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Hugh Brody is an anthropologist and documentary filmmaker who has worked and traveled extensively among indigenous peoples. He is the author of several previous books.

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The Other Side of Eden

North Point Press

Chapter One

Imagine the darkness of the far north. Not as something in which theadventurous traveler moves in awe, but as a beginning, for those forwhom the Arctic is home. Imagine the inside of a skin tent, or asnowhouse, or a government-regulation low-rental prefab. In thishome, an Inuit baby girl wakes in the night. She is held, fed, cuddled?andtalked to.

    What words does she hear? The sounds of whoever is talking inthe same space. The voice of her mother, encouraging her to eat.Words that tell the baby, over and over, that she can decide when tofeed, when to stop feeding. Words of endorsement. After feeding, thebaby girl dozes. With words of welcome, she is lifted into the amautik,the pouch shaped into the hood of her mother's parka, where shecan lie curved against her mother's back. After a while, the baby beginsto defecate. The mother, sensing the movements, lifts her outand holds her over the ground, murmuring encouragement. "Unakuluk,anatiakulugit." "This sweet little one, have a lovely little shit."The mother wipes her baby's bottom, saying "Kuinijuannusaluitutinnai." "Gorgeous and plump, aren't you nice and clean."The mother's father comes over to watch his granddaughter beingwiped. He leans forward, his face close to the baby's, and talks toher softly: "Nuliakuluga. Nuliagauvit? Ii, nuliaga una." "Sweet littlewife. Are you my wife? Yes, this is my wife." The baby's mothersmiles, holding her daughter for her father to adore, and says,"Anaanangai. Ii, anaanagauvutit." "Mother? Yes, you're mymother."

    In these words, the child is given the sounds of love and canknow that she is safe. Not safe just to feed, to sleep, but safe to dothese things as and when she wants. For she is a baby who carriesthe atiq, the spirit and name, of her late grandmother. She is theadored baby; she is also her mother's mother, her grandfather's wife.Her grandmother is alive again in the baby. This means the baby isdoubly and trebly loved. And she must be treated with respect. Shecan no more be denied food or refused the choicest morsels, be toldto sleep when she wants to be awake or told to wake when shewants to be asleep, or be chided for being dirty than could hergrandmother, were she still alive. But her grandmother is alive?inthis baby who is also someone else. To her grandfather she will be"wife," and with this word, as well as all the pet names he used forhis dead wife, he will call out to her. And the baby's mother will addressher child as both "daughter" and "mother."

    Imagine this little girl a year or so later, as she learns to speak.Like children in all societies, after making all possible humansounds, she learns to use the special consonants and vowels of herown language. Then some simple words. She begins to name things.Here, in the corner of her home where food is stored, is the body ofiqaluk, an arctic char; the flipper of qairulik, a harp seal; the skin ofnatia, a juvenile ringed seal. Outside are the skins of nanuq, a polarbear, and several tiriganiat, arctic foxes. But there is no "fish,""seal," or "bear." In the Inuktitut the child learns, there are no suchcategories. It is the specifics of the natural world that are named. Asthe child gets older, she will learn to speak of puijit, the "breathers"that are the sea mammals; and of uksuk or tunuk, the fat of sea creaturesor land creatures; and of sijjarsiutit, the "shoreline seekers,"wading birds. But she will not hear generic words for mammal, fat,or bird.

    From the beginning of her life, the little girl will listen to stories.No one censors or limits that which is told. Her ability to make senseof what she hears is the only constraint. Her grandfather may givethe details of the creation of sea mammals, at the earliest time of theworld in which Inuit now hunt, with all its sexual and bloody details.He may tell a comic story about jealousy and fear. The smallchild listens for as long as she wishes?she is, after all, also her owngrandmother. And she discovers that stories are always a mystery, forthey have much that cannot be understood, and much that comesfrom knowledge and experience beyond understanding. There arewords she knows, things she can make sense of; and these are boththe border and the small gateways to an immense edifice of facts thatshe may not understand in any full way, but that creates questions,wonder, and puzzlement.

    As she gets older, the child recognizes stories. Stories that are toldmany times. Details vary, but the same characters and principalevents recur. This repetition is both the lessening and the maintainingof mystery. For the stories tell of events that are inexplicable and usewords that are incomprehensible. No one would claim to understandevery part of these stories, or to have a ready explanation for people,events, or processes that are confusing and strange. These are storiesthat defy any complete understanding. To tell and to listen to them isto experience the delight and enigma of incomprehension. Mysteriesare repeated, not explained. The ultimate wonder about the worldremains.

    As the little girl learns to be with her friends, in the community ofchildren who roam on the tundra, play on the sea ice, share chores inone another's homes, or sit listening to the talk of adults, she hearsthe ways in which people deal with one another. She will notice theway in which individual choices are respected. More and more shediscovers that she is embedded in a web of relationships that linkher, through her atiq, to so many others. Her uncle calls her"mother," and she can call him "son." Some of her playmates areboth cousin and nephew or niece. Others are her in-laws becausethey are her grandfather's siblings, or her sisters and brothers becausethey have the atiq of one or other of her grandmother's brothersand sisters.

    The words with which the girl is addressed place her in a groupof families, in a community. They also show that she is an individual?childand adult. She has a large, strong, unquestionable family,but she is expected to make her own judgments, take her own initiatives,be clear about her own needs and preferences. She is given aplace in a system that is both communal and individualistic.

    She hears men and women talk about where they have hunted,gathered, and traveled, and she begins to learn the names of the landaround her. She learns that many animals have to be given waterwhen they are killed to ensure that some of their number will be willingto die again when she and her family need food. She discoversthat animals and humans must be at peace with one another. Inuktituthas no words for "vermin" or "weed". There is no demarcationbetween the life of an animal and that of a human?no word for"it." There is no hierarchy of classes of people or, within her community,of rights to use land. Bit by bit, she will come to understandthat the world around her is shared both among people themselvesand between people and the other creatures that belong there.

    She hears individuals referred to as the miut of particular places.They are "of" this or that hunting area, or a particular camp, oreven of a country. She learns that she is a miutaq of both where shenow lives and the place her family thinks of as home, an area wherethey lived when they were young. In these places nunaqarpuq: "shehas land." Not land that she can buy and sell. Dealing of this kind isonly in relation to whites and their trading posts or shops. Money,brought to the North by newcomers, is called kiinaujaq, "resemblesa face"; its archetype is coins that showed the faces of monarchs andpresidents. Beyond kiinaujaq there is no medium of exchange. Inuitdid not have title deeds or contracts, prices or measurements ofequivalent value. Inuktitut is without the categories and mathematicson which these depend. There are numbers for one to five, andwords for ten and twenty, but no arithmetic system beyond these.The ways in which the girl's elders talk of belonging to or living inthe places they have always known show her that the land all aroundher is irreducible, indivisible, and inalienable.

    This land to which she belongs is the subject of many kinds ofstories. Stories about its creation, or the first appearance of variouscreatures. Stories about traveling on it and living from it. She listensto her elders describe ancient times and recent times, passing on theirknowledge about what this place is, what inner meanings it mayhold, how best to make use of its creatures. From stories of creationand the hunt the girl builds an image, or a set of images, of herworld. As in all great narratives, history, geography, personal adventure,and mysteries intertwine. There are misadventures, murder, and

Continues...

Excerpted from The Other Side of Edenby Hugh Brody Copyright © 2002 by Hugh Brody. Excerpted by permission.
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