Dissertation

Central Inuit social structure: The view from Cumberland Sound, Baffin Island, Northwest Territories

Stevenson, Marc G

1993

Overview

The search for structure in Central Inuit socioeconomic organization has been a frustrating quest for Arctic anthropologists. The inability to explain variability within and between regional groups has led to post hoc accommodative arguments which hold that Central Inuit society is somehow less structured than other preliterate societies, or that the environment is the ultimate architect of their socioeconomy. This thesis, in exploring the structural basis of variability in Central Inuit socioeconomic organization, directly challenges both assumptions. After reviewing existing models and theories of Inuit social organization, a search for structural coherence in Central Inuit socioeconomic organization is initiated. This search begins in Cumberland Sound, Baffin Island, Northwest Territories. A new interpretation of the late prehistory of the Sound is offered, after which a history of Inuit-white relations between 1840 and 1970 is provided. Despite the fact that few other Central Inuit groups experienced as long or as intense an association with Euroamerican culture as the Cumberland Sound Inuit, it is argued that the latter did not undergo a significant transformation in social structure as a consequence of contact with commercial whalers, missionaries, traders, and foreign diseases. Subsequently, relying on informant recall and archival sources, an analysis of local group composition between 1920 and 1970 in Cumberland Sound is undertaken. Differences between the two major subregional groups to have occupied the Sound during the contact-traditional period, the Kekertormiut and Umanaqjuarmiut, are seen to be manifestations of two structural tendencies inherent within Central Inuit social relationships. Whereas the former were governed largely by hierarchical directives (naalaqtuq), productive relationships among the latter were constituted more on egalitarian behaviours (ungayuq). This model permitted a detailed re-analysis of the late prehistory of the Sound. However, just as importantly, it allowed a closer examination of structural variability in Iglulingmiut, Netsilingmiut, and Copper Inuit socioeconomic organization. While the former two regional populations are found to be embellishments, respectively, of naalaqtuq and ungayuq, the Copper Inuit are seen to be a rejection of Central Inuit social structure and ideology. The archaeological and anthropological implications of this theory as well as other perspectives advanced throughout the thesis are then explored. In so doing, alternative models of Canadian Arctic prehistory and the origins of \"complex\" social structures, such as those exemplified by the Central Inuit and Euroamerican society, are advanced.

• Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
• Subject: Cultural anthropology / Ethnic studies / Minority & ethnic groups / Sociology
• ISBN: 9780315883314, 0315883316