Facultative Carnivore

Before quite reaching Langton Bay harbor, however, we came upon sled tracks, and at the harbor itself we found Dr. Anderson and our Eskimo safe, comfortably housed and fairly well supplied with food. The main part of the food was whale, the carcass of which had drifted into the beach just before the freeze-up in the fall. This animal had been freshly killed when he drifted ashore, and furnished us, therefore, a supply of food which was not only abundant but also palatable. I found here waiting for me some mail, to get which Dr. Anderson had had to make a thousand-mile trip the previous summer west to the whaling-station at Herschel Island. My most recent letter had been written on the 13th of May, 1910, and it was now the 4th of December.

After resting about two weeks we started back toward Bear Lake, leaving the same four Eskimo behind, although Dr. Anderson accompanied us. Knowing the character of the country, and having plenty of food at Langton Bay, we loaded the sleds with provisions, which, together with the caribou meat we had cached inland, would be equal to about twenty-five days' full rations. Had everything on the homeward road been as it was on the northwestward journey, this would have been ample, for we had come from Bear Lake to the sea in twenty-six days, but we were now a month later in the season; the sun had long ago gone away and we had only twilight at noon, and the snow lay thick and soft in many places in the river where on the way north there was glare ice. Our progress southward was therefore very slow, and by the time we reached that point of Horton River where one begins the portage to Bear Lake we were on short rations again. In our two days' crossing of the Barren Ground we again had a blizzard, but again it happened to be blowing at our backs and rather helped than hindered us, although we could see practically nothing of the country through which we traveled.

On our second day in the Barren Ground we had the last and most striking proof of Johnny's infallibility. We had come to perhaps a dozen trees, and I said to Johnny, “ Well, this is fine; now we are back in your Bear Lake woods again." No, that was not so, he said. There were two ranges of hills on the Barren Ground. One of these was right in the middle of the Barren Ground, and on the southerly slope of this range were a few trees. It was at these trees we now were, and if we left them, it would take us another whole day of travel before we came to the next. He told us, therefore, that unless we wanted to camp without firewood we must camp here. Dr. Anderson and I talked this over, and we agreed that Johnny had never in the past proved right in anything; but still it seemed better to do as he advised, for, after all, this was his own country, and he ought to know something about it. The blizzard was still blowing, and it was intensely cold. If we had pitched camp where there were no trees we should have made a small tent, Eskimo fashion, and it would have taken us only a few moments to do so; but now that we had trees we put up an Indian-style tepee, a difficult thing to do in a storm, and a matter of two hours or so of hard work during which all of us froze our faces several times and suffered other minor inconveniences. My idea had been, on seeing these few trees, that we were now on the edge of the forest, and that a few miles more of travel would bring us into the thick of woods where no wind can stir the snow; and in the morning when we awoke and looked out, sure enough, there was the edge of the forest only a few hundred yards away, with the woods stretching black and unbroken toward Bear Lake. But for the wisdom of Johnny Sanderson we might have camped in its shelter and escaped one of the most disagreeable camp making experiences we ever had.

The next day we had traveled only a few miles before we came upon the tracks of caribou. Our thermometer had broken some time before, and so I speak without the book, but there is little doubt that the temperature was considerably below 50 ° Fahrenheit. There was not a breath of air stirring. While the other three proceeded with the sled I struck out to one side to look for caribou. First I saw a band that had been frightened by our main party. There were only a few clearings in the woods, but wherever the animals were you could discover their presence by the clouds of steam that rose from them high above the tops of the trees.

There are few things one sees in the North so nearly beyond belief as certain of the phenomena of intense cold as I saw and heard them that day. It turned out that the woods were full of caribou, and wherever a band was running you could not only see the steam rising from it and revealing its presence, even on the other side of a fairly high hill, but, more remarkable still, the air was so calm that where an animal ran past rapidly he left behind him a cloud of steam hovering over his trail and marking it out plainly for a mile behind him. When you stopped to listen, you could hear the tramp of marching caribou all around you. On such days as this I have watched caribou bands a full mile away whose walking I could hear distinctly although there was no crust on the snow; and as for them, they could not only hear me walking, but could even tell the difference in the sounds of my footsteps from those of the hundreds of caribou that were walking about at the same time.

