Floyd L. Davidson said:Quoted message said:
Reading what you have written about language, and sharing it with you,
and having my memories jolted, is very exciting for me.That makes me feel pretty good! I find these discussions
somewhat "exciting" myself. I always learn new things, and it
really is just like you say, "having my memories jolted"!(Something that I find mind boggling came up in this
conversation, BTW. I went looking for www.sila.dk, and found
that everything there was gone. Eventually I found where they'd
moved it, and just because it was interesting I read through
most of it again. Well, it happens that one of the reasons I
originally made note of that as a source, was research to
demonstrate to some people that driftwood was commonly available
on the shores of Greenland, and indeed the entire Arctic Ocean.
At that time, www.sila.dk didn't really say anything directly
about it, but did refer to wood boats. However, the new web
site specifically mentions the vast abundance of driftwood on
Greenland shores! Maybe somebody read sci.archaeology?)Quoted message said:Here is what a dictionary of Canadianisms says about Eskimo. The first
reference at least. There are three pages.Eskimo:
Algonk. probably through Canadian French Esquimau with spelling
influenced by Danish Eskimo. cf Cree askimowew he eats it raw; Ojibwa
askkime raw-flesh eater.That was commonly thought to be true for a long time, but like
so many things about Native people, and Eskimos in particular,
it has more to do with Western concepts (particularly the need
to disenfranchise Natives and depreciated them as humans, to
justify or at least lessen the guilt of the genocide that has
been going on for 500 years).Quoted message said:Although several other etimologies have been advanced (see quotes
Actually there are exactly two that anyone at all considers
valid. Ives Goddard at the Smithsonian Institute, who studies
Algonquian languages, has said Eskimo comes from words meaning
"snowshoe netters". I don't know that he has ever published a
justification for that, but it is widely accepted by many.Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 5 (Arctic), p6
However, some years ago Jose Mailhot, a Quebec based
anthropologist who speaks fluent Cree, did a definitive study
and decided it came from half dozen words meaning "people who
speak a different language". Mailhot's study has never been
refuted, or even so much as contradicted in any part.
Unfortunately, she publishes in French and is unheard of in the
US or on the Internet.Mailhot, Jose, L'etymologie de *esquimau' revuew et
corrigee. In: Etudes/Inuit/Studies 2(2): 59-69.See
discussion.
Quoted message said:
Quoted message said:1748 Ellis: Hudson's Bay 138/9
The very Orthography of the word Eskimauz plainly proves it an Indian
appellation, with a French termination, and we are told by a celebrated
writer of that country, that it is derived from the words Abenaqui
Esquimantsic which is as much to say, an eater of raw flesh.Sounds exotic. Which is exactly why it persists. It just isn't
true though. And it would be extremely odd for Cree to single
out Eskimos as people who eat raw flesh...Quoted message said:-----snip----
Then there is reference to the Eskimos who "traditionally despise the
Indians" (Irkrekret==lice).lol
That one is fairly funny. The "Ingalik" people of western
Alaska, are Athabascan and actually call themselves Deg Hit'an.
Ingalik comes from Yup'ik Eskimo, meaning "people with lice".However, what is really funny is the idea that Eskimos
"traditionally despise the Indians". We see that repeated just
about everywhere, but it simply isn't true. They traded with
each other over regular trade routes. They had regular
"treaties" and regular exchanges of culture as well as trade
goods.There is a great deal of evidence of that, but most of it is
hard to understand without a lot of knowledge about the
geography of specific areas. However, there are some good
examples, and the Alaskan villages of Alatna and Allakaket is
one of the best. They are a pair villages on the Koyukuk River
in Western Alaska. I have a number of very close family friends
who are from Allakaket, and I've spent a few days there myself.I like to tease Allakaket people. You see, they are *all*
Inupiat! (Just ask them, and they'll tell you.) And right
across the river is Alatna, where (as they will tell you) they
are *all* Koyukon Indians. Now, they do speak different
languages, but I'm here to tell you that they *look* an awful
lot alike.I don't think those Indians and Eskimos have been hating each
other nearly as much as Whites would like us all to believe. ;-)(They all deny any cross breeding though!)
Quoted message said:A Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principals
produced for W.J. Gage Limited by the Lexicographical Centre for
Canadian English
University of Victoria
Victoria, British Columbia
Canada1967
I don't trust *anything* written by an anthropologist prior to
about 1975 (and not much since either perhaps...).Here's a great example of something you can research. Look up
what Western observers have had to say about Eskimo governance.From about 1970 you can go back as far as possible, and
*everything* you find says the same thing. That is true whether
it is a trained observer or not. Russian Army, naval officers,
ship's doctors, missionaries, mercenaries, Boston whalers,
deadbeats, *all of them* said the same things.What they said was that Eskimos are a very simple people who
don't even have any form of governance. They live in extended
family units, and blood relationship is all important. In only
a few instances did they even have a tribal (group of families)
sort of relationship, and never did they develop any formal
tribal government, much less anything more complex.In Alaska you can find those observations beginning in the
middle 1700's, right after Bering charted Alaska for the Tzar in
Moscow; and the same things were being written in 1967, by
"anthropologists".Then something odd happened. It had its roots back to the
1800's and a missionary zealot named Sheldon Jackson. He
divided up Alaska for the missionaries, and wanted to set up
schools to teach Alaska Natives to be Westerners (he thought he
was "civilizing" them). So the effort at providing Western
schools for Native children began in the 1880 and 1890's. It
didn't get far until the end of World War II though. Then, in
both Canada and the US a number of boarding schools were built,
and Native children were *required* to leave home and get a
Western education.The operative words are "leave home". Because they were gone
from home, their families could not teach them using traditional
ways. By the 1960's it became a very serious problem. Air
transportation and better communications had lead to almost
universal application of this forced schooling requirement. It
became clear to village elders that the traditional means of
teaching were no longer viable, and instead, if they wanted
something taught to their children it would *have* to be part of
the curriculum taught in Western schools.A group of villages on the Kuskokwim River in western Alaska got
together and hired an anthropologist. They then proceeded to
provide the details they wanted their children to be taught in
schools. What they recorded was a most fascinating (and
extremely complex) form of governance. It is so sophisticated
that Western observers, expecting to see the typical trappings
of Western government such as a standing army to enforce the
rules and protect the power of the current leadership, plus any
manner of heat, light, and sound effects associated with each
and every decision, had been watching it for well over 200 years
and had *never recognized* that it so much as existed.The fact is, they had always had not just family units, but very
functional tribal units and at an even higher level they had
nations and confederations of nations. None of which Western
observers managed to even detect in more than 200 years of close
association.So do the research, and what you'll find is that prior to about
1970 there are no sources which say Eskimos have a government,
and after 1975 there are none which say they don't.That doesn't give anyone an education *in* anthropology, but it
does educate people *about* anthropology. ;-)--
Floyd L. Davidson
Quoted message said:Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska) [email hidden]
Dene (or Chipeweyan) and Eastern Inuit look very alike, very short,
very dark; so I think yes, there must have been inter-marriage. However
because they were rivals for the same resources, I think they were
enemies, and the word Eskimo is of Cree origin. Definitely French too.
In both cases, the perspective of the "other". Perhaps the best we can
say is the origins are uncertain. But the perspective is not.
Zee