Myths and Misconceptions About The Eskimo
There exist some very common erroneous ideas about the Inuit. These include:
- "They have thousands of words for snow." This is a gross exaggeration. See Eskimo words for snow. There are many words for ice, however, that describe its forms, colors, age, relative safety for crossing or traveling over, and other aspects. See Nelson 1969, "Hunters of the Northern Ice"
- "They live in igloos." Igloo simply means house. The snow house we think of was a temporary shelter during hunting seasons in the late winter and spring. It was an important survival skill making use of what materials were available and may still be used today in emergencies or for fun as part of the transfer of traditional knowledge between generations.
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Famous quotes containing the words myths and, myths and/or eskimo:
“... suffering does not ennoble. It destroys. To resist destruction, self-hatred, or lifelong hopelessness, we have to throw off the conditioning of being despised, the fear of becoming the they that is talked about so dismissively, to refuse lying myths and easy moralities, to see ourselves as human, flawed, and extraordinary. All of us—extraordinary.”
—Dorothy Allison (b. 1949)
“In New York—whose subway trains in particular have been “tattooed” with a brio and an energy to put our own rude practitioners to shame—not an inch of free space is spared except that of advertisements.... Even the most chronically dispossessed appear prepared to endorse the legitimacy of the “haves.””
—Gilbert Adair, British author, critic. “Cleaning and Cleansing,” Myths and Memories (1986)
“The man who invented Eskimo Pie made a million dollars, so one is told, but E.E. Cummings, whose verse has been appearing off and on for three years now, and whose experiments should not be more appalling to those interested in poetry than the experiment of surrounding ice-cream with a layer of chocolate was to those interested in soda fountains, has hardly made a dent in the doughy minds of our so-called poetry lovers.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)