The Inuit and their Hunting Habits (Documentary, 1980)

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] I will tell you a short story one one old man he reincarnated first he was an animal he was a caribou and when when he died he reincarnated into human being and he was a man now and he had a medicine the good medicine for caribou and he could talk he would give him a drum he had his own drum when his people were hungry he would take the drum and talk to the caribou tell that the caribou her to come but my people are starving and the carbo would come that very day and the people would kill cargo and eat good again I myself hunt quite a bit I came back empty-handed lots of time one time I hunt moves four days four nights in the bush because my kids were hungry I have to come home and kill the moose but it took me four days before I got one news it'll be good hunter and have to work hard to get an animal of some kind to feed yourself and your family and your dogs land is our mother who eat from that therefore nobody homes that is there this our elders today they still believe that they look at the land that everybody should share that is their belief it doesn't belong to nobody they look at the land different from London and look at the land they don't believe that a land belong to somebody or a boundary should exist it belongs to everybody that's how I their thinking [Laughter] every landlord on his property or up having very little privacy between you and other occupants of the building if so come and talk to Peace River mortgages today we can show you how you can buy your own home with often as little as 10% down let your next-door neighbor make your dream home and into a reality call it seven eight [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] and yet religion Williams maracanã man and the Toronto similar woman let's at all ten of them but you thought wrong today we have more seals than ever before and he remembers when he was younger there when they were depending so much on the meat they seems to be hardly any and now today there seems to be a lot more sales than ever before [Music] to entertain naturally money to put what you know I need to groom it not just yesterday I know majesty we didn't have to touch them or to iron angry Caribous are exactly identical to the seals years ago he remembers they were hardly any caribou and today there's so many of them the the seals and the caribou seems to just bloom the problem in modern days is not so much of not being able to find it it's the restrictions that has come about regulations hunting and stuff like that there's more regulations now so you know it's not really a matter of not being able to find them it's not being allowed to get them being limited when I hunter comes in and he has fresh meat if we have a local radio station which is on in the evenings and then the hunter wants his back he would tell the story of his trip and he would then say anyone who's hungry enough or who does not have meat please and can come and get some I don't think I will ever ever stop hunting seals because seals give us food and clothing especially footwear and even people with people who heard from the outside says that stealing killed ceilings killing seals is very very bad but to us it's are a part of our life it's like asking us to commit suicide [Applause] [Music] hi [Applause] [Music] you get stuff from the south wintertime is really bad because if they if the plane got you know stop somewhere and by the time the boxes are transferred from another airline to another the freeze and you get your vegetables that you know are very old and had been frozen they're not that much good by the time you get them and and you'll be arm and a leg to do pie for stuff like that again I talked or oh come on question I totally like the tube number for tea could sugar good forever who she was cooter McCord rotate be sure I get you know man oh no first time a quality product or whenever you people Nikki I'm elected to you dirty hood I don't know but there's a lot of things that we we are thankful for especially myself mainly the stuff that had been bought up earlier like when I was a child like for instance tea sugar flour knives garnets these are the necessity for today I'm sorry to say that like myself I would I have never bought or I don't think I will ever buy any vegetables I couldn't I have no use for them [Music] [Music] our [ __ ] line is like a garden my grandfather knew it my dad knew it and I know it as a friend for us of course were nomadic so when I say that to us crossing the lake of 20 miles is just to kill fish it's nothing and then we and of course we do it as part of our subsistence because we're not vegetarians and when we had to land for the food therefore I think a good diet is beaver I said the fish itself and in our game will it be moose or caribou and bear the system the way the virtual decree is a it's a family system and sometimes you know no one can you have four families they're all some sometimes related sometimes you know not sometimes she's just a friend there's three or four families together but if one family is not successful one of the most important things to crete tradition is to share to share you harvest or to share it you you don't you don't hunt to be rich you hunt and trap to live that's important to make living people never looked at the more I kill the more I will make in dollars then that's not the priority the priority is to be able to live sunderland the other priority of course is to maintain a healthy population of wildlife as long as this land be available the people continue our people Cree people will continue to use land I say all this half centuries two centuries I guess what's important also is to be free all around the world people look for freedom and to be free is one of most important things in life and I think when they live for the harmony of nature they live with freedom and also a peace [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] life goes on and the