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Inhuit: Stories and Customs of 'the Real and Great Human Beings'
| Article
# : |
11118 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
3 / 1986 |
5,598 Words |
| Author
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Rolf Gilberg
Rolf Gilberg is curator of the National Museum of Denmark in
Copenhagen. This paper was originally presented at a
conference sponsored by the International Religious Foundation
in November 1985. It is reprinted by permission. |
Along North Greenland's western coast is found a group of the northernmost people on Earth. Usually called "Eskimos," they call themselves INHUIT, which means "the real and great human beings." This ethnic minority, still hunters by profession, has its own dialect and its own subculture. The Inhuit people has survived hundreds of years in the high Arctic environment. They were first visited by the white man in August 1818. Through this visit the Inhuit learned that they were not the only human beings in the world, as they had thought prior to that time.
Until 1950 the Inhuit population of Greenland numbered between 200 and 300 persons. By 1985 they had increased in number to about 700, which is less than one percent of all the Inhuit in the world.
Pre-Christian time for the Inhuit refers to the period up to the first three decades of the twentieth century. Christian missions came to the Inhuit area in 1909, but it took three years to get the first few Inhuit baptized. After twenty-five years all adults were converted to the Danish Lutheran Church, and since then all Inhuits have adhered to that form of Christianity.
This article will describe the beliefs of the pre-Christian Inhuit people, with particular attention to the religious ideas of the traditional Inhuit hunting society.
The Inhuit learned from their ancestors to believe that the Earth was created by soil, stones, mountains, and water falling from the sky. From this Earth the human beings emerged. They multiplied greatly, as in that faraway time there was no knowledge of
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