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The Polar Eskimo were a fictional Inuit people featured on The Residents' 1979 audio documentary album Eskimo, inspired by music theorist N. Senada's expeditions to the Arctic north in the mid 1970s.
The culture was largely driven by walrus hunting, performed by the tribe's men in often blinding conditions. For their role in hunting, men were exalted generally among the Polar Eskimo, with female infants being ritually killed at birth if there was no suitable male infant in the tribe for whom the female could grow to serve as a wife.[1]
The beginning of the Polar Eskimo yearly cycle was celebrated at the end of the Arctic six month night with a Death Festival, the most important holiday in the fictional Polar Eskimo calendar. Magic/medicine men known as Angakoks were held among the tribe as supreme symbols of mortal power.[1]
The fictional "Polar Eskimo" is apparently no more, having been "'rescued' from its 'miserable' lifestyle by welfare" in the late 1960s, being relocated into government housing, and now spending most of their days "watching reruns on TV".[1]
In real life, an indigenous language, Inuktun, is known in English as "Polar Inuit"; it exists among an indigenous Inughuit population residing in the world's northernmost settlements in Qaanaaq and the surrounding area in northern Greenland.
See also[]
- Eskimo
- Angakok
- The Festival of Death
- N. Senada
External links and references[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Eskimo liner notes, 1979
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Eskimo (1979) Side A: |