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Inuit

Traditional qamutik (sled), Cape Dorset
Total population
150,000[1]
Regions with significant populations
Greenland - 44,000-50,000[2] Nunavut - 29,474[3] Alaska - 24,000 [4] Quebec (Nunavik) - 10,464[5] Newfoundland and Labrador - 8,120 Northwest Territories - 3,100 [6] [7], Russia
Languages
Inuit language, various national languages
Religion
Christianity, Shamanism, Animism
Related ethnic groups
Aleuts, Sireniki Eskimos, Inupiats, Yupiks

Aboriginal peoples in Canada
First Nations · Inuit · Métis This article is part of a series
History Paleo-Indians Pre-colonization Genetics Integration  · Conflicts First Nation  · Inuit
Politics Crown and Aboriginals Treaties  · Health Policy Royal Commission Indian Act · Politics Organizations · Case law Indian Affairs Canada
Culture Aboriginal cultures Aboriginal personalities
Demographics AB (FN, Métis)  · Atlantic CA  · BC MB  · ON  · QC  · SK Territories  · Pacific Coast
Linguistics Aboriginal languages Inuit languages Indigenous Languages Aboriginal syllabics Inuit grammar
Religions Inuit mythology Traditional beliefs
Index Index of articles Aboriginal · First Nations Inuit  · Métis · Stubs
Wikiprojects Portal Aboriginal Canadian portal WikiProject Indigenous North Americans First Nations Commons · Wiktionary Inuit Commons · Wiktionary Métis Commons · Wiktionary
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The Inuit (Inuktitut: ᐃᓄᐃᑦ, "People") are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Greenland, Canada, the United States, and Russia.^[8] Inuit is a collective noun; the singular is "Inuk". The Inuit language is grouped under the Eskimo-Aleut family.^[9]

In the United States, the term Eskimo is commonly used in reference to these groups, because it includes both of Alaska's Yupik and Inupiat peoples while "Inuit" is not proper or accepted as a term for the Inupiat. No collective term exists for both peoples other than "Eskimo".^[10] However, natives in Canada and Greenland view the name as pejorative and "Inuit" has become more common.^[11][12] In Canada, sections 25 and 35 of the Constitution Act of 1982 named the "Inuit" as a distinctive group of aboriginal Canadians who are not included under either the First Nations or the Métis.^[13]

The Inuit live throughout most of the Canadian Arctic and subarctic in the territory of Nunavut; "Nunavik" in the northern third of Quebec; "Nunatsiavut" and "Nunatukavut" in Labrador; and in various parts of the Northwest Territories, particularly around the Arctic Ocean. These areas are known in Inuktitut as the "Inuit Nunangat".^[14][15] In the United States, Inupiat live on the North Slope in Alaska and on Little Diomede Island. In Russia, they live on Big Diomede Island. The Kalaallit and other natives of Greenland are the descendants of migrations from Canada and are citizens of Denmark, although not of the European Union.

Early history[link]

For pre-history, see: Paleo-Indians and Archaic periods (Canada)

Inuit are the descendants of what anthropologists call the Thule culture, who emerged from western Alaska, after crossing the land bridge from Asia, around BC 1000 and spread eastwards across the Arctic. They displaced the related Dorset culture, the last major Paleo-Eskimo culture (in Inuktitut, called the Tuniit). Inuit legends speak of the Tuniit as "giants", people who were taller and stronger than the Inuit.^[16] Less frequently, the legends refer to the Dorset as "dwarfs".^[17] Researchers believe that the Dorset culture lacked dogs, larger weapons and other technologies that gave the expanding Inuit society an advantage. By 1300, the Inuit had settled in west Greenland, and they moved into east Greenland over the following century.

Faced with population pressures from the Thule and other surrounding groups, such as the Algonquian and Siouan to the south, the Tuniit gradually receded.^[18] They were thought to have become completely extinct as a people by about 1400 or 1500.

But, in the mid 1950s, researcher Henry B. Collins determined that, based on the ruins found at Native Point, the Sadlermiut were likely the last remnants of the Dorset culture.^[19] The Sadlermiut population survived up until winter 1902–03, when exposure to new infectious diseases brought by contact with Europeans led to their extinction as a people.^[20] More recently, mitochondrial DNA research has supported the theory of continuity between the Tuniit and the Sadlermiut.^[21][22] It also has provided evidence that a population displacement did not occur within the Aleutian Islands between the Dorset and Thule transition.^[23] In contrast to other Tuniit populations, the Aleut and Sadlermiut benefited from both geographical isolation and their ability to adopt certain Thule technologies.

