Breathing life into the past

Breathing life into the past

Inuvialuit Living History Project keeps Artifacts, Culture and Traditions Alive

Without attention, the past is easy to forget.

Spawned from an appreciation for the collection of Inuvialuit artifacts at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., the Inuvialuit Living History Project seeks to keep those memories alive with a constant celebration of Inuvialuit history.

The Smithsonian’s MacFarlane Collection, named after the Hudson’s Bay trader who assembled the objects, includes thousands of natural history specimens, from birds’ eggs to animal skeletons, plus 300 cultural objects collected from Anderson River Inuvialuit in the 1860s.

This September, the team in charge of the project brought some of those items to Inuvik at East Three School for students and the public to admire and inspect.

Elders spent the week with students teaching them about ways of the past and present, from carving fish hooks to telling stories and playing Inuvialuit games. Between sessions, students perused the artifacts and learned about their origins. The gathering included a community feast and drum dancing.

In the following pages are photos from the event and words from some of the elders on the importance of keeping Inuvialuit history alive.

Albert Elias

Our Inuvialuit history has never been taught in schools before. A lot of people wrote books about the North, but it wasn’t taught in schools.

What’s happening now is we’re bringing it into the schools and making students aware of how our ancestors made their living off the land, how they made tools for hunting and clothing from wildlife.

It’s important for our young people to know where they came from.

Inuvialuit culture is special because it’s a unique way of life. We live in a harsh environment for most of the year. It’s important for the youth to learn that we survived all those hardships.

Some years, we had to travel to different parts of the country to hunt, be nomadic and look for game. We had to keep adjusting to weather conditions and live in harmony with the land, sky and weather. We learned to be resilient facing those hardships. That’s the only way we survived. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be seeing us.

Inuvialuit ingilraan pitqusingit ilisautisuitkait ilisarvingni. Inugiaktut kitulliqa quliaqtualiuqpaktuat makpiraatigun Nunaptigun.

Taima aasiin qangma sivvullipta qanuq inuuniarutingat nunami nayuqtaptingni qanurlu sanatilaangit anguniarutait an’nuraaliurutaillu niryutinin. Nukatpiqat ilisimayaksariyaat tajva sivvullipta pitqusiatigun.

Inuvialuit pitqusingat akijusimayuq inmingnik inuusirigamidjung. Nayuqtaqput ilaanni sapirnaqtuq. Nukatpiqat taamna ilisimayaksariyangat tamatkuat sapirnautit apqutigivakkavut. Nikasungituni sunaliqa pitarinaqtuq.

Ilaani ukiuni aulavaktuanni sumunliqa nunaptingni sangubluta angunilukluta. Sila malirutpakaqput inuuniarapta nunami. Sapiqsautit tamatkuat inuugapta sungiutivakkavut. Taimannatualuk inuuvaktuanni. Takulaitkaluaraptigut taimani in’ngitkupta.

Nellie Arey

I’ve been trying to pass on what we do to the young kids.

Life has changed so much nowadays. Kids forget their language. They can’t understand it. If they could get back to their language, that would be really good, but it’s so hard.

I grew up with the Inuvialuit language. I hope these students can get back to our language. It’s better to teach them when they’re young.

I always talk to those kids when they’re going to school and say, “Don’t quit. Keep going until you graduate.” Because when you’ve never been in school before and you don’t know how to read or write, it’s not easy.

Ilisautiniaqpakkatka qanuq iliurutiptigun nukatpiqat. Inuusiqput qangma allangurluaqtuaq. Nukatpiqat uqausiqput puigugaat. Qangiqsilaiqlugu. Nakuuniaraluaqtuq tajva uqalasigumik Inuvialuktun sapirnaraluaqtilugu.

Inuvialuktun uqaataqlunga inuguqtuami. Ukuat ilisaqtuat nukatpiqat ilitkumik uqausiptigun iluriniaraluaqtuat. Nutaqat puqiqtut. Nuttaqqat uqautivakkatka ilisaqsimayuat imana: “Daimaaqpangnak. Iniqqaarnagu ilisarniq.” Ilisayuitkuvit taigurnirmik aglangnirmiklu naluniaqtutin, spairnaqtuq.

Darrel Nasogaluak

In today’s world, all the information is online. It’s different from our traditional culture, where everything was orally passed on. We had no written history.

If you go online and try to learn about Inuvialuit culture and history, you’re going to get mostly southern perspectives, from an ethnographer or somebody who came north to talk to Inuvialuit. You won’t get Inuvialuit perspective. There are a couple of unique examples, like the I, Nuligak book.

It’s important to come to something like this to spark the interest of the youth to go out and ask their grandfather, “Who are you and where do you come from? Who am I and where do I come from?”

One of the really important things to Inuvialuit is family, who you are and where you come from. The next important thing is our traditional foods and harvesting. The third important thing is our land, so that we can maintain the traditional foods, harvesting and our lifestyle.

The Inuvialuit are unique. Though we have commonalities between us, each community’s unique. We have our own different songs and family histories.

The Mackenzie River, a rich hunting and harvesting area, has created a very rich culture. The country, land and water are so rich that it afforded us quite a bit of free time to develop culture, song, dance, stories and pastimes.

The technology of using wood was really refined because we had so much good wood. It’s a bit of a lost art. Our ancestors used wood in so many different ways, and we don’t use it today because we’ve got all the modern plastics.

It was encouraging to see so many people come out and share our culture.

Qangma tajva qaritauyakkun kisian. Allangayuq inuusiptingnin. Pitqusiqtingnin allangayuq. Ingilraan uqautiugaqlugit ilisautivakkavut. Aglayuittugut taimani. Qaritauyakkun ilisarniakiruvit Inuvialuit pitqusiitigun tan’ngit kisian quliaqtuatik tusaaniakkatin. Tan’ngit nunaptingnun qaiyuat uqausiriblugit Inuvialuit pitqusiinnik. Uvaptingnik isumaptingnik tusaalaittut. Ilitchurinaqtuq taiguaq makpiraani “I, Nuligak.”

Suqpavialuk tajva uvani katimayuni nukatpiqat ilitqublugit ataatatik apiqsurlugit. “Kinauvit nakin qaivit? Kinauvik nakin qaivik?”

Inuvialuit kitut ilatik ilisimayaksariyait. Kituutilaanlu nakinlu qaimavit. Anguniarnirlu niqivialuillu. Pingasuat tajva nunapta niryutait inuuisqpullu suqpauyuq.

Inuvialuit inmigun inuusilgit. Inuusiqput innilaani adjigiikapsaktuq. Inmingnik pitqusiruaqtut. Allagiit, atuutait, ilangitallu idjusingit.

Kuukpak (Mackenzie River) nuna niryutauyuq quyallitauvialuktuq pitqusiptingnun. Nunalu imarlu quyallitauyuq. Tun’ngavigiyuatun itkikput. Ikayuutauyuq atuutiptigun, mumrutiptigun, unipkaat, quliaqtuat, ulapqiyautillu piuyautit.

Qiyuuvailluni ilanga nunakput qanurliqaa qiyuk quyallitauvaktuaq. Qangma aturluadjaikkaqput. Sivvullivut qanurliqa qiyuk atuqpakaqput. Qangma asiin atutjaikaqput nutaat kisian takumayavut qaranaqiblutik. Quvianangayak inugiaktut inuit takumagaptigit uvani katimayuanni.