Читать книгу An Intimate Wilderness - Norman Hallendy - Страница 19

THE SCENT OF SENSITIVITY

My southern colleagues have marvelled at how fortunate I was to develop a remarkably close and lasting relationship with the Inuit of Sikusiilaq. This relationship took a long time to grow. Three different families often refer to me as “our relative from the South,” which makes me feel at home whenever I return to Cape Dorset. In my experience, lasting relationships include admonishments such as the time when Osuitok Ipeelie impatiently said “It’s time you started to learn to call things by their proper names.” There are other times when one faces occasional disagreement, anger, and in some cases, hostility. In any case, my relationship with the Inuit elders was based on my respect for them rather than any judgment.

It helped also to learn the elements of proper behaviour. I recall with amusement the time Simeonie Quppapik roundly chastised me: “You have been visiting me long enough. Stop knocking on my door when you come! Only qallunaat and police knock on doors. Stop scaring me!”

One of the most important gestures of decent behaviour was to be thoughtful. When a younger person was visiting an elder, bringing food was considerate. I simply left it on the table and learned that no thanks was necessary or expected.

From time to time, I was scolded and brought down a peg or two without rancour. I remember the time I was out on the land with Pitaloosie Saila and her family. Pitaloosie told me to go out and put up the pole that acted a mast for the two-way radio. What seemed like a simple task turned out to be embarrassing. I tried valiantly to put a thin two-metre high pole upright between small round boulders.

“What’s the matter?” Pitaloosie yelled. “You went to university and you can’t even stick a pole up in the air?”

“I forgot how about five thousand years ago,” I lashed out at her.

“Too bad,” she retorted. “Anyway, you qallunaat descended from monkeys, we didn’t. Everyone knows that there were no monkeys in the Arctic.”

I couldn’t stop laughing. The next morning, the pole was standing straight, no doubt put there in a couple of minutes by one of the kids.

Shortly after my first visit to southwest Baffin in 1958, many of the old Inuit who had been born and grown up in hunting camps were reaching the end of their lives. While some of their legends, songs, and stories would live on, the way they thought and felt about things and the way they viewed their world grew dimmer with each elder’s death. Leetia Parr and Pia Pootoogook, along with the sisters Annie, Jeannie, and Nina Manning, helped me gain insight into some of the thoughts and experiences of the old people in Cape Dorset. I could never have gathered some of the stories and many other accounts without their help. It was important for my helper to understand not only what I was trying to learn from the elders, but also why I was interested in such things. The old adage “Ask the right question and you will get the right answer” is not necessarily true. Quite often, the answer is a response to questions in the storyteller’s mind: “What is it that he or she would like to hear?”

I was careful to ensure that whoever accompanied me was socially acceptable to the various people with whom I wanted to speak. Even the best interpreter in the community would be severely handicapped if, for example, the person I was meeting had a history of animosity with a member of the interpreter’s family. I almost blundered into a situation where I was about to have a conversation with an old man who, as a youth, was a camp slave (the polite term is servant) to the father of the interpreter with me at the time.

Knowing or having a feeling about when to back off from a line of inquiry was important. The approach to conversations was critical to what transpired during them. I began by explaining what I was seeking and why I was interested in the subject. At times I said to the person, I have heard such-and-such from so-and-so and would like to know more about the subject, and I asked the person if he could help me. I was often asked, “What will you do with what I tell you?” To this I replied, “I will never repeat the things you want me to keep to myself. The things that can be repeated to others will be written down as I understand them, and that is why I ask you to be patient with me during our conversation.”

I explained to my interpreter and the person with whom we spoke that we would not interrupt each other’s thoughts with translation. I would say whatever I had to say, and the interpreter would then say to me, “That is what I understand you to mean.” Any further articulation was made at that time, before the question or thoughts were transmitted to the elder.

The same held true for the elder speaking to me. Often, we would speak for long periods without breaks in the conversation for translation. The thing we would frequently say to one another was, “I understand you to mean... Is that so?” The reply was either, “Yes, that is so,” or “No, you don’t really understand what I have said, and I will try to explain it in a different way.” Before leaving the community, if necessary, I would meet once more with the elder who had spoken to me, along with my companion interpreter. We would recount our understanding of the conversation we’d had, and only when the elder was satisfied would the notes we’d taken be considered complete.

My desire to show respect extended to how I carried out field research. When examining a location of significance, I consciously avoided touching any object or disturbing, in any manner, anything at a site. Partly, this was due to superstitions handed down from my own family. I remember Simeonie smiling approvingly when he noticed me whistling softly while passing nearby a grave. On the other hand, I often made copious notes, took general measurements, and captured many photographs at the sites I was taken to. I gave my records back to the community and deposited them in the local schools where, from time to time, Inuit teachers invited me to share my stories with their students.

Every major site I observed and documented in southwest Baffin was revealed to me by an elder who often accompanied me. When I planned to travel extensively photographing the landscape or revisiting sites with elders, I’d write to the Community Council of Cape Dorset to seek permission, and I received a formal letter signed by the mayor of the community.

When I had the opportunity to travel by helicopter throughout the Sikusiilaq region, I made it a priority to take elders back to the camps were they had been born and to areas where they had hunted. Such helicopter trips were useful to the community as well because it was possible to survey the freshwater supply, waste lagoons, road construction, and potential sources of gravel. Strange as it may seem, gravel is often a scarce commodity near most communities in the Arctic. Gravel is needed for constructing pads for houses and repairing roads and landing strips. Often very old sites are located on gravel beds and, unless protected, bits of artifacts can be scooped up and find their way into road and runway surfaces or house pads.