In Canada and Greenland, Inuit circulated almost exclusively north of the "Arctic tree line", the effective southern border of Inuit society. The most southern "officially recognized" Inuit community in the world is Rigolet^[24] in Nunatsiavut. South of Nunatsiavut, the descendants of the southern Labrador Inuit in Nunatukavut continued their traditional transhumant semi-nomadic way of life until the mid-1900s. The Nunatukavummuit were usually spread out among islands and bays and therefore did not establish stationary communities. In other areas south of the tree line, Native American cultures were well established. The culture and technology of Inuit society that served so well in the Arctic were not suited to subarctic regions, so they did not displace their southern neighbors.

Inuit had trade relations with more southern cultures; boundary disputes were common and gave rise to aggressive actions. Warfare was not uncommon among those Inuit groups with sufficient population density. Inuit such as the Nunatamiut (Uummarmiut) who inhabited the Mackenzie River delta area often engaged in warfare. The more sparsely settled Inuit in the Central Arctic, however, did so less often.

Their first European contact was with the Vikings who settled in Greenland and explored the eastern Canadian coast. The Norse sagas recorded meeting skrælingar, probably an undifferentiated label for all the native Americans whom the Norse encountered, whether Tuniit, Inuit, or Beothuk.

Sometime in the 13th century, the Thule culture began arriving in Greenland from what is now Canada. Norse accounts are scant; however, Norse-made items have been found at Inuit campsites in Greenland. It is unclear whether they were there as the result of trade or plunder. One old account speaks of "small people" with whom the Norsemen fought. Ívar Bárðarson's^[25] 14th-century account noted that the Western Settlement had been taken over by the "skrælings". The reason why the Norse settlements failed is uncertain. The last record of them is from 1408, roughly the same period as the earliest Inuit settlements in east Greenland.

After about 1350, the climate grew colder during the period known as the Little Ice Age. During this period, Alaskan natives were able to continue their whaling activities, but Inuit were forced to abandon their hunting and whaling sites in the high Arctic as bowhead whales disappeared from Canada and Greenland. These Inuit then had to subsist on a much poorer diet in addition to losing access to essential raw materials for their tools and architecture previous derived from whaling.

The changing climate forced Inuit to work their way south, forcing them into marginal niches along the edges of the tree line. These were areas which Native Americans had not occupied or where they were weak enough for coexistence with Inuit. Researchers have difficulty defining when Inuit stopped territorial expansion. There is evidence that they were still moving into new territory in southern Labrador when they first began to interact with Europeans in the 17th century.

Nomenclature[link]

In the United States, the term "Eskimo" is commonly used, because it distinguished both Yupik and Inupiat peoples from other native Americans. The Yupik do not speak an Inuit language or consider themselves to be Inuit.^[10] However, as the term is a – probably Montagnais^[26][27][28] – exonym and has been widely^{[26][29][30][31]} folk etymologized as meaning "eater of raw meat" in Cree,^[12][32] it has become considered a pejorative or even racial slur among Canadian and English-speaking Greenlandic Inuit.^[12][32]

In Canada and Greenland, "Inuit" is preferred. Inuit is the Eastern Canadian Inuit (Inuktitut) and West Greenlandic (Kalaallisut) word for "People". Since Inuktitut and Kalaallisut are the prestige dialects in Canada and Greenland, respectively, their version has become dominant, although every Inuit dialect uses cognates from the Proto-Eskimo *ińuɣ – for example, "people" is inughuit in North Greenlandic and iivit in East Greenlandic.

Cultural history[link]

Inupiat basket, with an ivory handle, made by Kinguktuk (1871–1941) of Barrow, Alaska. Displayed at the Museum of Man, San Diego, California.

Language[link]

Distribution of Inuit dialects

Inuit today chiefly speak Inuktitut in Canada and Kalaallisut in Greenland, the prestige dialects of the two countries. As Inuktitut was the language of the Eastern Canadian Inuit and Kalaallisut is the language of the Western Greenlandic Inuit, they are related more closely than most other dialects.

Inuit in America and Canada also typically speak English. In Greenland, most Inuit also speak Danish and learn English in school. Canadian Inuit may also speak Québécois French.

