#yupik peoples

[a-modernmajorgeneral]

Scrimshaw, the decoration of bone or ivory objects, such as whale’s teeth or walrus tusks, with fanciful designs. The designs, executed by whale fishermen of American and Anglo-American origin, were carved with either a jackknife or a sail needle and then emphasized with black pigments, commonly lampblack. Among the subjects are whaling scenes, whaling ships, naval action, frigates, brigs, sailors’ sweethearts, bouquets of flowers, Masonic emblems, coats of arms, and the Irish harp. Examples date from the late 17th century, but the craft reached its peak during the years 1830–50. Scrimshaw is still practiced by whalers such as the Chukchi of Siberia and the Eskimos of Siberia and Alaska.

Scrimshaw with naively scrimshawed ship from 1874 - presumably a first work or practice piece

[dieletztepanzerhexe]

late Thule tradition: walrus man od ivory, collected at Point Barrow around the turn of century, height 7 cm

"The Eskimos and the Aleuts" by Don E. Dumond 1987

[littlenapss]

SOURCE

GET ALASKA NATIVE EARRINGS BY LOOKING UP “YUP’IK EARRINGS” on INSTAGRAM

[akamikazae]

What is Akami’s favorite winter food??

Akami loves stews in the winter. Her favorite is Suaasat, or at least the modified version her mother made when she was small. A traditional meat and barley stew that makes her feel connected to her Yuki clan family. Umiko used either venison or duck instead of the traditional seal or caribou.

She doesn’t have her mother’s recipe but she’s tinkered around and has gotten close enough to what she remembers of Umiko’s Suaasat

[mascula-sappho]

very proud and excited for the amount of rap being produced in Quechua and Maya, so maybe the next step is Anishinaabemowin rap or Lakota rap or Wampanoag rap or Yu'Pik rap or Hopi rap or Díne rap or Apsaalooke rap etc.?

[imaginarianisms]

among the north, the night's watch & the free folk beyond the wall, snowgoggles made of ivory made from walruses, reindeer antlers, moose antlers, bone & driftwood are worn to shield the eyes from snowblindness during the harsh winters for thousands of years.

[fivepercentgodsandearths]

I build with Royal StarAllah about getting Knowledge Of Self in Alaska, Alaskan Land Rights For Natives, Hunger Strikes, Bob Marley Movie, Western Imperialism and Much More. For the full build hit the link in the bio or the comments underneath. Like, Subscribe and Share. Peace!

[portland-sunshine]

Quick pushback/clarification here, as someone who lived in a town that was majority Alaska natives.

Most Arctic peoples are not Inuit, and the terms are not interchangeable. The Inuit are a specific people, and a lot of other tribes find it pretty insulting to get lumped in as one bit group under that name. It's like calling all Europeans Swedes.

The people I lived around were mostly Yupik and Tlingit, with a few Aleut folks. They actually preferred "Eskimo" as a broad term over Inuit, but their ideal would be their actual names.

If you want to refer to the natives of the Arctic and surrounding areas as a group, Arctic peoples is better. If they're specifically from Alaska, you can instead go with Alaska natives (and yes, it's Alaska, not Alaskan).

Folks, friends, y’all…. esk*mo is a slur. I understand a lot of people don’t know that, I don’t want to be a dick about it, but I’ve been seeing it in fics. Wanna write “esk*mo kisses”? Just say “nuzzled noses” or something.

I’m not here to call anybody out, it’s been in multiple fics, I’m not vague posting. This is just a psa. 👍🏻

[atlaculture]

Cultural Calendars: Water Tribe

As we all know, the Water Tribe is primarily inspired by Inuit peoples. However, there is no one standard Inuit calendar, as their traditional timekeeping systems are inextricable from the specific areas where they live. For example, the names of their months typically take inspiration from the different life stages of animals and natural phenomenon in their particular environment. Similarly, Inuit is a language family, so the vocabulary varies quite a bit from region to region. So instead of replicating one specific Inuit group or village's calendar for the Water Tribe, I thought I'd share some interesting details and commonalities I've noticed across the calendars I've looked at; from there, you can decide what to incorporate for your Water Tribe calendar.

Seasons

Inuit/Inupiat/Yupik seasons vary between 5-8 seasons, depending on the weather cycle of the particular area. The most well documented seasonal cycles (shown above) are from Nunavut, Canada in the Inuktitut language and King Island, Alaska in the Inupiatun language. Keeping track of the seasons is vital for hunter-gatherer societies.