My first opportunity to shoot came through my hearing the approach of a small band. I stopped still and waited for them. I was not nervous, but rather absent-minded. In other words, my mind was more fully occupied than it should have been with the importance of getting those particular caribou. I always carry the magazine of my rifle full but the chamber empty, and as the animals approached I drew back the bolt to throw a cartridge into the chamber, but when I tried to shove the bolt forward it stuck fast. This is the only time in four years of hard usage that anything has interfered with the perfect working of my Mannlicher-Schoenauer. The caribou were moving past without seeing me, and I became a bit excited. I knew the rifle was strong, and I hammered on the end of the bolt with the palm of my hand, but it would not move. When the caribou were finally out of range and when nothing more could be done, I for the first time took a good look at the rifle to try to discover the trouble, and saw that one side of the bolt had something frozen fast to it. It turned out that when I had drawn the bolt back to load the rifle I had carelessly allowed the palm of my bare hand to rest against the bolt, and a piece of skin about an inch long and a quarter of an inch wide had frozen fast to the bolt and been torn away from my hand without my noticing it. It took but a few moments scraping with my hunting knife to remove the blood from the bolt, and the rifle was in good working order again.

Three days later we reached the house of Melvill and Hornby on Bear Lake, thirty-three days after leaving Langton Bay. After a short visit with them and Mr. Hodgson we proceeded up the Dease River and found Tannaumirk and Pannigabluk well, although getting short of food, for Tannaumirk was not a hunter of much enterprise.

No caribou were just then to be found near our winter quarters, so Dr. Anderson, one of the Eskimo, and myself struck out south to look for them. On the second day we found them near the northeast corner of Bear Lake, but had hard luck that day on account of variable faint airs that continually gave the animals our wind. The next day, however, we got sixteen, and within the next twenty days thereafter fifty -two more, which was plenty of meat for the rest of the winter.

Despite uniformity of culture and language, the various miut displayed minor differences, based upon their adaptation to local resources. While some groups were primarily dependent on seal and polar bear, others focused on caribou and musk oxen. Although people exploited whatever resources happened to be available in their particular region, the pattern of subsistence and social organization was fundamentally the same. At the time of contact the total population of Copper Inuit was probably no more than 800 to 900, scattered over a vast territory of Arctic tundra, probably exceeding 80,000 square miles.

Environment

The environment of the Copper Inuit is mostly treeless Arctic tundra, although some wooded areas can be found in the southernmost reaches of Copper Inuit territory. The climate is severe, with winter temperatures frequently reaching -50 degrees Fahrenheit(-45 degrees C) in some areas. The monthly mean of the coldest month of the year, February, is between -20 and -28 Fahrenheit (-29 degrees C and -33 degrees Celsius) and the monthly mean of the warmest month, July, is in the high forties 7 to 10 C. Precipitation is minimal. Most of this falls as snow and accumulates in high drifts as a result of blowing winds. The amount of sunlight varies dramatically by season. In the Holman reason, for example, the sun drops below the horizon in the third week in November and stays down until January 16th or 17th. During these two months, there is only a brief daily period of twilight at midday which becomes progressively darker and shorter until the winter solstice. In summer, the sun stays above the horizon for an equivalent period, providing, as it circles, long hours of sunlight for people to hunt, fish and travel.

As is true of much of the Canadian Arctic, the tundra ecosystem is characterized by extremely low biological productivity. Significantly less energy is absorbed by the arctic ecosystem, compared with more temperate regions. Almost no energy is absorbed in winter. Even in summer, with the sun above the horizon 24 hours a day, the sun's rays are extremely weak, contributing little radiant energy to either the time or the Marine ecosystem. The net result Arctic operates under a significant energy deficient, with great implications for plant and animals and for the people who depend upon them for survival.

In winter, the straits, sounds, and gulfs in Copper Inuit territory are frozen in a continuous sheet of ice from October or November until July. This is ideal habitat for ring seals, which prefer solid, land fast ice with the early formation in fall and late Break Up In Summer.

Seasonal round

Since the environment was marked as it still is by dramatic seasonal fluctuations in temperature, light duration, snowfall, ice conditions, and game availability, copper Inuit families had to display great flexibility and economic and social organization in order to adapt successfully to the demands of each season. One of the most important phases of copper Inuit life was the winter season of breathing hole sealing. this was the coldest and the darkest time of year and it tested the Inuits ability to survive such harsh conditions large snow house communities typically formed out on the sea ice in locations close to good sealing grounds.  movement onto the ice was accomplished as soon as ice conditions became stable enough for travel and camping, ideally by late November or early December. These snow house Villages buried in size from about 50 individuals to as many as 150. Damas (1984:400)  estimates that the mean size range from about 91 to 117. Most of the people who resided in the snow house Villages were related, either closely or distantly, but many non-relatives were included as well. Villages moved when sealing became unproductive, with smaller groups occasionally splitting off.