Diet[link]

The Inuit have traditionally been fishers and hunters. They still hunt whales (esp. bowhead whale), walrus, caribou, seal, polar bears, muskoxen, birds, and at times other less commonly eaten animals such as the Arctic Fox. The typical Inuit diet is high in protein and very high in fat – in their traditional diets, Inuit consumed an average of 75% of their daily energy intake from fat.^[33] While it is not possible to cultivate plants for food in the Arctic, the Inuit have traditionally gathered those that are naturally available. Grasses, tubers, roots, stems, berries, and seaweed (kuanniq or edible seaweed) were collected and preserved depending on the season and the location.^{[34][35][36][37][38]} There is a vast array of different hunting technologies that the Inuit used to gather their food.

In the 1920s anthropologist Vilhjalmur Stefansson lived with and studied a group of Inuit.^[39] The study focused on the fact that the Inuit's extremely low-carbohydrate diet had no adverse effects on their health, nor indeed, Stefansson's own health. Stefansson (1946) also observed that the Inuit were able to get the necessary vitamins they needed from their traditional winter diet, which did not contain any plant matter. In particular, he found that adequate vitamin C could be obtained from items in their traditional diet of raw meat such as Ringed Seal liver and whale skin (muktuk). While there was considerable scepticism when he reported these findings, they have been borne out in recent studies.^[40]

Transport, navigation, and dogs[link]

Inupiat in a kayak, Noatak, Alaska, c. 1929 (photo by Edward S. Curtis)

Modern public housing in Greenland

The natives hunted sea animals from single-passenger, covered seal-skin boats called qajaq (Inuktitut syllabics: ᖃᔭᖅ)^[41] which were extraordinarily buoyant, and could easily be righted by a seated person, even if completely overturned. Because of this property the design was copied by Europeans, and Americans who still produce them under the Inuit name kayak.

Inuit also made umiaq ("woman's boat"), larger open boats made of wood frames covered with animal skins, for transporting people, goods and dogs. They were 6–12 m (20–39 ft) long and had a flat bottom so that the boats could come close to shore. In the winter, Inuit would also hunt sea mammals by patiently watching an aglu (breathing hole) in the ice and waiting for the air-breathing seals to use them. This technique is also used by the polar bear, who hunts by seeking holes in the ice and waiting nearby.

On land, the Inuit used dog sleds (qamutik) for transportation. The husky dog breed comes from Inuit breeding of dogs and wolves for transportation. A team of dogs in either a tandem/side-by-side or fan formation would pull a sled made of wood, animal bones, or the baleen from a whale's mouth and even frozen fish,^[42] over the snow and ice. The Inuit used stars to navigate at sea and landmarks to navigate on land; they possessed a comprehensive native system of toponymy. Where natural landmarks were insufficient, the Inuit would erect an inukshuk.

Dogs played an integral role in the annual routine of the Inuit. During the summer they became pack animals, sometimes dragging up to 20 kg (44 lb) of baggage and in the winter they pulled the sled. Yearlong they assisted with hunting by sniffing out seals' holes and pestering polar bears. They also protected the Inuit villages by barking at bears and strangers. The Inuit generally favored, and tried to breed, the most striking and handsome of dogs, especially ones with bright eyes and a healthy coat. Common husky dog breeds used by the Inuit were the Canadian Eskimo Dog, the official animal of Nunavut,^[43] (Qimmiq; Inuktitut for dog), the Greenland Dog, the Siberian Husky and the Alaskan Malamute. The Inuit would perform rituals over the newborn pup to give it favorable qualities; the legs were pulled to make them grow strong and nose was poked with a pin to enhance the sense of smell.

Industry, art, and clothing[link]

Igloo.

Inuit woman's parka, Canada.

Inuit industry relied almost exclusively on animal hides, driftwood, and bones, although some tools were also made out of worked stones, particularly the readily worked soapstone. Walrus ivory was a particularly essential material, used to make knives. Art played a big part in Inuit society and continues to do so today. Small sculptures of animals and human figures, usually depicting everyday activities such as hunting and whaling, were carved from ivory and bone. In modern times prints and figurative works carved in relatively soft stone such as soapstone, serpentinite, or argillite have also become popular.