Years & Months

I've written about the celebration of Quviasukvik aka Arctic New Year before, so I won't go too in-depth about it. The New Year for many circumpolar people is defined by the first sunrise after the Winter Solstice, as it marks the end of the polar nights, a period when the sun remains below the horizon for multiple months. Meaning that from Katara and Sokka's point of view, Aang first met Roku on New Year's Eve. ^_^

Since the ATLAverse uses a 12-month system, I figured I would use the names that Inuit groups have assigned to the months of the Gregorian calendar. Below is a graph I made of month names (translated into English) from different Inuit, Inupiat, and Yupik regions. If you click on the underlined names, you'll get a link to the sources:

(The months called "miscarriage" are in reference to February and March bring common months for seal miscarriages.)

Based off this research, here are the month names I came up with for the Water Tribe:

I didn't want to choose a specific dialect group, so I just went with English "translations". I tried to make the meanings clear, while also giving the months names that sound like month names (to an English-fluent ear).

Days of the Week

The unit of time known as a "week" wasn't really relevant to arctic peoples as they primarily tracked time based on the seasons and lunar cycles, as that's what's most important to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. As such, I think the Water Tribes just adopted the "international" days of weeks that I mentioned here. East-day, North-day, West-day, South-day, and Center-day would be their day names; whether they'd take a break on Center-day would depend on the month/season they were in.

[ill-kidnap-all-the-stars]

Sokka

[ image description: digital drawing of Sokka from Avatar: the Last Airbender in my style. He is a dark-skinned man walking towards the camera but looking to the right/his left. He has blue eyes and his head is mostly shaved, with the top portion long and tied back into a ponytail. He is wearing a blue changshan with silver frog closures, silver moons on the collar and silver lion embroidery on his shoulders. He is wearing pale blue trousers and blue shoes with silver embroidery, and holding his space sword behind him. He is standing in front of a brown Water Tribe symbol ]

prints ✨ commissions

Continuing to repost older art, I have just decided that I am going to inflict upon you this entire project because it's cool as balls :) once again, the original influences and cultural exploration is under the cut (and once again noting that there is just so much nuance missing from these, since it's impossible to condense thousands of years and miles worth of culture into a few Instagram slides):

A Bit of Background:

The Water Tribes' culture is based primarily on those of Arctic and Siberian peoples. The Northern Tribe has more influence from Siberian peoples (for example, the Yakut, the Buryat, and the Evenk), while the Southern Tribe has more influence from Arctic peoples (such as the Inuit, the Sireniki, and the Yupik). Since the Southern Tribe was founded by ancient immigrants from the Northern Tribe, this reflects the real world relationship between Arctic and Siberian peoples. However, the Water Tribes also draw from other Indigenous peoples, such as Native American, Aboriginal Australian, and Polynesian cultures. And, like all cultures in the ATLA world, the Water Tribes also have extensive Chinese influence.

Some examples include: the igloos used by the Southern Tribe, which resemble those used by the Inuit; the Water Tribes' reliance on hunting and fishing, similar to the Inuit; Water Tribe warriors wear face paint into battle, a practice associated with Native Americans, as well as African and Southeast Asian tribes; Water Tribe boats are based on Polynesian catamarans; Water Tribe boomerangs are based on the “returning boomerangs” used by Aboriginal Australian tribes.

Standard Water Tribe Clothing:

Water Tribe clothing typically resembles the clothing of Arctic peoples. For example, the large, pullover coats are drawn from Inuit anoraks (also called parkas, although they are strictly speaking not the same). Anoraks are typically made from reindeer or seal skin and lined with fur.

Water Tribe shoes are influenced by the mukluks worn by Arctic peoples. These shoes are also made from reindeer or seal skin and are often worn with an inner liner and protective overshoe.

‘Hair loopies’ are also based on an Inuit hairstyle. While braided hairstyles are found in cultures all over the world, ‘hair loopies’ are based on a uniquely Canadian Inuit hairstyle and are called qilliqti in Inuktitut.

My Design:

Katara's warm-weather clothes are inspired by the Chinese cheongsam (Cantonese: 長衫; literally 'long shirt/dress'). It is typically a long, form-fitting, one-piece garment with a standing (mandarin) collar, an asymmetrical, left-over-right closure (右衽; youren), two side slits, and Chinese frog closures (盤扣; pankou).

However, Sokka's warm-weather clothing doesn't have a similar parallel, or even a less-clear influence. For this reason, I decided to draw Sokka in the closest male equivalent to the cheongsam, the changshan (Mandarin: 長衫; literally 'long shirt').

I embellished Sokka's changshan with embroidery of lions, which are a symbol of military prowess in Chinese culture — perfect for Sokka's smart strategies, don't you think? His shoes also have irises on them, which can represent insight, communication and conviction. Finally, I added two crescent moons on his collar because, while his sister of course has a connection to the moon, I also believe Sokka has one as well through Yue

[sincerelywhistler]

Dimitri 🎨

Stern Polar Bear Shifter Professor

I forgor to release the Beast out into the wild (tumblr dot com) sooner but yay more OCs! Exactly what you wanted from me (lying)

Blame Lexi Moon for this one <3

Dimitri facts below~

- From a Siberian Yupik tribe— he moved away from Russia to get away from the government’s poor treatment of indigenous peoples and to pursue his art education

- PhD in Fine Arts, additional degree in Art History and Education

- He channels his own emotions into painting, having a special focus on portraits and nude model scenes that appreciate and further romanticize the human body

- Honey is his little brother!