Indian people do as they did before harvest the land trap and hunt like their and their like their ancestor the intention is to kill all the Moose they need and make lots of dry meat and then they make a musk in a booth to make a musk in both it's a lot of work you have to take the hair out you have to scrape it and you have to sew all the holes and then you have to solve maybe 10 moose hide together so the women sold a moose hide together and the men make their the frame and then they they put the hide over there probably the work for a week two weeks maybe two [ __ ] both [Music] they won't feed on work like this right they rub fat of the Moose outside of the Moose fight to make it waterproof and they put it into this river at the head of this big river and and then they put their dog their family in there and way they go down the strong rivers [Music] they have special medicine people to go ahead that have power for water so the price safe they're quite saving that guy's goes ahead and then days had medicine people who do this it's hard to believe that I had an uncle say when he was young being scared everybody women and kids are scared to go down the river for other made Medicine and see if they could come down the river safe after singing half an hour the report that we would arrive in McKenzie River safe nothing would happen everybody thanks then that's how sometimes their medicine work [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] one has to respect the animals one has to respect the environment and must understand it if one is to survive in hunting fishing and trapping as a way of life for we are into wildlife management if we didn't do that we would have not survived as we have today before we have in in place and mechanisms of which we control the quotas let's say that when we kill beaver orient or any animal for that matter therefore we are we know first hand in the land because we live it and I think we can sound alert to any developments in the territory will alter drastically the environment in the Cree world we say that the animals give up themselves in order that human life may continue and we're not wasteful to do to be wasteful would mean that the dispirit of the animals can with hel themselves from us killing them and and in so on respect for the animal let's say if I kill a beaver I prepared the beaver the way I was taught and the bones that I take and give them back I put them in the water for that is where I got the animal [Music] [Applause] [Applause] if I can beat Austin to meditate I choose now not CTO got a seraph someone else to teach over Africa I will say Oh infinity human the proximity of naman initiative are you are dr. too easy to talk projects or do you man famous chicken I believe to know you could a corner on a family volume adieu it's very hard for him to choose between your dog between the doctor him and the snow until he himself now prefer to go on a snow will alter the thin ice but in the winter time it's all still the very the very best transportation he still the dog team on thin ice well if I had to travel for long distance I for doctor it's not gonna break down not gonna run how to feel way that it's PC I just the docs can jump ski doable I never runs out of gas well what is that I could take you anywhere so you really get stick know people who've walked Oh a long ways to get back home when this can do this breakdown I can well imagine how they would miss the doc teams when they're walking walking all the way back home [Music] there are times it's very difficult to catch your seal right away and I'd start getting very cold and we're starting to get hungry no one stops until someone please catch a seal once that seal is cut then they'll start making tea and axle is cut and then they start eating deliver and delivery is very very delicate and it's very rich there's number of times which I have experienced that when I start eating desi liver when I was a very cold matter of a few seconds I start getting very very hard to get or very warm it's a beautiful or other very warm feeling comfortable warmth going into you stead of moving from the inside out I have bought some groceries from the day before I went out and tried it and like steaks and vegetables and so forth and I wanted to try it out on out on the land and when I get calls so it would it would react it reacted very very different I I was still cold but I was still hungry and it takes a while for the for the heat to start coming in but later on once we got the caribou or the seal then we started eating it then it's right there maybe it still maybe we've been with it so long vulnerable Marie Marie they shut their artisanal you mean channel yourself around beautifu over Catholicism sugar - sugar - Diana at the sender Union now even after artillery man another 11 our code our environment is very different from the past like for instance when I was a child all the children my age all the little girls in my age would be very close to their mothers they learn from their mothers they try to imitate whatever their mother is doing but today it's totally different Newt are literally copying up totally up to me in you rock - over Eric how he loved domine Covina clean only tournament I thought of another look of soft iron or attack [Music] unlike for instance in my own family my father and my mother were constantly working to keep us alive there are times you know we're very cold there are times who know very hungry everything seems to be a dream to this day [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] [Music] things have changed drastically and our people have had to adopt very quickly and sometimes a lot of us young people can't do that because we're on a cultural conflict where you go to school they teach you nothing about your culture and then you have your elders who leave your culture all the time who live off the land all the time and there's a traditional economy and there's the modern economy and you have to see the difference and you have to know the