Inuit made clothes and footwear from animal skins, sewn together using needles made from animal bones and threads made from other animal products, such as sinew. The anorak (parka) is made in a similar fashion by Arctic peoples from Europe through Asia and the Americas, including the Inuit. The hood of an amauti, (women's parka, plural amautiit) was traditionally made extra large, to allow the mother to carry a baby against her back and protect it from the harsh wind. Styles vary from region to region, from the shape of the hood to the length of the tails. Boots (mukluk or kamiit), could be made of caribou or seal skin, and designed for men and women.

During the winter, certain Inuit lived in a temporary shelter made from snow called an iglu, and during the few months of the year when temperatures were above freezing, they lived in tents made of animal skins supported by a frame of bones. Some, such as the Siglit, used driftwood,^[44] while others built sod houses.^[45]

Gender roles, marriage, birth, and community[link]

Inupiat woman, Alaska, circa 1907

The division of labor in traditional Inuit society had a strong gender component, but it was not absolute. The men were traditionally hunters and fishermen and the women took care of the children, cleaned the home, sewed, processed food, and cooked. However, there are numerous examples of women who hunted, out of necessity or as a personal choice. At the same time men, who could be away from camp for several days at a time, would be expected to know how to sew and cook.^[46]

The marital customs among the Inuit were not strictly monogamous: many Inuit relationships were implicitly or explicitly sexual. Open marriages, polygamy, divorce, and remarriage were known. Among some Inuit groups, if there were children, divorce required the approval of the community and particularly the agreement of the elders. Marriages were often arranged, sometimes in infancy, and occasionally forced on the couple by the community.^[47]

Inupiat family, Noatak, Alaska, 1930

Marriage was common for women at puberty and for men when they became productive hunters. Family structure was flexible: a household might consist of a man and his wife (or wives) and children; it might include his parents or his wife's parents as well as adopted children; it might be a larger formation of several siblings with their parents, wives and children; or even more than one family sharing dwellings and resources. Every household had its head, an elder or a particularly respected man.^[48]

There was also a larger notion of community as, generally, several families shared a place where they wintered. Goods were shared within a household, and also, to a significant extent, within a whole community.

The Inuit were hunter–gatherers,^[49] and have been referred to as nomadic.^[50] One of the customs following the birth of an infant was for an Angakkuq (shaman) to place a tiny ivory carving of a whale into the baby's mouth, in hopes this would make the child good at hunting. Loud singing and drumming were also customary after a birth.^[51]

Raiding[link]

Virtually all Inuit cultures have oral traditions of raids by other indigenous peoples, including fellow Inuit, and of taking vengeance on them in return, such as the Bloody Falls Massacre. Western observers often regarded these tales as generally not entirely accurate historical accounts, but more as self-serving myths. However, evidence shows that Inuit cultures had quite accurate methods of teaching historical accounts to each new generation.^[52] In northern Canada, historically there were ethnic feuds between the Dene and the Inuit, as witnessed by Samuel Hearne in 1771.^[53] In 1996, Dene and Inuit representatives participated in a healing ceremony to reconcile the centuries-old grievances.^[54]

The historic accounts of violence against outsiders does make clear that there was a history of hostile contact within the Inuit cultures and with other cultures.^[55] It also makes it clear that Inuit nations existed through history, as well as confederations of such nations. The known confederations were usually formed to defend against a more prosperous, and thus stronger, nation. Alternately, people who lived in less productive geographical areas tended to be less warlike, as they had to spend more time producing food.

Justice within Inuit culture was moderated by the form of governance that gave significant power to the elders. As in most cultures around the world, justice could be harsh and often included capital punishment for serious crimes against the community or the individual. During raids against other peoples, the Inuit, like their non-Inuit neighbors, tended to be merciless.^[56]

Suicide, murder, and death[link]

"A pervasive European myth about Inuit is that they killed elderly (senicide) and unproductive people",^[57] but this is not generally true.^[58][59][60] In a culture with an oral history, elders are the keepers of communal knowledge, effectively the community library.^[61] Because they are of extreme value as the repository of knowledge, there are cultural taboos against sacrificing elders.^[62][63]

In Antoon A. Leenaar's book Suicide in Canada he states that "Rasmussen found that the death of elders by suicide was a commonplace among the Iglulik Inuit."^[64] He heard of many old men and women who had hung themselves.^[64] By ensuring they died a violent death, Inuit elders purified their souls for journey to the afterworld.^[64]

According to Franz Boas, suicide was "...not of rare occurrence..." and was generally accomplished through hanging.^[65] Writing of the Labrador Inuit, Hawkes (1916) was considerably more explicit on the subject of suicide and the burden of the elderly:

Aged people who have outlived their usefulness and whose life is a burden both to themselves and their relatives are put to death by stabbing or strangulation. This is customarily done at the request of the individual concerned, but not always so. Aged people who are a hindrance on the trail are abandoned.

