Eskimo or Eskimos are the indigenous peoples who have traditionally inhabited the northern circumpolar region from eastern Siberia (Russia) to across Alaska, Canada, and Greenland.
Knud Johan Victor Rasmussen was a Greenlandic–Danish polar explorer and anthropologist. He has been called the "father of Eskimology" and was the first European to cross the Northwest Passage via dog sled. He remains well known in Greenland, Denmark and among Canadian Inuit.
Inuit religion is the shared spiritual beliefs and practices of Inuit, an indigenous people from Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. Their religion shares many similarities with religions of other North Polar peoples. Traditional Inuit religious practices include animism and shamanism, in which spiritual healers mediate with spirits.
Sedna is the goddess of the sea and marine animals in Inuit mythology, also known as the Mother of the Sea or Mistress of the Sea. Sedna is also known as Arnakuagsak or Arnaqquassaaq (Greenland) and Sassuma Arnaa and Nerrivik or Nuliajuk. She is sometimes known by other names by different Inuit groups such as Arnapkapfaaluk of the Copper Inuit from the Coronation Gulf area and Takánakapsâluk or Takannaaluk (Igloolik). The story of Sedna, which is a creation myth, describes how she came to rule over Adlivun, the Inuit underworld.
In Inuit mythology, Arnakuagsak was an Inuit goddess, one of the primary deities of the religion, who was responsible for ensuring the hunters were able to catch enough food and that the people remained healthy and strong. She was worshipped primarily in Greenland, but was essentially equivalent to the Canadian Sedna or Arnapkapfaaluk and the Alaskan Nerrivik.
The Adlet are a race of creatures in the Inuit mythology of Greenland, as well as the Labrador and Hudson Bay coasts. While the word refers to inland native American tribes, it also denotes a humanoid dog-legged tribe. The lower part of the body of the canine Adlet is like that of a dog and their upper part is like a man's. All Adlet run quickly, and their encounters with men usually end with man as the victor.
The Eskimo–Aleut languages, Eskaleut languages, or Inuit-Yupik-Unangan languages are a language family native to Alaska, the Canadian Arctic, Nunavik, Nunatsiavut, Greenland and the Chukchi Peninsula, on the eastern tip of Siberia. It is also known as Eskaleutian, Eskaleutic or Inuit–Yupik-Unangan.
The Paleo-Eskimo were the peoples who inhabited the Arctic region from Chukotka in present-day Russia across North America to Greenland prior to the arrival of the modern Inuit (Eskimo) and related cultures. The first known Paleo-Eskimo cultures developed by 2500 BCE, but were gradually displaced in most of the region, with the last one, the Dorset culture, disappearing around 1500 CE.
The Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC), formerly Inuit Circumpolar Conference, is a multinational non-governmental organization (NGO) and Indigenous Peoples' Organization (IPO) representing the 160,000 Inuit people living in Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Chukotka (Russia). ICC was ECOSOC-accredited and was granted special consultative status at the UN in 1983.
Blonde Eskimos or Blond Eskimos is a term first applied to sightings and encounters of light haired Inuit peoples of Northern Canada from the early 20th century, particularly around the Coronation Gulf between mainland Canada and Victoria Island. Sightings of light haired natives of the Arctic however stretch back to written accounts from the 17th century.
Lorenz Peter Elfred Freuchen was a Danish explorer, author, journalist and anthropologist. He is notable for his role in Arctic exploration, especially the Thule Expeditions.
Masks among Eskimo peoples served a variety of functions. Masks were made out of driftwood, animal skins, bones and feathers. They were often painted using bright colors. There are archeological miniature maskettes made of walrus ivory, coming from early Paleo-Eskimo and from early Dorset culture period.
Traditional Alaskan Native religion involves mediation between people and spirits, souls, and other immortal beings. Such beliefs and practices were once widespread among Inuit, Yupik, Aleut, and Northwest Coastal Indian cultures, but today are less common. They were already in decline among many groups when the first major ethnological research was done. For example, at the end of the 19th century, Sagdloq, the last medicine man among what were then called in English, "Polar Eskimos", died; he was believed to be able to travel to the sky and under the sea, and was also known for using ventriloquism and sleight-of-hand.
In Greenlandic Inuit religion, a tupilaq was an avenging monster fabricated by a practitioner of witchcraft or shamanism by using various objects such as animal parts and even parts taken from the corpses of children. The creature was given life by ritualistic chants. It was then placed into the sea to seek and destroy a specific enemy.
The Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Greenland, Canada, and Alaska. The Inuit languages are part of the Eskimo–Aleut family. Inuit Sign Language is a critically endangered language isolate used in Nunavut.
In the form of Inuit mythology in vogue among the Iñupiaq Eskimo of north-western Alaska, Tuluŋigraq was a god created by the primordial aana goddess.
The qulliq, is the traditional oil lamp used by Arctic peoples, including the Inuit, the Chukchi and the Yupik peoples.
Uvavnuk was an Inuk woman born in the 19th century, now considered an oral poet. The story of how she became an angakkuq, and the song that came to her, were collected by European explorers of Arctic Canada in the early 1920s. Her shamanistic poem-song, best known as "Earth and the Great Weather". has been anthologised many times.
The Greenlandic Inuit are the indigenous peoples and the most populous ethnic group in Greenland. Most speak Greenlandic and consider themselves ethnically Greenlandic. People of Greenland are citizens of Denmark.
Kaj Birket-Smith was a Danish philologist and anthropologist. He specialized in studying the habits and language of the Inuit and Eyak. He was a member of Knud Rasmussen's 1921 Thule expedition. In 1940, he became director of the Ethnographic Department of the National Museum of Denmark.
