The Nunamiut or Nunatamiut (, , "People of the Land") are semi-nomadic inland Iñupiat located in the northern and northwestern interior, mostly around Anaktuvuk Pass, Alaska.
History
Early Nunamiut lived by hunting caribou instead of the marine mammals and fish hunted by coastal Iñupiat. After 1850 the interior became depopulated because of
, the decline of the
caribou and the
Human migration to the coast (including the Mackenzie Delta area in
Canada, where they are called
Uummarmiut) where whaling and fox trapping provided a temporarily promising alternative.
[Stephen Adolphe Wurm, Peter Mühlhäusler, and Darrell T. Tyron (1996), Atlas of Languages of Intercultural Communication in the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas]
Historically, the Nunamiut hunted caribou. When caribou numbers dwindled in the 19th century, some Nunamiut migrated towards the Mackenzie River delta.
Eventually, the Nunatamiut who settled in the Siglit area became known as the Uummarmiut ( people of the green trees) and intermarried with the local Inuvialuit.
The Long Walk
In 1938, several Nunamiut families returned to the
Brooks Range, around Chandler Lake and the
Killik River. Following a deadly influenza outbreak, in the summer of 1949 a group of families in the Killik River area moved 100 miles to Tulugak Lake. Departing from Sulupaat, near the mouth of April Creek on the Killik River, the group included the families of Maptigaq Morry, Inualuuraq (Chris) Hugo, and Homer Mekiana. They traveled on foot with dogs fitted with pack saddles made of caribou, using salvaged military rations when available.
This became known by local oral historians as the "Long Walk".
After spending the summer around Tulugak Lake, many of the families moved to the present site at the headwaters of the John River, where the village of Anaktuvuk Pass took shape.
This journey marks the merging of independent, nomadic Nunamiut groups into one sedentary settlement. By then Nunamiut were among the last Alaska Native ethnic groups to transition away from a nomadic lifestyle. Their settlement tracked broader changes among the Nunamiut in the 1940s, including increased trade for firearms and provisions.
Recording of culture and history
The city of
Anaktuvuk Pass is home to the Simon Paneak Memorial Museum, which contains local and ethnographic history of the Nunamiut people and their subsequent settlement.
The Nunamiut were visited after World War II by Norwegian explorer and author Helge Ingstad. He stayed for a period in the Brooks Range in northern Alaska among the Nunamiut, and afterward wrote Nunamiut - blant Alaskas innlandseskimoer (translation: "Nunamiut - Inland Eskimos of Alaska"). During the last few years of his life, he worked on categorizing and annotating the large quantity of photos and (141 songs) he had made while living with the Nunamiut in 1950. The effort resulted in a booklet, Songs of the Nunamiut, with an accompanying CD containing the audio material. This is an extremely valuable contribution to the preservation of the Nunamiut culture because it turned out that much of what he had gathered in the mid-20th century was now lost locally and was only preserved in his recordings. Representatives from the Nunamiut later suggested naming a mountain in the Brooks range after him. Five years after Ingstad's death, it was named Ingstad mountain.
Culture
According to archaeologist
Lewis Binford, the Nunamiut depend on meat more so than any other living hunter-gatherer group. The annual cycle of Nunamiut life revolves around the annual migrations of caribou.
Spring: The main caribou migrations happen in March and April, when caribou move north through Anaktuvuk Pass to feed on the plains.
Summer: The plains thaw and become a marshland swarming with blackflies and mosquitoes.
Autumn: The caribou hunting cycle repeats in September and October when caribou retreat south again.
Winter: There are about 72 days of total winter darkness starting around November 15.
Language
The native language of the Nunamiut is a dialect of
Inupiat language. In the late 1960s, the University of California, Berkeley sent undergraduate linguistics student (now Arctic explorer)
Dennis Schmitt to the Nunamiut to study their dialect. There are few native speakers today.
Further reading
-
Binford, Lewis Roberts. Nunamiut Ethnoarchaeology. New York: Academic Press, 1978.
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Blackman, Margaret B. Upside Down: Seasons Among the Nunamiut. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004.
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Gubser, Nicholas J. The Nunamiut Eskimos, Hunters of Caribou. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965.
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Ingstad, Helge. Nunamiut; Among Alaska's Inland Eskimos. New York: W.W. Norton, 1954.
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Ingstad, Helge. Songs of the Nunamiut historical recordings of an Alaskan Eskimo community. Oslo,: Tano Aschehoug, 1998.
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Kakinya, Elijah, et al. Nunamiut Unipkaanich = Nunamiut Stories: Told in Inupiaq Eskimo. Fairbanks: Alaska Native Language Center, 1987.
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Rausch, Robert. Notes on the Nunamiu Eskimo and mammals of the Anaktuvuk Pass Region, Brooks Range, Alaska
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Spearman, Grant R. Nunamiut History. Alaska: North Slope Borough School District, Title IV, Indian Education Program, 1982.
External links
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Documentary- 50 Years of Northern Light, a look at Anaktuvuk Pass as reflected by the village church building. Directed by Caven Keith, 2011
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Documentary- Tradition Meets Modernity in Native Alaska, Wil Carson uses filmmaking to explore the changes in traditional Nunamiut village life, 1998
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Faces of the Nunamiut: Tourist Art and Traditional Knowledge in Northern Alaska- National Science Foundation grant
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Gates of the Arctic National Park Sights Page- the establishment of Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve in 1980 placed Anaktuvuk Pass, the Nunamiut's historic land, in the middle of a national park.
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Interview with Dennis Schmitt-Dennis Schmitt, linguist, Arctic explorer, discoverer of Warming Island, researched the Nunamiut dialect in the 1960s, under Noam Chomsky
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Mask making exhibit
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North Slope Borough School District- public school system
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Restore Nunamiut Kayak-The University of Alaska Museum, Fairbanks, and the Simon Paneak Memorial Museum, Anaktuvuk Pass, are restoring the only remaining Nunamiut (inland) kayak.
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Simon Paneak Memorial Museum- created by the Nunamiut people, located in Anaktuvuk Pass, Aipanni, the newsletter of the Simon Paneak Memorial Museum Endowment Campaign
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A heritage of whales and whaling among the Nunamiut Inupiat- ancient days, traditional times, commercial whaling, whaling today.