—Antoon A. Leenaars, Suicide in Canada^[66]

People seeking assistance in their suicide made three consecutive requests to relatives for help.^[67] Family members would attempt to dissuade the individual at each suggestion, but with the third request by a person, assistance became obligatory.^[67] In some cases, a suicide was a publicly acknowledged and attended event.^[67] Once the suicide had been agreed to, the victim would dress him or herself as the dead are clothed, with clothing turned inside out.^[67] The death occurred at a specific place, where the material possessions of deceased people were brought to be destroyed.^[67]

When food is not sufficient, the elderly are the least likely to survive. In the extreme case of famine, the Inuit fully understood that, if there was to be any hope of obtaining more food, a hunter was necessarily the one to feed on whatever food was left. However, a common response to desperate conditions and the threat of starvation was infanticide.^[68][69] A mother abandoned an infant in hopes that someone less desperate might find and adopt the child before the cold or animals killed it. The belief that the Inuit regularly resorted to infanticide may be due in part to studies done by Asen Balikci,^[70] Milton Freeman^[71] and David Riches^[72] among the Netsilik, along with the trial of Kikkik.^[73][74] Other recent research has noted that "While there is little disagreement that there were examples of infanticide in Inuit communities, it is presently not known the depth and breadth of these incidents. The research is neither complete nor conclusive to allow for a determination of whether infanticide was a rare or a widely practiced event." ^[75]

Anthropologists believed that Inuit cultures routinely killed children born with physical defects because of the demands of the extreme climate. These views were changed by late 20th century discoveries of burials at an archaeological site. Between 1982 and 1994, a storm with high winds caused ocean waves to erode part of the bluffs near Barrow, Alaska, and a body was discovered to have been washed out of the mud. Unfortunately the storm claimed the body, which was not recovered. But examination of the eroded bank indicated that an ancient house, perhaps with other remains, was likely to be claimed by the next storm. The site, known as the "Ukkuqsi archaeological site", was excavated. Several frozen bodies (now known as the "frozen family") were recovered, autopsies were performed, and they were re-interred as the first burials in the then-new Imaiqsaun Cemetery south of Barrow.^[76] Years later another body was washed out of the bluff. It was a female child, approximately 9 years old, who had clearly been born with a congenital birth defect.^[77] This child had never been able to walk, but must have been cared for by family throughout her life.^[78] She was the best preserved body ever recovered in Alaska, and radiocarbon dating of grave goods and of a strand of her hair all place her back to about AD 1200.^[79]

During the 19th century, the Western Arctic suffered a population decline of close to 90%, resulting from exposure to new diseases, including tuberculosis, measles, influenza, and smallpox. Autopsies near Greenland reveal that, more commonly pneumonia, kidney diseases, trichinosis, malnutrition, and degenerative disorders may have contributed to mass deaths among different Inuit tribes. The Inuit believed that the causes of the disease were of a spiritual origin.^[80]

Traditional law[link]

Inuit traditional laws are anthropologically different from Western law concepts. Customary law was thought non-existent in Inuit society before the introduction of the Canadian legal system. Hoebel, in 1954, concluded that only 'rudimentary law' existed amongst the Inuit. Indeed, prior to about 1970, it is impossible to find even one reference to a Western observer who was aware that any form of governance existed among any Inuit,^[81] however, there was a set way of doing things that had to be followed:

• maligait refers to what has to be followed
• piqujait refers to what has to be done
• tirigusuusiit refers to what has to be avoided

If an individual's actions went against the tirigusuusiit, maligait or piqujait, the angakkuq (shaman) might have to intervene, lest the consequences be dire to the individual or the community.^[82]

We are told today that Inuit never had laws or "maligait". Why? They say because they are not written on paper. When I think of paper, I think you can tear it up, and the laws are gone. The laws of the Inuit are not on paper.

