Presentation for INDG 258 - Lorena Sekwan Fontaine
2005
Summary:
The story is told from the perspective of Kannujaq, a lone hunter that gets lost in unfamiliar hunting grounds. While lost, Kannujaq encounters a strange camp—a Tunit camp that appears to be in distress. As Kannujaq approaches the camp he is immediately greeted by a frantic boy who leads him into the camp while speaking words that are, at first, foreign to Kannujaq. As the two walk through the camp, Kannujaq begins to see numerous dead bodies on the ground. Amongst the commotion, Kannujaq also sees large men of pale skin clamper back to an oversize boat after receiving commands from their leader, the Shining One. Kannujaq then reverts his attention back to boy and noticed his strange character and most of all his icy blue eyes. It is from this that Kannujaq concludes that the boy is a shaman, an angakoq, named Siku.
While everyone restores the camp, Siku and Kannujaq escape to Siku’s shelter, where they discuss the Sairaili or the giants, arrival and demolishion of their camp. Siku believes the arrival of these large men follow the camp’s current leader, Angula. Angula claims the Sairaili only demolish their community, because the people of the camp fail to follow his orders and show complete submission. Siku on the other hand, believes the Sairaili follow Angula to retrieve their tools, which Angula uses to gain power.
Just then, as Siku and Kannujaq were holding their discussion, Angula’s voice called to them from outside. Upon facing Angula, Kannujaq was belittled, and accused. Also, during this time, Siku went into a trance claiming the resignation of Angula as a leader, and Kannujaq as their new leader. This occurrence angered Angula who sent the boy crashing down, ending his trance, while demanding Kannujaq leave the camp. However, Angula later decided he would not let Kannujaq leave quietly and attempted to murder him outside the camp, but Kannujaq was more successful and ended the dispute with the death of Angula and his followers.
Kannujaq then returned to the leaderless camp to help with their survival and was taken in joyously by Siku and then introduced to Siku’s mother Siaq, who was of the same race as Kannujaq. Siaq discussed with Kannujaq that when she was near death, she was discovered by Angula and taken in as slave.
After the discovery of Siaq, Angula also discovered a Sairaili, the Shining One, and revived him while robbing all his tools of excellent craftsmanship. In order to keep the Shining One under his control, Angula gave him Siaq to keep him distracted. As time passed Siaq and the Shining One came to know one another quite well, but one night they had an argument wherein Siaq told him the truth about his discovery and Angula and the Shining One reacted with quietly and disappeared. But, now the Shining One is returning to various Tunit communities, destroying and searching always.
At the end of the discussion, Kannujaq suggested they must either fight or flee, but he realized that Tunit liked their homes, and were not a violent group. Upon thinking the matter through, Kannujaq suggested they poison or stick sharp objects in the foods, which the Sairaili would eat, thereby lessening their power. So, the group prepared for this plan, and finally the Sairaili appeared and they retreated further back into their community, while they placed the poisoned food in houses nearest to the coast.
After the Sairlaili finished their demolition of the Tunit community they began to engorge in the poisoned food. After some time elapsed, the Sairaili began to show signs of distortion, teetering, and vomiting, all the while laughing at one another. Finally, the Sairaili began to fall to the ground and convulse. During this time, the Tunit attacked the large men, and pushed their boat out to sea. On the boat, still alive, was the Shining One and Kannujaq looked at his eyes that were of despair, resignation, and an icy blue colour. Kannujaq realized that this Shining One’s main search was for his legacy, his son. After this horrendous event, Kannujaq finally returned home to his people, the Inuit, with Siku.
Gender Analysis:
With close observation to many of the characters within the story, especially in terms of their relationships, resources, activities, and constraints, a gender analysis was applied. Also, this analysis was assisted by looking at culture, race, class, and status in the overall social structure.
