Description
Inuit are a group of culturally and historically similar Indigenous peoples traditionally inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of North America, including Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, Yukon, Alaska, and Chukotsky District of Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia. Canadian Inuit live throughout most of Northern Canada in the territory of Nunavut, Nunavik in the northern third of Quebec, Nunatsiavut and NunatuKavut in Labrador, and in various parts of the Northwest Territories and Yukon, particularly around the Arctic Ocean, in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region. Inuit are the descendants of what anthropologists call the Thule people, who emerged from the Bering Strait and western Alaska around 1000 CE. Inuit legends speak of the Tuniit as "giants", people who were taller and stronger than Inuit. Less frequently, the legends refer to the Dorset as "dwarfs".
Language
Inuit languages are part of the Eskimo–Aleut languages, also known as Inuit-Yupik-Unangan, and also as Eskaleut. Inuit Sign Language is a critically endangered language isolate used in Nunavut.
Culture
I have traditionally been fishermen and hunters. They still hunt whales, seal , polar bears, muskoxen, caribou, birds, and fish and at times other less commonly eaten animals such as the Arctic fox. The typical Inuit diet is high in protein and very high in fat – in their traditional diets, Inuit consumed an average of 75 per cent of their daily energy intake from fat. While it is not possible to cultivate plants for food in the Arctic, Inuit have traditionally gathered those that are naturally available. Grasses, tubers, roots, Plant stems, berries, and seaweed (kuanniq or edible seaweed) were collected and preserved depending on the season and the location. The ancient art of face tattooing among Inuit women, which is called kakiniit or tunniit in Inuktitut, dates back nearly 4,000 years. Inuit hunted sea animals from single-passenger, seal-skin covered boats called qajaq and in winter, both on land and on sea ice, Inuit used dog sleds (qamutik) for transportation.