- Just because he’s stern, it doesn’t mean he’s harsh on grading his students’ own artistic style. Teachers and mentors criticizing personal art styles is probably his biggest pet peeve

- Plays the cello

- Has a Dalmatian named Monet

- Baddie in the kitchen that man can COOK

- But does very much love to indulge in going out for expensive meals

- Aromantic icon that enjoys a good fling

- Call him “sir” ;))

- High key sugar daddy, he loves to spoil people

- He’s very much down to play while half shifted, but it does worry him that he’ll genuinely hurt somebody given his size and teeth and such

- Can quote poetry snippets impressively quick

- He’s a whole ass polar bear of course he can ice skate

Here’s his Pinterest board!

[incognitopolls]

Indigenous here is a political designation which describes a people groups relationship with colonialism - ie. Saami people are an indigenous group but Finnish/Swedish/Norwegian/Russian people are not, even though they are both genetically from the same countries- because of the groups different relationships with colonialism.

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[gleeandshame]

For transparency, they seemed to have updated the video and changed it to “rubbing noses together” as of ~6 hours ago on Breaking News

So is everyone just like ignoring that the esk*mo slur has been said in two different dropout show in the past 3 weeks. First in Chris Grace as Scarlett Johanson and now in the latest Breaking News episode. Thats a fucking slur guys.

not to get pedantic, but i do like to fact check these asks beforehand, and i do want to add a slight disclaimer on my part i cannot confirm that it is a slur. it is definitely an exonym (a term for a group of people created by those outside of that group) which is definitely is a bad thing to do, but is often considered fine to say by some individuals of said groups (i.e. slur reclaimation, native americans referring to themselves as indians, queer men referring to themselves fairies, etc.).

exonyms are pretty much where most slurs come from, given that the majority shapes language, and slurs typically refer to minorities, but whether or not a term is a slur is contextual. unfortunately, i have not watched either the latest Breaking News episode or Chris Grace's special, i can't make any sort of call on whether or not it was used as a slur.

normally, i'd leave this ask in my inbox or drafts while i did the research, but i'll be honest, it's not really my place to decide if it was used as a slur in context, and i also do not have time to watch either of these shows rn, so i'm just adding this disclaimer to be safe, and any judgement call can be made on y'all's part. i will tag it as both, but i do want to make sure i'm not making any unwise judgement calls i'd also like to take this time to remind everyone of the 4th rule in my pinned post, i have a very chaotic and busy life outside of this for several personal reasons, and i do not have time to fact check everyone. i have largely been lucky to remember the specific moments people have mentioned because i am a nerd, but regardless, i could really use the help in keeping this blog as reliable as possible

[theduckeminence]

Avatarverse Worldbuilding Concept:

What if the reason why the world of Avatar is so mish-mash in terms of culture is because during those years prior and during the process of unification of the Four Nations, alot of existing cultures continued to exist and persist in various spots among the nations?

What I mean by this is that numerous aspects of East Asian cultures (mainly China and Japan/Imperial Japan) existing primarily in areas of the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom could be the result of trade and migration — thus leading to major cultural exchanges between nations, and possibly certain aspects engraining itself into the nations’ way of living.

For instance, Kyoshi Island.

(image resource)

Kyoshi Island is most notable in its Ainu influences regarding the fashion of its residents. Quoted from a post by /@atlaculture (who’s going to be a large source for this post), they stated the following:

“The Ainu (アイヌ) are an East Asian ethnic group indigenous to Hokkaido (the northernmost island of Japan) and the Eastern Russian islands of Sakhalin and Kuril...Kyoshi Island exists in close proximity to the Southern Water Tribe, having their inspiration be the Ainu, whose islands are in close proximity to the Yupik and Inupiat peoples of the Bering Strait…”

Going off from this information, there’s two things that come to mind.

Since the Ainu is an ethnic group indigenous to Hokkaido — a northern island of Japan— neighboring with islands that also home other ethnic groups such as the Yupik and Inupiat people, this can offer an interesting concept that can add onto the Avatar world—

What if the ancestors of those born in Kyoshi Island consisted of a mixture between earth kingdom residents, & settlers from both from the Fire Nation and the Southern Water Tribe?

And since we don’t see it too often within the EK or other nations, aspects of South East Asian cultures could also be apart of cultures that exists within the islands of the Fire Nation — which can give the idea that those cultural influences could have originated from certain areas of FN for most of the time (unless I might of missed smth whenever I thought about the EK).