In the story, it is obvious that it centers round three social structures, or races. Between these races, namely, the Inuit, Tunit, and Viking, we found various elements in the story that spoke of their culture, sociality, and roles. Even though the specific elements that identified these culture and roles will not be covered in detail, the class will receive an idea of how our group constructed a gender analysis from this story, so I suggest the class pay particular attention to the roles and overall social characteristics of each cultural group. Having said this, I will begin with the Inuit.
For the Inuit we received a great deal of information, because the story was told from the perspective of an Inuit named Kannujaq. Kannujaq first clued the reader in that Inuit men and women travel together, which became evident when taking into consideration his isolation at the beginning of the story. There also seemed to be an emphasis that older men, such as Kannujaq’s grandfather, did much of the storytelling, or embodied some kind of teaching role. As for younger males, there appeared to be a set age where boys began to take on roles like hunting when close observation is paid to Kannujaq’s first impression of a young Tunit boy. This emphasis is further elaborated when one also notices that an Inuit woman is dependent on her husband’s hunting or role of providing food, and the male is likewise dependent on her survival skills such as stitching, and cleaning of animals that are caught. In addition, there also appeared to be another role that was all together different from male and female roles. This was brought into light by the story emphasizing that both Siku the Tunit boy, and his mother Siaq, an Inuit, possessed shamanic knowledge. From this, it was concluded that this role was different because it was common to Inuit and Tunit culture, and was associated with fear, power, jealousy, and that a male or female could occupy it equally.
As for cultural characteristics we see that Inuit culture also avoids any open acts of aggression such as confrontation, murder, or feuds, because they serve as signs of madness. Also, in Inuit culture there seems to be an emphasis placed on animals as either protectors or enemies, along with a large measure of respect shown for the dead. Even more, there is evidence in the story that allows the reader to point out that a guest is to be fed upon arrival. Therefore, there is the notion of communal sharing.
As for the Tunit race, we received an average amount of information on their roles and cultural characteristics. Like Inuit culture it too did not allow open acts of violence. The society appeared to be overall, non-violent, which is why they were probably viewed as weaklings through out the story. There also seemed to be an absence of class structure. In terms of women’s roles, there were only two instances in the story that gave us insight to this, which was wailing over the dead, and protecting the children. As for males, we received an idea that they embodied a leadership role. Also, in one point of the story there is reference to Angula, a Tunit man, that was said to have taken many wives, but never kept any. The reader also receives an idea that this man seemed to fulfill a role that is not prescribed to him, which was a shaman, but the group also had a difficult time trying to grasp where this man got his ideas of submission, power, and enslavement.
When reviewing the Vikings, there was even less information provided, but we did get a sense of gender and societal characteristics. Mainly, we received an idea that this society was violent and had spent generations engaging in it. We also received the idea that this society was class oriented, in other words, slaves were common. However, we do not receive an idea of the type of role attributed to women, it seems as though, the woman is entirely forgotten. As for male roles, there is the idea that males fulfill a leadership role like that occupied by the Shining One in the story. Also, the group concluded that this society was patriarchical, given the constant return of the Vikings to look for the Shining One’s son. Overall, this race seemed to be the most advanced out of all three, which is what Tina will also touch on.
Natural Categorization versus the Discriminatory Construction of the “Other” –
Gender analysis alone, in its more limited definition, cannot explain the relational dynamics between Kannujaq’s encounter with two foreign cultures in ‘Skraeling.’ The previous gender analysis portrayed by Shawneen is expanded with this next component. The resulting culture clash in this narrative will be analyzed through the social psychological theory of classification and the process of constructing (and deconstructing) the ‘other’ as it occurs within Kannujaq’s experience. Together, these analyses of this story reflect insight into the contemporary situation of colonialism today.
