by anthropologist, 75 percent of the Inuit’s daily energy came from a diet of fats.

There was an anthropologist Vilhjalmur Stefansson who lived with a group of Inuits. He observed many things about their daily lives including the nutritional value of their diet. He discovered that the Inuit's extremely low-carbohydrate diet had no adverse effects on his health or that of the Inuit. Stefansson also observed that the Inuit were able to obtain essential vitamins from their traditional winter diet that did not contain much plant matter. In another instance, he found that “enough vitamin C could be obtained from raw meat such as Ringed Seal liver and whale skin.”  While there was a lot of concern when he reported these findings, there have been similar findings in other reports.

Bibliography: New World Encyclopedia contributors, "Inuit," New World Encyclopedia, , http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/p/index.php?title=Inuit&oldid=954781 (accessed April 7, 2013).

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