difference and you also have to choose [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] this humor doctor only Nene issue material meaning no more noona tavarov Dhammapada / walk out you can run now as UK optica the man in uniform me there's one thing the most important thing is I would tell my children the route is at home if they ever decided to go elsewhere I would just have to point out would the rudest and bear in mind that home is home what what I don't like seeing is mineral and oil exploration it's devastating to the land it affects the animals like in one of the rivers there they have wheel wells in the river and down river downstream there are a lot of fish that are affected a lot of the fish and they affect the people that he did too and they catch a lot of sickness from it and other animals that use the water like the moose and the caribou that affects them too and sometimes when these people with these these multinationals that come in and explore it the land to find minerals and they leave the land if they don't find it it's in a big mess [Music] I believe we have the resource available in the northwest colleges too so that everybody could benefit and live equally very well because the country is rich in resource but somehow the world price of mineral is too low and the oil price as well is too low so so it cannot be developing in Norway Shortridge at the at the present time people get company get banged up and they quit so it's still buried in the ground but it would develop someday when the price would be right [Music] jobs are hard to come by in the north there's there's very little in the communities you know a few people might have jobs with the housing your co-op or odds that's by your government or teaching but that's about all there is really at the moment so people still depend on what their own resources we only have trapping and hunting and this group of people that trying to ban trapping and hunting and talking about an animal right it's not fair by saying that we have already experienced in some place in Africa people starvation and and asking for funding and help if the band were trapping hunting we would become starving again so we need will have to beg oh the old world to help us [Music] you can't get what you need then what do you do you have to survive you have to feed your kids you have to feed your family and if you can't go hunting what do you do go on welfare that you know these things that have really brought a lot of problems to to the families because you know for people who's been independent for so many years end up having to rely on social services that's very depressing like when I went to school are living a typical den a family which live off the government system welfare system because my parents weren't educated in the system they were hunters and trappers and the government moved us into this one community so that the children can go to school and the elders and the parents made that sacrifice so that our people can survive in the system they made that sacrifice for us young ones so as a result because they're not educated in the system they don't have jobs we depended on the welfare system a lot but then when us young people went into the schools we lost our language and a lot of us young people have lost our self-identity as to who we are where we come from and where we're going [Music] [Applause] [Music] I did still hope that someday when the young little ones finish it their schooling in high school maybe in University I just hope that they learn some professional skills the hope is at the end of the line when they finish their schooling the two doors to knock the non-native society door or their own Society that door they have a choice they have two choices everything was 100% English when the water first came up there was no enable to know a new teachers we're pretty well forced to to use English until free from the school then we were afraid to speak your own language again I'm an annuity I miss you darling it the only eastern artic but I don't mean to put out that our yard or how you could elude me anemia okay I would suggest to other young people to go through the school system although it's a big sacrifice to losing a lot of knowledge from the land and from your elders and that time it takes to go through the school system it's a big sacrifice but if you can do that and get a profession the land will always be there the animals will always be there [Applause] [Music] if the next generation listens to the elders the hunters the trappers and the fishermen and understand the relationship and the importance of land an animal that has to be a balance yes the next generation will be able to continue that as a way of life and not to be put in there just as a part of history [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] dad William Smith in Fort McPherson would you please send down all my stuff today by anyone going to Inuvik also send the plane tickets in will be leaving between 1:00 and 2:00 the back as a chief that's a young leader I'm gonna try to get the best best lifestyle for my people so that it can be healthy and so that they can maintain the values in the tradition and the culture as much as possible and you take good care of our elders and give more guidance to the younger people to be able to to drum dance and feel really good you can feel your whole body tingle when all of your people are happy and it's like one voice together and when people are dancing to the drum or even when they're drumming it's like talking to the creator telling the trader that you're happy and all the people are happy [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: wocomoHISTORY

Views: 75,645

Rating: 4.7088609 out of 5

Keywords: Inuit People, PLAY_EN, Caribou Hunting, eskimo, Hugh Brodie, meat, vegetarian, inuit hunting grounds, Ron Orders, Moose Hunting, seals, inuit, Seal Hunting, inuit cuisine

Id: 5njmETD1fvM

Length: 53min 13sec (3193 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 04 2018