Camping in Winter

Ruth Nigiyonak. I remember camping in the winter season out on the Frozen sea ice. As a child, during the winter, the people never stayed on land. When winter came, the people moved out on the ice. For the winter, the people would build large snow house with a big work space in the center. From the sides, they would build tunnels. At the end of each tunnel, a family would built their living quarters. The center was a workspace or a place to gather for games, drum dances, and stories. That was repeated each year.

During the winter, an elaborate system of seal-sharing among both kin and nonkin was the dominant form of food distribution. Breathing-hole sealing requires a degree of cooperation among hunters, who dispersed over a wide area to cover as many breathing holes as possible. Since each seal maintains a number of breathing holes, this strategy maximizes the chances that at least one hunter from a group would be successful. Once caught, the seal is divided into 12 to 14 Parts, each part given to a predetermined exchange partner who would reciprocate sometime in the future with the same body part. Names were applied to seal sharing Partners based on the animal part exchanged: flipper companion, liver companion, and so forth. A man's co-sharing partners were usually assigned by parents and other adults at the time of a hunter's first kill. Kinship factors were irrelevant to such partnerships since both kin and nonkin could be included in these networks.

Winter subsistence pursuits also included polar bear hunting and some areas, the importance of which for subsistence varied from year to year depending upon availability. The Copper Inuit who entered between Banks Island and Northwestern Victoria Island relied more heavily upon polar bear than other Copper Inuit groups.

Winter was an important time for Community social festivities, which were included in a large ceremonial snow house or qagli.  Because cold, darkness, and the frequent blizzards limited the amount of time that men could stay out hunting, people would pass their time playing games, drum dancing, and occasionally observing shamanic performances. Given the size of some snow house communities, it was not unusual for the qigli to be bursting with observers and participants. The copper Inuit spent much of the spring, summer, and early fall wandering on the tundra and small family groups, and winter presented the climax of community social life.

With the arrival of warmer weather and longer daylight hours in April and May, the Copper Inuit started hunting for basking seals. This was a more individualistic pursuit, requiring the hunter to walk and crawl great distances to Harpoon seals basking next to a crack or seal hole. Breathing hole ceiling, as well, continued into May, and some copper and you it made excursions to hunt polar bears as their hibernation ended. By Spring, the large snow house communities usually started to break into smaller groups each headed in a different direction. Movement was initially along the coastline, because the tundra would still be wet and unpleasant for travel. Eventually, the ocean ice was abandoned altogether, marking the beginning of the Inland phase of the yearly cycle. The abandonment of snow houses in Spring is understandable. As warmer weather conditions made the interior wet and uncomfortable, modified snow houses were made. He's consisted of the lower half of a snow house with a skin roof over it. As the year progresses, skin test tents replaced those these modified snow houses as people moved up to the land.

Until the first decade of the twentieth century, contact with the Inuit of western Victoria Island and eastern Banks Island was sporadic. McClure, Collinson, Klengenberg, and Mogg offer little detailed information concerning the culture, population, or movements of the people they met. The published works of the noted anthropologist and explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson offer the first detailed information about the Copper Inuit.

Stefansson had been at Herschel Island on his first arctic expedition when Klengenberg returned in 1906 from his trading expedition to Victoria Island. As an anthropologist, Stefansson was most interested in the stories Klengenberg and his crew told about this "new group" of Inuit. Klengenberg reported that the people dressed in parkas with long tails in the back, that they used weapons and tools made out of copper, that most of them had never seen a white man (except for the very oldest, who reported seeing Collinson in the winter of 1851/1852), and that Victoria Island abounded in copper. Since Klengenberg had traded extensively with these Inuit, he was able to show Stefansson and others his collection of Kangiryuarmiut knives hammered out of native copper, finely made bows with sinew backing, quivers full of arrows tipped with copper, and dozens of suits of clothing expertly sewn with copper needles (Stefansson 1906).

