Historical Event
Date:
January 2, 1922
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Short Description:
Jenness is amazed at the Copper Inuit's energy and patience and endurance, perhaps indicating the results of their superb diet, but also the skills needed to thrive in such an inhospitable place.
Title:
Book:
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The Northern Copper Inuit - A history
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Important Text:
Early chroniclers of Copper Inuit culture were also impressed with their energy, patience, and endurance. As Jenness (1922:235) wrote:
The Copper Eskimos think nothing of spending 24 hours on a hunt, tramping continually over stony hills without a morsel of food, and with only a few short halts to rest their limbs and look about them. In Spring I've seen them spend whole days fruitlessly digging one hole after another through the thick ice of the lakes and drinking their lines without ever getting a bite. In Winter they sit for hours over there seal holes even in howling blizzard where the temperature is 30 and more below zero Fahrenheit. The patience instilled in them by hunting become so ingrained in their very natures and permeates all their social life, so that tolerance and forbearance are two of the most marked features in Eskimo Society.