Well, it’s been a few weeks since my last post so here's a mini-update. Things in Bethel
are going well. The temperatures are beginning to drop along with the hours of
sunlight, which means the beginning of layering clothes and walking to work in
the dark. I have faith that all of my winters in Cleveland have prepared me for
this coming one - we’ll just have to wait and see. But really, how much more
numb can you get once you’re numb? I suppose I’ll soon find out.
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| Sunrise on the way to work a few weeks ago. It's a lot darker around that time now. |
I’ve been thinking about which "Bethel Lesson" to share next and decided it would be a good time to try to answer probably one of
the most frequent questions I’ve gotten about being in Alaska: what is the p.c.
term for Eskimo? Well, technically, “Eskimo” is not offensive. It is a broad,
generalized name for the Native Alaskan population, grouping all of their
tribes into one term that they did not choose for themselves.
Let’s have a mini history lesson, shall we? Eskimo or
Esquimaux is said to come from French translating roughly to “raw meat eaters”
or something similar. Now you’re probably wondering if Native
Alaskans eat a lot of raw meat or used to and the answer is no. The name was
given when a group of French explorers asked a tribe of Native Alaskans what they
call the neighboring tribe of Native Alaskans. So, rather than asking each
tribe what name they give themselves, they were all lumped under this one term
of Eskimo. Ce n'est pas possible, no? (<-- Shout out to Madame Snook)
Now, while Eskimo might not offend someone, generally the
preference is to be referred to by the name of someone’s tribe: ie. Yup’ik,
Chup’ik, Athabascan and many more. Bethel is located in a primarily Yup’ik
region. Inuit is another tribe and often mistaken as the politically correct
term for Native Alaskan. In reality, it’s more offensive for someone from a
different tribe to be called Inuit than Eskimo. All Inuits are Eskimos, but not
all Eskimos are Inuits (kind of like the rectangle square analogy). It's kind of like calling anyone who is white Irish or Polish, it's not all the same ethnicity. How a more
offensive term came to be thought of as p.c. I am still not sure…
Basically, if you want to not offend an indigenous person of
Alaska, Native Alaskan would be the way to go, either that or their tribe
(Yup’ik, Chup’ik, etc.), but don’t assume you know which tribe they are from.
And if you want to know about their culture, ask. All of this information about
the history of Eskimo or what is p.c. came from the help of one of our old JV
support people in Bethel, Cecilia who is Chup’ik and super willing to teach
anyone who wants to learn.
This lesson may not have been as funny as picturing me
learning to catch a salmon, or outrageous as Bethel food prices, but I know a
lot of people (including myself) were wondering, so I hope I answered
sufficiently.
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| My "fall" this year on the tundra. Not the same, but still neat. |
