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.
Read more about this topic: Eskimo
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)
“Myths, as compared with folk tales, are usually in a special category of seriousness: they are believed to have “really happened,” or to have some exceptional significance in explaining certain features of life, such as ritual. Again, whereas folk tales simply interchange motifs and develop variants, myths show an odd tendency to stick together and build up bigger structures. We have creation myths, fall and flood myths, metamorphose and dying-god myths.”
—Northrop Frye (1912–1991)
“We all have bad days, of course, a secret that only makes us feel more guilty. But once my friends and I started telling the truth about how far we deviated from perfection, we couldn’t stop. . . . One mother admitted leaving the grocery store without her kids—”I just forgot them. The manager found them in the frozen foods aisle, eating Eskimo Pies.””
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)