In his book My Life with the Eskimo (1913), Stefansson writes of having arrived at a small island near the south shore of Prince Albert Sound:

From the top of the island the next morning I could with the glasses see a native village on the ice ten or fifteen miles to the northwest, approximately in the middle of Prince Albert Sound. When we approached it we saw this to be the largest village of our whole experience. It turned out that there were twenty-seven dwelling houses in it. We had, of course, seen the ruined trading village at Cape Bexley [on the southern shore of Dolphin and Union Strait], which had over fifty dwellings, bu these had been the houses of traders from half a dozen or more different tribes, while this turned out to be the one tribe of the Kanghirgyuargmiut, and they were not all at home either, for later on we visited another village of three houses of the same people, and a third village of four houses we never saw at all (Stefansson 1913: 278).

Stefansson and Natkusiak approached the village and were met several miles south of it by a group of three hunters who had been seal hunting on the ice. The three hunters seemed a little timid at first, but indicated that Stefansson and Natkusiak had come from the southeast, a country inhabited by their neighbors, the Puivlirmiut, "who were now and then in the habit of arriving by the same route as ours, and at this season of the year, for purposes of trade" (Stefansson 1913:279). Stefansson and Natkusiak assured them that they had originated from the southwest but were arriving from the southeast simply because they had been visiting the Haneragmiut to the south. Stefansson added that they belonged to the same group of people who had visited several years before in a large schooner--the Olga. The three hunters remembered the Olga and had liked its crew. 

First White Men

Willam Kuptana. The first encounter with white men was at Kangiqyuak[Prince Albert Sound]... That was the first time they ever saw white people. The white people were Billy Banksland[Natkusiak--actually an Inuk from Alaska] and his partner. That was also the first time the rifle was introduced to the Inuit. He advised the Inuit that the gun was dangerous. He told the Inuit not the handle the rifles.

Incidentally, the herd of caribou were crossing from Banks Island to Victoria Island near the settlement where the Inuit were camped. Billy Banksland's partner ran forward to intercept the herd. He then abruptly aimed and fired the rifle and struck down one caribou. At that instance, the Inuit immediately rushed to the caribou that was shot down. In no time at all, the fresh killed carcass was devoured by the Inuit. 

The white man started in disbelief at the way the carcass disappeared so swiftly. The reason the Inuit devoured the caribou so quickly was because it was a change in diet. Their main staple food all winter was seal meat. 

The high ideals of the poet, artist and philosopher kept athletics comparatively pure for a short time, but when the patriotic wave that followed the Persian war had spent its force, the decline in amateurism was rapid, and we enter the third period where too much competition begat specialization; specialization begat professionalism, and that in itself was death to true sport. Even the good athlete could not hope for success unless he put himself under a rigorous and prolonged course of training. The trainers had to concentrate on the preparation for single events. "The runner," says Socrates, "has over-developed his legs, the boxer his arms and shoulders." 

Up to this time the athletes had lived a simple natural life in the open air, eating figs, cheese, porridge and meal cakes, with meat only occasionally. The introduction of a meat diet is ascribed to Pythagoras of Samos(c. 570 – c. 495 BC), a trainer of boxing and other sports. It was momentous in that it at once created an artificial distinction between the life of the athlete and the life of the ordinary man, who ate meat but sparingly, just as our training tables place the athletes in an artificial and unnatural class by themselves, being used for this purpose quite as much as for any special diet that may be prescribed. 

The object of a meat diet was to make weight, for there was no classification in Greece of boxers and wrestlers into light, middle, and heavy weights. Weight then was important, and to produce this bulk the trainer prescribed vast quantities of meat, so that eating, sleeping and exercise occupied the athlete's entire time. 

Euripides calls such an athlete "the slave of his jaw and his belly," and the generals and soldiers condemned this training because it left no time for the practice of military exercises, and failed to produce the all-round development necessary for the useful soldier and citizen. The sacrifice for supreme excellence in a specialty was too great to make success a sufficient reward. Athletics had now passed that point where they could serve their true purpose of providing exercise or recreation. The competition was too severe and the training too artificial and exacting. It became the monopoly of the few professionals who devoted their entire time to it, while the rest of the young men, despairing of success, took to the hill as spectators. The amateur could not compete with the professional. Before the close of the fifth century, the word athlete had come to denote a professional, and amateur athletics were no longer practiced by the fashionable youth of Athens. Socrates, taunting an ill-developed youth with his unprofessional condition of body, meets the answer, "Of course, for I am not a professional but an amateur." 

