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Gender Relations in Inuit Drum Dances

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Gender Relations in Inuit Drum Dances Gender Relations in Inuit Drum Dances Mary E. Piercey, Memorial University of Newfoundland Arviat Imngitingit, Native Friendship Centre, St. John’s, Newfoundland, 2003 This article demonstrates how the analysis of the I focused my research in a rural community called performance of Inuit drum dancing among the Inuit Arviat. Still identified on many maps by its former of Arviat, Nunavut, reveals complex issues of gender name, Eskimo Point, Arviat comes from the within historical and present-day society. I first Inuktitut name for bowhead whale, arviq. It is studied indigenous music with Dr. David Elliott at located on the southwestern part of the Hudson the University of Toronto. This research dealt with Bay, and Thule culture sites there date back to AD music education as cultural education and helped me 1100. Traditionally, Ahiarmiut (Inland Inuit), understand the connections between music education Arviamiut (Sea Inuit) and Padlirmiut (Nomadic as a means of providing authentic music practices Inuit), lived in their camps in the areas surrounding and music production as a means of revealing aspects Arviat and came together in the community at of culture and tradition within a given society. springtime to participate in the seal hunt and Works published by Beverley Diamond Cavanagh conduct social festivities with their neighbours. (1976) and Ramon Pelinski (1979) helped me These three bands of Caribou Inuit, each with their understand the drum dance performed by two specific own traditions, language, and history, were brought bands of Inuit: the Netsilik and the Caribou Inuit. together in the community as a result of a Federal These groups are located on the southwest side of Government relocation program in the 1950s Hudson Bay and northern Baffin Island. (Tester and Kulchyski 1994). Musical production Subsequently, conversations with Dr. Diamond (my has been influenced by the amalgamation of the supervisor at Memorial University) have contributed three groups of Inuit as well as by non-Inuit media to my greater understanding of the cultural meaning and live performance. of drum dancing. I had the extraordinary opportunity from 2001- 2004 to gather material and information about Inuit 1 drum dancing among the Caribou Inuit of Arviat, winter hunt. Women also secured the homes and Nunavut, thanks to my employment as music prepared food for hunters who had no energy left teacher at Qitiqliq High School in Arviat. While when they returned. Additionally, child care that living there I founded a choir called Arviat was essential to the continuance of the society was Imngitingit (singers). This choir is comprised of firmly in the women’s hands. While women could students from Qitiqliq High School and adults from not have survived without the products of men’s the community and it specializes in traditional and labour, men likewise could not have continued to contemporary Inuit music originating from the concentrate on hunting without the products of Kivalliq region of Nunavut. women’s labour. The Arviat Imngitingit are famous for their It seemed reasonable to expect that these expertise in Traditional Inuit Throat Singing, A-ya- traditional social arrangements might also have found ya Singing and Drum Dancing and they enjoy expression in Inuit cultural life. I therefore wanted to singing contemporary Inuit folk songs and gospel know whether and how such sexual divisions of songs in Inuktitut as well. Several members of labour were reflected historically in performances of Arviat Imngitingit have traveled to Greenland and traditional drum dances among the Inuit of Arviat, Alberta to perform for the opening and closing Nunavut. And since the Inuit traditional “hunter/ ceremonies of the Arctic Winter Games and others gatherer” society in the areas surrounding Arviat has have traveled to Brandon, Manitoba, to perform been strongly impacted by colonization, with the Brandon University Chorale at Rural missionization, and relocation, it would also be Forum 2002. All thirty choristers participated in interesting to discover how much these influences Festival 500: Sharing the Voices, an international have impacted the shaping of gender identity and, in choral festival in Newfoundland in 2003. The choir turn, whether changes to the traditional sexual has been highlighted in television programs on division of labour are reflected in contemporary drum Global Television and Aboriginal Peoples’ dancing. Television Network and in newspapers such as the National Post, Evening Telegram, Southern Methodology: Ethnographic Gazette, Kivalliq News, and News North. This Research/Participant Observation long-term lived experience and research allowed me to gather recordings, interview elders, I used ethnographic research methods to conduct transcribe and translate songs, and perform this research project. Ethnography is the traditional Inuit drum dances with Arviat inspection of social situations (Goodall 2000). It Imngitingit. attempts to describe and understand the construction