Now then. Returning to backed up posts. Thousands of years of history are summed up in the lifeways recorded in these films of the Netsilik Inuit in Nunavut, northern Canada. There are no subtitles, straight documentary showing the ingenuity and skills needed to survive in frigid, treeless country. Women cut out caribou skins with their curved ulu (knives) to make parkas and sew them with sinew that they shear off a saved leg. They scrape away a foot of snow to collect moss, used as wicks in the stone lamps that provide both light and heat. They carefully tend the line of moss against the pool of rendered fat. The men are shown making a sled without wood, by soaking what I guess are walrus skins (huge and hairless) through a hole in the ice. They place salmon in a row at one end of the skins and roll them up tightly, binding them with rawhide ropes; then tie these two runners together with caribou legbone rungs. The method of sealing these is this: gather moss, mash it up with water and pack it onto the bottoms of the rolled leather runners, molding it into layers five inches thick; then pour seawater over them to create a protective coating of ice. These movies (youll see a whole series of them if you scroll below the screen box) need to be seen while sitting relaxed. Some might think them boring, but I found them fascinating and illuminating. nfb.ca/film/at_winter_sea_ice_camp_pt_1
Posted on: Sat, 18 Jan 2014 21:27:03 +0000