Eric H. Mitchell - Inukshooks and Etigaseemautes: Mysterious Beacons of the North

Inukshooks and Etigaseemautes: Mysterious Beacons of the North​ by Eric H. Mitchell Pillars of stone encrusted with lichen - so many loose stones laid one upon another, yet in all probability standing as solidly today as when Pliny was writing his letters. Such are the cairns called by the Eskimos “Inukshooks”, a word that means “like a person” for at a distance they are just that, forlorn figures silhouetted against the horizon, standing in a vast, treeless and timeless land, monuments to people to a way of life that is now gone.

They are one of the salient features of the North, and they give to their place an air of serenity, at times of mystery, as if all that had transpired in the past were embodied in their silent forms.

Their functions were numerous and the reason for their being, wherever they are, was specific. Their age is probably the age of man in the Arctic, for the Eskimos say they were there before they came. They also say that it was the Tunrit, the people who prepared the land, that built the cairns and the fish weirs and who, by the aid of Inukshooks, compelled the caribou to follow certain paths so that they could be killed.

Inukshooks served many purposes: as landmarks to identify one particular place from another; to give bearings to a traveller coming in from the frozen sea to a flat featureless coast; in more recent times, others were built by the explorers to mark their farthest penetration or the places where their records lay buried.

In the land barren and treeless, traversed by numerous herds of caribou, Inukshooks were once employed in hunting. As the name suggests, they complimented in stone, for the purpose of the hunt, the numbers the people were lacking in themselves. Long rows of these pillars were built to simulate man and were placed in such a way as to lead or drive the caribou herds to a place of ambush. While the women followed at the rear of the herd, men and boys ran in and out between the pillars to convince the shortsighted caribou that they were, in effect, people. Such scenes usually took place at crossing places by lakes where the caribou were driven into the water, and speared from kayaks, where local conditions were inadequate for the effective use of a single row of Inukshooks, two converging rows were used between which the caribou were driven. At the apex, archers crouched behind stone blinds and silently dispatched their arrows into the flanks of the running animals.

The lives of the people depended much on this style of hunting and in the elaborate preparation and careful maneuvers necessary for its success the greatest care was taken to see that no spirit was offended or taboo broken during its execution. The crossing places became holy places, and exact rules of conduct were observed. No woman was allowed to traverse them, nor to assist in the flaying of the animals that had been killed. A woman in the eyes of the spirits was unclean as far as game was concerned, and would certainly offend the soul of the dead caribou. Offerings of certain portions of the caribou were left on the site carefully placed

within stone enclosures, or laid within the ruins of the old Tunrit houses which were frequently close by the crossing places. These houses had become sacrariums themselves, a commemoration perhaps to the Tunrit people who were the architects of the Inukshooks and this method of hunting.

The stonemasons of the past, the Tunrit, were the architects of another form of rock monument more massive than the Inukshook, the Etigaseemaute (that which is raised from the ground). These huge boulders, sometimes weighing many tons, set upon small rocks, are as much a mystery today as they were to the Eskimos who first saw them. Perched in the valleys of Melville Peninsula they stand reminiscent of altars, though perhaps never for that purpose. Yet they suggest of the occult, and are found in numbers over a wide area, some of a size that admits no practical purpose: dimensions vary from rocks no larger than a book set upon four pebbles to the massive proportions described. Whatever the reason for their being, they remain a testimony to the ingenuity of a people who lived in the Arctic many hundreds of years ago.

A faint air of mystery prevails throughout the Arctic and nowhere more strongly than among its pillars and mounted stones. In a land that has remained little changed through the millenniums that man has lived in it this is perhaps not surprising. The aura of the past emanates from the holy crossing places, from the numerous and ancient tent rings, some 4000 years old, from the old houses, and the many other stone structures unlisted here, but prolific throughout the land. These are the silent, awesome witnesses of the generations of struggle for life that took place around them.

E. Mitchell has based his account on information given to him by the Eskimos themselves, and from accounts of early Arctic expeditions. Mr. Mitchell, formerly with the Bay, served many years in the north.

The editor wishes to acknowledge the assistance of Dr. Taylor of the National Museum of Canada.