of socio-cultural worlds. Division of Labour Ethnographic practice is attendance; it is a co- presence of ethnographer and the observed social Traditionally, Inuit men and women had their own situation and it unfolds complexity. The potential tasks and spent most of their time in the company of this method lays in what Geertz (1973) calls of others of their own gender. Many scholars have “thick description”. interpreted this economic pattern to emphasize the Geertz’ demanding of “thick description” is dependency of Inuit women on men (Friedl 1975). based on the premise that a thick description can be They point out that the very survival of women and achieved only when the ethnographer can deeply their children in some seasons depended wholly immerse herself in the culture to be described. upon the food that men brought home. This According to Geertz, the process of understanding control over the most important resources in the happens in the field – rather than later on at the office society conveyed a clear advantage to men, who desk when the data is being analyzed. This process of could have used it to control women in any variety understanding refers to the hidden aspects of the of ways. examined culture; he is after “construing social Other interpretations focus more broadly on expressions on their surface enigmatical” (Geertz the process of economic life and find the division 1973). This approach is about symbols and about of labour to be a complementary male-female culture being a “web of meaning.” Participant partnership as the key for survival (Balikci 1970; observation, an integral aspect of ethnographic Guemple 1995; Spencer 1984; Ager 1980). The research, provides an understanding of social time and effort hunters put into each hunt situations, everyday routines and embodied practices. precluded them from doing other necessary chores. It is my aspiration that through “thick Without the waterproof, warm clothing made by description” of the field, responses of my informants, the women, the men could not have survived a and observations of audience response to musical 2 performance an understanding of this social situation student in grade eight. Her mother, Rosie will be achieved. Mamgark, was a teaching assistant at the same school and we immediately became friends. A Performance Approach Gara’s parents are avid hunters; they hunt every weekend and holiday. In the fall and winter the Michelle Kisliuk (2000) takes a performative family follows the caribou herds. In the spring and approach to her research to try to understand the summer they hunt seals and whales. I often went performance style, aesthetics, and micropolitics of on hunting expeditions with the Mamgark family BaAka social life in Central Africa. Focusing on and feel that these lengthy excursions, where I gender relations during performance of the BaAka talked and interacted with Gara and her family on a women’s dances Dingboku and Elamba, she shows very personal level, contributed to the close and how BaAka negotiate power within dynamic comfortable relationship I have with my informant. circumstances. She concludes that the gender I have been friends with the Mamgark family tensions revealed through performance of the for four years. Even now, as I am living in St. women’s dances illuminate how the BaAka of the John’s, some 4,000 kilometers away from Arviat, Bagandou region are responding to changes in the we keep in touch through e-mails and telephone economic and political conditions of the society in calls. For this reason, Gara made an excellent which they live, making choices about their future, informant because she was comfortable speaking to and determining who they wish to become. me and answering my questions and I was at ease Kisliuk’s research is important to my own study speaking with her. We have often discussed Inuit of Inuit music in Arviat, Nunavut for two reasons. traditions and culture in the past and I found Gara First, like the BaAka, the Inuit traditional “hunter to be eager to share her knowledge and opinions. gatherer” society has been influenced by It is important to mention that for these colonization, missionization, and relocation into interviews both Gara and I realized that the larger towns. It would be interesting to know telephone calls were not just personal, friendly whether these influences have had a similar impact calls. I, as a researcher, have interacted with on the shaping of gender identity. Second, as a members of the community of Arviat and have model for my research, her performative approach to established relationships with Inuit. People know the musical discourses and practices of relocated my research role and my aim for data collection. communities or communities undergoing massive Gara and I are friends but she also is aware of and sociopolitical upheaval helped shape my is supportive of my research aims. As Shaffir, methodology for this project. Dietz, and Stebbins state: “The chances of one’s research being accepted are increased when the Telephone Interviews researcher’s interests appear to coincide with those of the people being studied.” (p.
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