WHY I DON'T LIKE THE WORD "ESKIMO," PART II.

In a previous post I mentioned that I disliked using the word “Eskimo.” People argue about the origin of the word, whether it means “eater of raw meat” or something else. I’m not too concerned about the origin of the word or what it means exactly. It seems that the word originated from other Indigenous people, who used the word to describe their neighbors. I say that it “seems” because I don’t really have any solid documentation to back up this argument and I don’t feel the particular need to research it at this point.

For argument’s sake, let’s say that it does mean “eaters of raw meat.” Inupiaq people do eat raw meat but it is frozen. We call this quaq and we eat caribou and fish this way, usually with seal oil. It is one of my favorite ways to eat niqipiaq because it is very simple and nutritious and it tastes yummy. Aged fish, especially trout and sheefish, are very good as quaq! Sometimes you’ll hear someone say “I really want to quaq out!” - they are expressing their desire to eat quaq and eat a lot of it.

Let’s look at the other end of the argument. I’d often wondered what the literal translation of Inupiaq was but never got around to asking an elder (I’m scared that someone might think it’s a dumb question). I think that how a people identifies itself says a lot of their worldviews. There is a book that contains Inupiaq words and phrases, complete with illustrations. I enjoy perusing it here and there and I happened to come across the meaning of the word, though in this book Inupiaq is spelled “Inupiak.” According to this book, “Inupiak” literally means “real person.”

Let’s break this down even more and again for argument’s sake, let’s say that Inupiaq really does mean “real person.”  I would rather identify myself using my own language rather than identifying myself using words that other people used to describe us. It may sound dumb and obvious but I would rather be known as a “real person” than an “eater of raw meat.” One who eats raw meat is just one aspect of a person, I wouldn’t want it to identify myself using this one distinguishing factor.

Again, I understand that people still use it to identify themselves and I know that it will be this way for awhile. My friends and family use it and I know that American people use it as a blanket term to refer to various Indigenous groups in Alaska, Canada and Greenland. But I’ll reiterate here that this is not how I identify myself and I hope that I can discourage some people from using it.