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Canku Ota |
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(Many Paths) |
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An Online Newsletter Celebrating Native America |
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June 5, 2004 - Issue 114 |
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Putting Names to Ancient Faces |
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by Greg Younger-Lewis - Nunatsiaq News |
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"This is an important part of conserving Inuit history in Nunavut"
After months of traveling door-to-door in Nunavut communities, the mostly volunteer group has wrapped up the first phase of Project Naming, an effort to find the names of Inuit shown in stacks of black and white photos taken decades ago, and now stored in the federal government archives in Ottawa. Since summer 2001, students from Nunavut Sivuniksavut, an Ottawa-based college program for Inuit, have been meeting elders in their communities to show them photos on laptop computers, hoping they might recognize the smiling and sometimes perplexed faces in the pictures.
On May 21, students joined staff from Library and Archives Canada and officially launched a web site featuring the faces - and more importantly, the names - of Inuit from around Nunavut's three regions. People
surfing the Internet can now get a glimpse of the photos, taken
in Kinngait, Kugluktuk, Igloolik, Taloyoak, Arviat, Hall Beach,
Arctic Bay, Pond Inlet, Iqaluit, and Kimmirut. The project was funded
by Nunavut's Department of Culture, Elders, Language and Youth,
and the federal ministry of Canadian heritage.
"[The project] is an opportunity to record information about the past that will soon be lost forever," he said. Angus noted that the project also put Inuit in touch with their past. Mathewsie
Ashevak, a student from Kinngait, collected names while interviewing
elders he rarely spoke with before, including his own grandmother,
Kenojuak Ashevak.
"This opportunity gave me a better understanding of how we should build our territory, Nunavut," Ashevak wrote. Project organizers hope to continue collecting names for hundreds more archival photos in 2005, especially in the Kivalliq region. |
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handful of Inuit youth reached a milestone last week in putting
names to faces of Nunavut elders, formerly missing from photographs
of Inuit stored at the National Archives of Canada.
The
laptop photos were scanned from original prints taken by federal
public servants and other photographers from the 1930s to the 1960s.
Until now, hundreds of these photos lacked proper identification,
and simply labelled the Inuit as "Eskimos."
Murray
Angus, a college instructor who oversaw the project with support
from National Archives staff, said the naming project aimed to fill
in the blanks left behind by the photographers. He pointed out that
many elders are dying, and taking their knowledge of the past with
them.
In
a project report, Ashevak recalled how listening to their stories
taught him a new respect for his elders.|
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| Canku Ota is a free Newsletter celebrating Native America, its traditions and accomplishments . We do not provide subscriber or visitor names to anyone. Some articles presented in Canku Ota may contain copyright material. We have received appropriate permissions for republishing any articles. Material appearing here is distributed without profit or monetary gain to those who have expressed an interest. This is in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107. | ||
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Canku Ota is a copyright © 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 of Vicki Barry and Paul Barry. |
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The "Canku Ota - A Newsletter Celebrating Native America" web site and its design is the |
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Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 of Paul C. Barry. |
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All Rights Reserved. |
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