Whereupon Socrates reads him a lecture on the necessity of developing his body to the utmost, saying: "No citizen has a right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a part of his profession as a citizen to keep himself in good condition and ready to serve his state at amoment's notice." "What a disgrace it is for aman to grow old without ever seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable."

Fun Wikipedia Facts about Pythagoras:

Pythagoreanism also entailed a number of dietary prohibitions.[107][156][172] It is more or less agreed that Pythagoras issued a prohibition against the consumption of fava beans[173][156] and the meat of non-sacrificial animals such as fish and poultry.[166][156] Both of these assumptions, however, have been contradicted.[174][175] Pythagorean dietary restrictions may have been motivated by belief in the doctrine of metempsychosis.[146][176][177][178] Some ancient writers present Pythagoras as enforcing a strictly vegetarian diet.[e][146][177] Eudoxus of Cnidus, a student of Archytas, writes, "Pythagoras was distinguished by such purity and so avoided killing and killers that he not only abstained from animal foods, but even kept his distance from cooks and hunters."[179][180] Other authorities contradict this statement.[181] According to Aristoxenus,[182] Pythagoras allowed the use of all kinds of animal food except the flesh of oxen used for ploughing, and rams.[180][183] According to Heraclides Ponticus, Pythagoras ate the meat from sacrifices[180] and established a diet for athletes dependent on meat.[180]

As with many other Inuit groups, Copper Inuit religion was more concerned with the here and now than with an afterlife. Most important was the relationship between humans and the spirits of the animals upon which humans depended for food. It was essential that the proper rituals be followed, so as not to offend these spirits, who are perceived as being much like humans. An animal spirit that had been offended through the violation of a taboo or the omission of an important ritual might decide to take revenge upon the group as a whole. Illness, starvation, or some other disaster could result. Copper Inuit observed a number of taboos which were believed to be important to maintaining good relations with the spirit world. A number of observances were related to the separation of land animals and sea animals. Copper Inuit were prohibited for cooking products of the land and sea in the same pot. Nor could they place seal meat next to caribou meat on the sleeping platform of the snow house.  Most pronounced was the prohibition against sewing caribou skin clothing during the early winter. All winter clothing had to be prepared in the fall, at the gathering places, and completed before the move to the sealing grounds on the sea ice.

In addition to believing in the spirits of animals and the shades of deceased humans, the Copper Inuit subscribe to a world inhabited by wondrous and often dangerous creatures dwarfs, giants, and Caribou people. They believed in a sea goddess (known as Sedna in other regions) who control the animals of the Seas. Arnapkapfaaluk, or 'big bad woman,' was not a benevolent goddess looking out for human beings: when offended by the violation of a taboo or some indiscriminate action, she would withhold the seals upon which people depended for survival.

Animal spirits

William Kuptana: The custom of the Eskimos is that when they take part in a hunt and make a kill, all who hunted the animal must participate in the cutting and sharing of the carcass. Those who do not follow that custom embarrass the animal spirit; therefore, it is believed that the non-participant will be hunted himself.

Death was not accompanied by elaborate ceremony. In Winter, the body was usually left behind and it's no house, while in summer, the body was wrapped in skins and left on the time go. The concept of an afterlife was not well developed. Jenness reported that it was definitely not viewed as a land of joy and plenty, but a "big and gloomy realm where, even if want and misery are not found (and of this they are not certain), joy and gladness at least must surely be unknown." (Jenness 1922: 190)

Shamans (angatkut) Served as important intermediaries between humans in the spirit world. Shamans provided a number of essential functions. They could act as healers, in the event of an illness, or could determine what taboos were violated When Animals became scarce. They were also believed to have powers for controlling the weather and warding off evil spirits. The shaman, acting as an intermediary, could communicate with animal spirits, often doing so with the aid of a spirit helper or familiar. Most angatkut claimed to have more than one helper. Jenness met one Copper Inuit shaman, Uloksak, who claimed to have a white man, a polar bear, a wolf, and a dog as helping Spirits. Shamans could be either male or female, but no matter what their gender they were expected to have some kind of visionary experience whereby a spirit helper revealed itself to the future angatkut. In their shamanistic performances, shamans may have relied upon ventriloquism and other dramatic acts to impress their audiences and demonstrate their powers. Shamans by definition are neither good nor bad. Some angatkut developed reputations for kindness and generosity;  others were greatly feared and used their powers to gain advantage over others.