It is natural for a person to believe that one’s ethnic worldview of beliefs, values, and norms are correct. When something new occurs, that experience must be incorporated into the cultural worldview that individuals carry within. The new knowledge is integrated within the existing framework of beliefs through the comparison of what is unknown to what is previously known. Kannujaq does this comparison: his grandfather’s Tunit stories influence how Kannujaq views the environment around him. He sees the “inuksuit” (the rock people) and the piles of caribou bones and asks, “Who can live like this?” because his people hunt only what they can afford to carry with them compared to the Tunit culture who live in more long-termed communities. This process of reaching understanding of what is previously an unknown is a natural process to acquire knowledge.
Problems occur when primary or pre-contact judgments are placed on the other culture’s members over time, regardless of any increased exposure with that culture. This natural process of categorizing the world in comparison with one’s own position, which includes one’s worldview, becomes dysfunctional when these judgments fixate into stereotypes and then into discriminatory action. Many of the discriminatory actions are to safeguard the worldview of the observer culture, which are the source of a culture’s identity and thus the source of an individual’s identity within that group.
This process and its natural progression are seen in Kannujaq. His attitude is expressed through stereotyped classifications of the Tunit as ‘animals’ and not as ‘real’ humans. His descriptions emphasize their differences from members of his own group: their dark faces, sooty appearance, awkward movements, and their odd hairstyles and language are all constructed to keep Kannujaq’s worldview safe and unchanged upon meeting for himself the subject of his people’s tales. When he stumbled upon the Tunit village, he immediately thought that he was wrong to assume “that this was a human encampment.” The sounds of the Tunit’s ‘howls’, which is animal language, makes him nauseous since these people are the “other” in Kannujaq’s mind.
These stereotypes are not easy to break down and many people will never make the attempt. Rather, their identity is founded in an “us versus them” paradigm of making sense of the world and their experiences with it. Stereotypes that make sense of one’s world, such as “lions will attack you” are practical tools for survival. Problems occur when one’s perception of reality is blocked by old stereotypes against other human groups influence one’s ability to perceive contemporary experience and understanding within the moment. For example, Kannujaq’s first experience with the boy’s Tunit language is judged as nonsensical and animalistic until he starts to distinguish words similar enough to his own language that he could begin to understand what the boy was saying. Kannujaq recognizes that this garbled noise is actually a language, but he then thinks, “these are not people, but Tunit.”
Kannujaq is feeling disorientated as his understanding of the world is challenged and he tries to integrate his current experience into the worldview he has always known. In order to not overload, he assumes he is dreaming and that these are “not real Tunit.” His understanding is rocked forever as he sees the Tunit blood spilled upon the ground and recognizes that the blood is not that of an animal but of a human. His eyes open to allow new perceptions to flood into his changed worldview: the ‘Giants’ are seen with new eyes to be large men; “the Shining One” is wearing a mask; the ‘giant bird’ becomes a boat; and Angula is seen for his use of the Viking’s weapons and attacks to support a belief in the mystical “Other” as political tactics to achieve his power. It is Angula’s use of the othering process, the Tunit chief, that is discriminatory compared to the natural process of transforming the unknown into the known, as seen in both Shawneen’s and this interpretations.
Our group only briefly started the beginning of a gender analysis of the power dynamics that function within this narrative because of the discriminatory use of the othering process. A natural process of connecting similarities and differences into one’s worldview about one’s experiences can either open one’s eyes to deeper knowledge or close one’s perspective to that of threat, power, and control. It is when one constructs the other out of the desire to control or obtain power from other people that racial and ethnic discrimination occurs, as well as sexism. This type of discrimination can only be transcended when it is analyzed in both its healthy and unhealthy forms within contemporary cultural conditions and experiences. Through the ‘Skraeling’ narration, we as readers can step outside of our current position of colonial domination and have the distance to see with new eyes as Kannujaq does. It is with these eyes that Kannujaq achieves deeper understanding of the context he found himself in and formulates the solutions that can achieve equality for all concerned and so can we. It is this equality that gender analysis helps to achieve and this story gives us the context of looking with new eyes on an enduring pattern of social interaction.
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