The testimonies from the book Inuit Women: Their Powerful Spirit in a Century of Change of the Inuit are a mixture of "animistic and egalitarian indigenous culture" kind of testimonies with "patriarchal european colonizing culture" ones. That weird blend of fluid equality plus rigid hierarchy, freedom and peace plus coercion and oppression, etc. has been very similar to the ones coming from testimonies of indigenous people from the United States who speak about how the conversion schools (boarding schools) their ancestors were forced to attend ended up creating this mixed culture of european colonial sexual violence and sexual repression with indigenous traditional sexual freedom and sexual safety. In the end, I wasn't there 500 years ago, so I will never know how it truly was before my ancestors started f-cking the whole planet up.
Moreso, the book states that inuits have an oral tradition and that the testimonies of the "traditional" life come from what life was like around 100 years ago (and they already have had boarding schools by then for a while), and that it's due to this that it's basically impossible to truly know what "traditional" was truly like prior to the european, patriarchal colonization that started around 500 years ago.
My guess is that, more probably, they did have a coercion-free society prior to colonization, with colonization bringing this weird mix of both coercion and freedom. Probably, some inuit groups were more prone to maintaining their traditions while others assimilated more to the colonizing culture, with different inuit groups coexisting together in relative proximity to one another.
Interesting enough, I found this wikipedia article about Marriage à la façon du pays.
It says: "Marriage à la façon du pays ([a la fa.sɔ̃ dy pɛ.i]; "according to the custom of the country") refers to the practice of common-law marriage between European fur traders and aboriginal or Métis women in the North American fur trade.[1]: 4 One historian, Sylvia Van Kirk, suggested these marriages were "the basis for a fur trade society".[2] The practice persisted from the early 17th century until the late 19th century."
The timelines coincide, as well as the testimonies from the people in the book A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn on what and how colonization happened.
More and more, it seems to me like the testimonies of martial rape/ritualized rape present in the book Inuit Women: Their Powerful Spirit in a Century of Change are more a product of european colonization and settlers rather than traditional pre-colonization inuit society.
The idea of having flexible roles and equality is opposite to having rigid hierarchies were people are treated as possesions. Thus, the presence of ritualistic marital rape doesn't make sense when talking about a society where gender equality is the norm.
My guess is that the book did a poor job at explaining the possible reason behind having such dichotomy happening at the same time.
Hundreds of years of mixing peaceful equality with oppressive hierarchies via colonization have had the same/similar effects in indigenous populations all across the globe, with some families and regions leaning more towards their ancestral equality while others assimilated more to the one the colonizers imposed.
It's not uncommon to hear testimonies of indigenous people talking about how rare sexual abuse was until the european colonizers arrived, and then people (especially men) started acting out on the sexual trauma imposed on them as children (mostly through things like ritualistic sexual abuse in boarding schools and such).
So, my conclusion is that the same thing that happened with the rest of America's indigenous populations happened with the inuit communities, where pre-columbian sexual freedom (including the lack of martial rape/ritualistic rape) got mixed with imposed repression and control of (especially women's) sexuality coming from the white european settlers.
Tl;dr: the timeframe of the testimonies for arranged/forced marriages and ritualistic/marital rape presented here (around the 19th century), as well as the testimonies of sexual abuse, coincide with the time period where european colonizers/settlers started their imposition of these practices via boarding schools and the "marriage à la façon du pays" (between the 17th and the 19th).
The specific ritualistic/marital rape testimonies also mention christian priests, christian wedding ceremonies, boarding schools and what are most probably white western men ("weird, creepy moustache", "not from the tribe/clan", "living in a boat", etc.).
The marriage à la façon du pays stopped around the 19th century, which also coincides with the testimonies of inuit women talking about the ending of arranged marriages and forced martial/ritualistic rape.
Moreso, this blend of equalitarian, free customs with hierarchical, coerced ones is common in testimonies of indigenous people talking about the effects of colonization during the last 500 years.
Most probably, the inuit didn't have marital/ritualistic rape prior to colonization and it was brough mostly through boarding schools and things like the "marriage à la façon du pays".
This would require further investigation on the topic, but it would also coincide with testimonies coming from other indigenous people from north america (nowadays USA and Canada).