And the reason why the FN seems to lean more towards the ideas of Japanese, and the Earth Kingdom seems to lean more towards Chinese influences (at least, among major towns, groups, and cities such as Gaoling and Ba Sing Se), this could be because of cultural trends that had to the prominence of said ideas.

(Shown here is Toph wearing a Hanfu outfit from the Tang Dynasty & Azula wearing a Southeast Asian garb reminiscent of Cambodian/Khmer fashion).

Furthermore, another idea I have in mind is why the Northern Water Tribe is different — visually speaking — compared to the Southern Water Tribe. Cultural values and traditions aside, the NWT seems to lean a bit less towards Inuit-inspired influences, and more so towards various of other cultures. While the Inuit influences still exist, there also appears to be a mixture of Mongolian influences, as well as hints of other cultures in it as well.

(image resources)

Here in the images shown are examples of the misc. cultural influences within the NWT. In the left image shows a background NWT character wearing a tassel that is crossover between a Korean norigae (a decorative pendant/good-luck charm) and a traditional Korean hair ribbon known as a daenggi. In the right is another background NWT character wearing a hat that’s reminiscent of a Mongolian hat. I’ve also seen alot of people telling about the more Siberian influences the NWT has as well.

Personally, I like to think the reason the NWT may have these differentiating influences could be partially due to cultural exchanging/mixing with neighboring Northern regions of the Earth Kingdom.

(side note: shoutout to @atlaculture for the wonderful resources and explanations on the world of ATLA that inspired me to make this post :3! I highly suggest checking out their blog if you’re interested in learning more about the cultural influences found within Avatar!)

[literaryvein-reblogs]

From the Iñupiat Eskimo Dictionary (1970) Summer Institute of Linguistics, Inc.

Adding Context

Eskimo - This word is considered offensive by some people. In Canada and Greenland, the preferred name is Inuit.

Eskimo is a word that presents challenges for anyone who is concerned about avoiding the use of offensive language. Its offensiveness stems partly from a now-discredited belief that it was originally a pejorative term meaning "eater of raw flesh," but perhaps more significantly from its being a word imposed on aboriginal peoples by outsiders. It has long been considered a word to be avoided in Canada, where native people refer to themselves as Inuit, a word that means "people" in their language. But not all the native people who are referred to as Eskimos are Inuit. Eskimo has no exact synonym; it has a general meaning that encompasses a number of indigenous peoples, and it continues for now in widespread use in many parts of the English-speaking world.

Although the name "Eskimo" was commonly used in Alaska to refer to Inuit and Yupik people of the world, this usage is now considered unacceptable by many or even most Alaska Natives, largely since it is a colonial name imposed by non-Indigenous people. Alaska Natives increasingly prefer to be known by the names they use in their own languages, such as Inupiaq or Yupik. "Inuit" is now the current term in Alaska and across the Arctic, and "Eskimo" is fading from use. The Inuit Circumpolar Council prefers the term "Inuit" but some other organizations use "Eskimo".

[leroibobo]

an approximate map of pre-european contact (though the last one seems to be post-contact) language families in continental north america, showing the spread and migration of different groups throughout the continent. some notes:

these maps include 42 independent language families, 37 isolates, and over 20 linguistic areas altogether.

the oto-manguean (180), uto-aztecan (69), algic (46), and na-dené (45) families have the most languages within them.

the north american family with the most widely-spoken languages is the uto-aztecan family. the most widely-spoken indigenous language in north america today is nahuatl, an uto-aztecan language which is spoken in central mexico and diaspora in the united states by over 1.7 million people.

other widely-spoken indigenous languages in north america today are the various mayan languages spoken throughout guatemala, belize, and mexico such as q'echi', k'iche', mam, tzeltal, and tzotzil.

in general, mexico, guatemala, and belize are home to most of the most commonly spoken indigenous north american languages. other large north american countries such as the united states and canada house comparatively few speakers. (the most common in the former is navajo (na-dené, 170,000), and in the latter, cree (algic, 96,000).) differences in colonization methods and population density/climate/environment before the fact account for the lower numbers.

the linguistic diversity/number of language families in a given area is mostly due to climate and environment. drier and flatter regions are lower in linguistic diversity as the space facilitates the movement of the population within them. (the same thing happened with the turkic and uralic families.) more mountainous and lush environments discourage this. (this happened in what's today papua new guinea.)

the relation between north american and siberian indigenous languages has been hypothesized, but no definite conclusion has been accepted. the most famous theoretical grouping is the hypothetical dené–yeniseian family, which links the na-dené family with the yeniseian languages of central siberia. a family which definitely stretches out to siberia is the inuit–yupik–unangan family (referred to here a eskimo-aleut).

due to colonization, including forced displacement and assimilation, there are many native languages which are either unattested to or were wiped out altogether. these maps only consist of what we know about.