Being
Born
Being
Born
I remember being born. I was born on the land while we were traveling by foot along the shore of the Arctic Ocean. It was summer. I do not know what year it was. Perhaps 1934. Inuit did not use large numbers or calendars to know the time. So my mother could not tell me the year.
But I remember coming
out of my mother's body. I remember seeing how the land looked. The day
was very beautiful and hot. I could see people all around me, and there
were many dogs with loads on their backs. I thought it would always be
that time — with the same weather and the same people always with me.
My parents
and my two uncles were my family. I was the only child in their igloo.
At my birth they rubbed the skin of the seagull over my eyes so that when
I became a hunter, I would have good eyesight.
There was also
an old man living with us, one of my mother's elder relatives. He became
my Inuk Hanayuq — the person who makes the name. He holds the newborn baby
and says how its character will grow. This is a blessing with great power.
My Inuk Hanayuq said that my words would be strong and the people would
listen to them. His spirit still protects me and guides me. I often feel
him giving strength to my words. No one told me what he had predicted for
me, not until it began to come true.
The
Edge of the World
We call ourselves Inuit,
which means "the people." We did not have schools. We learned everything
from the land.
We learned about time
from the sky, not from clocks. During the day, the sun told us the time
as it crossed the sky. At night we looked at the whole sky. We watched
for when the moon came out and went away again. And when the different
stars appeared and disappeared. The sky was our clock.
We never used a compass.
We looked at the way the wind shaped the snow. The wind generally blows
in one steady direction, from north to south. So there were hardened snowdrifts
that showed which way was north and south. At night the stars told us the
directions.