The idea of lack of sexual stigmatization of women and teenage girls mixed with the practice of selling them as property when their first period come (as well as the idea of equalitarianism and flexible roles mixed with rigid hierarchies and rigid roles, and the idea of sexual freedom and lack of stigma with sexual control and repression/stigma) can be explained by the reality of mixing traditional indigenous sexual-freedom practices and customs with imposed european patriarchal sexual-repression customs. Different inuit groups may have been forced into these customs over the last centures from european influence and coercion, with different practices varying between different inuit communities and different eras over the last centuries.
This would require further investigation on the topic, and it's more of an observation. Nevertheless, good post 👌❤️ And I'm deeply sorry for the horrors those women were forced to endure at the hands of those monstruous men. They deserved better.
given the extreme landscape of survival required of the arctic peoples vs. more temperament landscapes.
Most Eurasian, African, Americas ranges, zones, environments didn't have the extremes of the arctic.
Non-Arctic zones allows much larger bands with less kinship drivers of behavior.
There are far fewer requirements for non-arctic peoples to be as optimal in their group design.
Greater range requires larger bands, tribes, groupings etc.. this creates/forces specialization, competition between larger and larger groupings which requires building armies, defensive security development
With resources so large this prioritizes force, power projection, large mass which then has emphasis
on males, reproduction of males, etc..
This relegates females to a secondary roles over time as the cycles repeat, the numbers scale, culture, practice is then reinforced.
Is my analysis misplaced or am I missing something.
Once again thank you for your excellent writing, analysis
My take: the timeframe for the arrange marriages coincide with the time period where the fur trades between europeans started their arranged marriages with aboriginal and Métis women called "marriage à la façon du pays".
This happened between the 17th and the 19th, which coincides with the end of these arranged marriages based on the book the author took this info from (Inuit Women: Their Powerful Spirit in a Century of Change).
Testimonies like these are common across north american indigenous people after the boarding schools started, which the testimonies of those. arranged/forced marriages also mention
Random question: do you plan to write about societies that had matrilineal inheritance? I would be really interested to see your discussion of that.
The ancient mongols were matrilineal.
Wow wonder article! Really interesting
The testimonies from the book Inuit Women: Their Powerful Spirit in a Century of Change of the Inuit are a mixture of "animistic and egalitarian indigenous culture" kind of testimonies with "patriarchal european colonizing culture" ones. That weird blend of fluid equality plus rigid hierarchy, freedom and peace plus coercion and oppression, etc. has been very similar to the ones coming from testimonies of indigenous people from the United States who speak about how the conversion schools (boarding schools) their ancestors were forced to attend ended up creating this mixed culture of european colonial sexual violence and sexual repression with indigenous traditional sexual freedom and sexual safety. In the end, I wasn't there 500 years ago, so I will never know how it truly was before my ancestors started f-cking the whole planet up.
Moreso, the book states that inuits have an oral tradition and that the testimonies of the "traditional" life come from what life was like around 100 years ago (and they already have had boarding schools by then for a while), and that it's due to this that it's basically impossible to truly know what "traditional" was truly like prior to the european, patriarchal colonization that started around 500 years ago.
My guess is that, more probably, they did have a coercion-free society prior to colonization, with colonization bringing this weird mix of both coercion and freedom. Probably, some inuit groups were more prone to maintaining their traditions while others assimilated more to the colonizing culture, with different inuit groups coexisting together in relative proximity to one another.
Interesting enough, I found this wikipedia article about Marriage à la façon du pays.
It says: "Marriage à la façon du pays ([a la fa.sɔ̃ dy pɛ.i]; "according to the custom of the country") refers to the practice of common-law marriage between European fur traders and aboriginal or Métis women in the North American fur trade.[1]: 4 One historian, Sylvia Van Kirk, suggested these marriages were "the basis for a fur trade society".[2] The practice persisted from the early 17th century until the late 19th century."
The timelines coincide, as well as the testimonies from the people in the book A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn on what and how colonization happened.
More and more, it seems to me like the testimonies of martial rape/ritualized rape present in the book Inuit Women: Their Powerful Spirit in a Century of Change are more a product of european colonization and settlers rather than traditional pre-colonization inuit society.
The idea of having flexible roles and equality is opposite to having rigid hierarchies were people are treated as possesions. Thus, the presence of ritualistic marital rape doesn't make sense when talking about a society where gender equality is the norm.
My guess is that the book did a poor job at explaining the possible reason behind having such dichotomy happening at the same time.
Hundreds of years of mixing peaceful equality with oppressive hierarchies via colonization have had the same/similar effects in indigenous populations all across the globe, with some families and regions leaning more towards their ancestral equality while others assimilated more to the one the colonizers imposed.