—Mariano Aupilaarjuk, Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, Perspectives on Traditional Law^[83]

Traditional beliefs[link]

Some Inuit believed that the spirits of their ancestors could be seen in the Aurora Borealis

The environment in which the Inuit lived inspired a mythology filled with adventure tales of whale and walrus hunts. Long winter months of waiting for caribou herds or sitting near breathing holes hunting seals gave birth to stories of mysterious and sudden appearance of ghosts and fantastic creatures. Some Inuit looked into the aurora borealis, or northern lights, to find images of their family and friends dancing in the next life.^[84] However, some Inuit believed that the lights were more sinister and if you whistled at them, they would come down and cut off your head. This tale is still told to children today.^[85] For others they were invisible giants, the souls of animals, a guide to hunting and as a spirit for the angakkuq to help with healing.^[85][86] They relied upon the angakkuq (shaman) for spiritual interpretation. The nearest thing to a central deity was the Old Woman (Sedna), who lived beneath the sea. The waters, a central food source, were believed to contain great gods.

The Inuit practiced a form of shamanism based on animist principles. They believed that all things had a form of spirit, including humans, and that to some extent these spirits could be influenced by a pantheon of supernatural entities that could be appeased when one required some animal or inanimate thing to act in a certain way. The angakkuq of a community of Inuit was not the leader, but rather a sort of healer and psychotherapist, who tended wounds and offered advice, as well as invoking the spirits to assist people in their lives. His or her role was to see, interpret and exhort the subtle and unseen. Angakkuit were not trained; they were held to be born with the ability and recognized by the community as they approached adulthood.

Inuit religion was closely tied to a system of rituals integrated into the daily life of the people. These rituals were simple but held to be necessary. According to a customary Inuit saying,

The great peril of our existence lies in the fact that our diet consists entirely of souls.

By believing that all things, including animals, have souls like those of humans, any hunt that failed to show appropriate respect and customary supplication would only give the liberated spirits cause to avenge themselves.

The harshness and unpredictability of life in the Arctic ensured that Inuit lived with concern for the uncontrollable, where a streak of bad luck could destroy an entire community. To offend a spirit was to risk its interference with an already marginal existence. The Inuit understood that they had to work in harmony with supernatural powers to provide the necessities of day-to-day life. Before the 1940s, Inuit had minimal contact with Europeans, who passed through on their way to hunt whales or trade furs but seldom had any interest in settling down on the frozen land of the Arctic. So the Inuit had the place to themselves. They moved between summer and winter camps to always be living where there were animals to hunt.

But that changed. As World War II ended and the Cold War began, the Arctic became a place where countries that did not get along were close to each other. The Arctic had always been seen as inaccessible, but the invention of aircraft made it easier for non-Arctic dwellers to get there. As new airbases and radar stations were built in the Arctic to monitor rival nations, permanent settlements were developed around them, including schools and health care centres. In many places, Inuit children were required to attend schools that emphasized non-native traditions. With better health care, the Inuit population grew too large to sustain itself solely by hunting.^{[citation needed]} Many Inuit from smaller camps moved into permanent settlements because there was access to jobs and food. In many areas^[where?] Inuit were required to live in towns by the 1960s.

Postcontact history[link]

Canada[link]

Early contact with Europeans[link]

The lives of Paleo-Eskimos of the far north were largely unaffected by the arrival of visiting Norsemen except for mutual trade.^[87] Labrador Inuit have had the longest continuous contact with Europeans.^[88] After the disappearance of the Norse colonies in Greenland, the Inuit had no contact with Europeans for at least a century. By the mid-16th century, Basque whalers and fishermen were already working the Labrador coast and had established whaling stations on land, such as the one that has been excavated at Red Bay.^[89][90] The Inuit appear not to have interfered with their operations, but they raided the stations in winter for tools and items made of worked iron, which they adapted to their own needs.

Martin Frobisher's 1576 search for the Northwest Passage was the first well-documented post-Columbian contact between Europeans and Inuit. Frobisher's expedition landed in Frobisher Bay, Baffin Island, not far from the settlement now called The City of Iqaluit which was long known as Frobisher Bay. Frobisher encountered Inuit on Resolution Island where five sailors left the ship, under orders from Frobisher, and became part of Inuit mythology. The homesick sailors, tired of their adventure, attempted to leave in a small vessel and vanished. Frobisher brought an unwilling Inuk to England, doubtless the first Inuk ever to visit Europe. The Inuit oral tradition, in contrast, recounts the natives helping Frobisher's crewmen, whom they believed had been abandoned.