It's not uncommon to hear testimonies of indigenous people talking about how rare sexual abuse was until the european colonizers arrived, and then people (especially men) started acting out on the sexual trauma imposed on them as children (mostly through things like ritualistic sexual abuse in boarding schools and such).
So, my conclusion is that the same thing that happened with the rest of America's indigenous populations happened with the inuit communities, where pre-columbian sexual freedom (including the lack of martial rape/ritualistic rape) got mixed with imposed repression and control of (especially women's) sexuality coming from the white european settlers.
Tl;dr: the timeframe of the testimonies for arranged/forced marriages and ritualistic/marital rape presented here (around the 19th century), as well as the testimonies of sexual abuse, coincide with the time period where european colonizers/settlers started their imposition of these practices via boarding schools and the "marriage à la façon du pays" (between the 17th and the 19th).
The specific ritualistic/marital rape testimonies also mention christian priests, christian wedding ceremonies, boarding schools and what are most probably white western men ("weird, creepy moustache", "not from the tribe/clan", "living in a boat", etc.).
The marriage à la façon du pays stopped around the 19th century, which also coincides with the testimonies of inuit women talking about the ending of arranged marriages and forced martial/ritualistic rape.
Moreso, this blend of equalitarian, free customs with hierarchical, coerced ones is common in testimonies of indigenous people talking about the effects of colonization during the last 500 years.
Most probably, the inuit didn't have marital/ritualistic rape prior to colonization and it was brough mostly through boarding schools and things like the "marriage à la façon du pays".
This would require further investigation on the topic, but it would also coincide with testimonies coming from other indigenous people from north america (nowadays USA and Canada).
The idea of lack of sexual stigmatization of women and teenage girls mixed with the practice of selling them as property when their first period come (as well as the idea of equalitarianism and flexible roles mixed with rigid hierarchies and rigid roles, and the idea of sexual freedom and lack of stigma with sexual control and repression/stigma) can be explained by the reality of mixing traditional indigenous sexual-freedom practices and customs with imposed european patriarchal sexual-repression customs. Different inuit groups may have been forced into these customs over the last centures from european influence and coercion, with different practices varying between different inuit communities and different eras over the last centuries.
This would require further investigation on the topic, and it's more of an observation. Nevertheless, good post 👌❤️ And I'm deeply sorry for the horrors those women were forced to endure at the hands of those monstruous men. They deserved better.
Alice,
Great article, like usual.
Question,
isn't there a geographical determinism ?
Arctic peoples seem to have behavior more like wolf packs..Extremely optimized survival groups.
https://www.zmescience.com/feature-post/natural-sciences/animals/mammals/theres-no-such-thing-as-alpha-males-or-females-in-wolf-packs/
given the extreme landscape of survival required of the arctic peoples vs. more temperament landscapes.
Most Eurasian, African, Americas ranges, zones, environments didn't have the extremes of the arctic.
Non-Arctic zones allows much larger bands with less kinship drivers of behavior.
There are far fewer requirements for non-arctic peoples to be as optimal in their group design.
Greater range requires larger bands, tribes, groupings etc.. this creates/forces specialization, competition between larger and larger groupings which requires building armies, defensive security development
With resources so large this prioritizes force, power projection, large mass which then has emphasis
on males, reproduction of males, etc..
This relegates females to a secondary roles over time as the cycles repeat, the numbers scale, culture, practice is then reinforced.
Is my analysis misplaced or am I missing something.
Once again thank you for your excellent writing, analysis
Aaron
My take: the timeframe for the arrange marriages coincide with the time period where the fur trades between europeans started their arranged marriages with aboriginal and Métis women called "marriage à la façon du pays".
This happened between the 17th and the 19th, which coincides with the end of these arranged marriages based on the book the author took this info from (Inuit Women: Their Powerful Spirit in a Century of Change).
Testimonies like these are common across north american indigenous people after the boarding schools started, which the testimonies of those. arranged/forced marriages also mention
Check my other comments for more info.
100000 years from now god won't be able to tell which sex you are.
Wolf packs have an alpha pair(power couple) with subordinates below them.
The guy who popularized the term "alpha wolf" spent decades trying to take down his own book because it was wrong.
The "alpha pair" is basically the mom and dad. No real hierarchy based on oppression in there.
Arctic living is extremely stressful so most wolf packs will try to move as far south as reasonably feasible.