Post by Okwes on Jan 9, 2006 14:24:42 GMT -5
A man once known as W3-1119
INUIT ID | Sculptor David Ruben is one of many Inuks who speaks
fondly of the number discs that were scrapped 30 years ago amid
charges of racism, writes John Goddard
Jan. 8, 2006. 01:00 AM
[full text]
<http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1136589011955&call_pageid=968332188854&col=968350060724>
Copyright Toronto Star Newspapers Limited.
David Ruben grew up as Piqtoukun W3-1119, a name he now views with nostalgia.
His parents named him Piqtoukun, meaning "powerful wind," after a
close friend who died.
The federal government added W3-1119, meaning person number 1,119
living in the Western Arctic, District 3. Ottawa also gave him a disc
with the number on it to wear.
Now, 30 years after the program was scrapped over charges of racism,
the numbers are popping up in another form.
Inuit are using them as PIN codes, computer passwords and
identification tags for their belongings. In Arctic communities, the
numbers are appearing as vanity house numbers and some men wear an
ujamik (disc number) as a ball-cap logo.
"My number is an extension of myself as a person," says Ruben, born
in the Arctic coastal settlement of Paulatuk in 1950. He is now an
accomplished soapstone sculptor, with works at the Art Gallery of
Ontario and Canadian Museum of Civilization.
"I see the lighter side of it," he says by phone from Jackson's
Point, on Lake Simcoe, where he has lived for the past five years.
"I use it as an identification (on carvings) and for a little while
(until Ottawa rejected the move), I used it for a tax-exempt number
on my tax return. I thought W3 had its privileges."
Across the Arctic, similarly wistful affection for the numbers is widespread.
"At school, I was Nokkahak E1-721," says Elisapee Karetak, who was
born in an igloo west of Hudson Bay in 1956 and has written a film
about her mother, called Kikkik E1-472.
"That number is part of my identity. I had a disc until about 10
years ago, and if I found it, I'd wear it (as a necklace)."
Zebedee Nungak, former head of Makivik Corp. in Arctic Quebec, says
until recently he wore his number embroidered on his baseball cap and
once applied to Ottawa to have his lost disc replaced.
"The disc number has a special significance in our lives, even with
the abundance of identifications we carry today," he says by phone
from his home in Kangirsuk, Que. "I would wear my ujamik E9-1956 very
proudly."
Early in the last century, names proved difficult for both cultures
in the Far North, indigenous and colonial alike.
Inuks who couldn't pronounce white people's names solved the problem
by making up nicknames in their own language.
Art teacher James Houston, who died last spring, became "the
left-handed one" in Inuktitut.
West Baffin explorer Graham Rowley, who died last year at 92, was
always "the young man."
RCMP officers, however, weren't allowed to invent nicknames. Part of
their job was to keep strict records of births, deaths and family
allowance payments. Likewise, fur traders had to list transactions
with each trapper, and doctors on annual visits had to keep health
records on each patient.
For years, their only option was to listen carefully to guttural
Inuit pronunciations and try their best to transliterate a name,
often with comic results.
"(Every official) developed his own bizarre spelling system," recalls
John MacDonald, who once was a Hudson's Bay Company manager at Arctic
Bay, on Baffin Island.
"You can still look through the old lists and be able to tell very
well if they were compiled by a French priest or a Scottish trader,"
says MacDonald, former co-ordinator of the Igloolik Research Centre.
"But it is very hard sometimes to make head or tail of who the names
actually referred to."
More problematic for the bureaucracy, Inuit often changed their name.
A hunter suffering a lean winter might change names for good luck,
perhaps going through five or six in his lifetime. Or he might be
known by different names to different people.
Until the 1970s, every Inuk was issued a loonie-sized, burgundy ID
disc made of pressed fibre. The hole was to be threaded with a
caribou thong for sewing the ujamik into a parka for safekeeping
Traditionally, Inuit also believed in the transmigration of souls.
If a person died, the next baby born might not only be named after
the person but also be regarded as that person.
"The reason for this is that it eases the feeling of bereavement of
the lost one," says Louis Tapardjuk, a long-time authority on the
subject and now Nunavut's minister of culture, language, elders and
youth.
Rather than interfere with the established naming system, federal
officials simply added their own.
In 1941, Ottawa approved a "system of identification discs for
Eskimos," writes A. Barry Roberts in his 1975 book, Eskimo
Identification and Disc Numbers: A Brief History.
Every Inuk was issued a number on a loonie-sized burgundy disc made
of pressed fibre. Supporters likened it to a soldier's dog tag, with
the same connotations of pride and honour.
It had the number on one side and the king's crown on the reverse. It
also had a hole in it, to be threaded with a caribou thong and sewn
into a parka for safekeeping.
At every RCMP post, an official "disc list" kept track of names -
however spelled - numbers and individuals' vital statistics.
Official correspondence always referred to an Inuk by name and
number, as in "Piqtoukun W3-1119." Disc numbers were also included on
all birth, marriage and death certificates.
"By the 1950s, Inuit had adapted to the system extremely well," says
Thomas Peotschke, a senior analyst at Ottawa's northern political
development directorate.
"They would use their own Inuit names with one another and ... their
numbers for family allowance, for paycheques and in dealing with the
Hudson's Bay Company."
By the late 1960s, however, the disc numbers began to look quaint - or worse.
Most Inuit had moved into permanent settlements. Many had also
learned to write their names, either in the Roman alphabet or in
syllabics.
For critics, almost invariably from southern Canada, disc numbers
became a symbol for what they saw as an uncaring official attitude
toward northern peoples.
"Most of us know about the tattooed numbers and yellow Stars of David
inflicted on Jewish people in Nazi Germany," writes journalist
Valerie Alia, taking the most extreme view possible in her 1994 book,
Names, Numbers and Northern Policy.
"Although these were certainly more sinister than the disc numbers
... we cannot ignore the historical context: both systems emerged in
the 1930s and 1940s, both involved minority peoples who were publicly
relabelled by government."
No Inuk is known to have made a similar accusation, although some
have been known to lampoon the discs at Ottawa's expense. Three years
ago, pop singer Lucie Idlout called her debut album E5-770: My
Mother's Name and, in punk verse, compared disc numbering to cattle
branding.
David Ruben says that once, for fun, he used his number as a shoulder
tattoo in a sculpture he called Sea Spirit Protecting Pearl of
Wisdom. But the buyer didn't think it was funny. "So I smoothed it
out," Ruben says.
In any case, federal officials eventually decided they could do
better than a numbering system. In 1970, they launched Project
Surname to re-register all Inuit with a first and last name, sweeping
the traditional Inuit naming system aside.
The last numbered discs were issued in the Northwest Territories in
1975. (In Arctic Quebec, the program dragged on until 1978.)
But neither federal program has entirely killed the old ways.
Elisapee Karetak, who now lives in Iqaluit, goes by several identities now.
"Elisapee" is her English name, an Inuit adaptation of Elizabeth.
"Karetak" is her husband's last name.
"Nokkahak" is her original Inuit name, still used by elders and her
closest friends, which she now transliterates as "Nurrahaq."
And her disc name "E1-721," she says, remains a permanent and
honoured part of who she is.
INUIT ID | Sculptor David Ruben is one of many Inuks who speaks
fondly of the number discs that were scrapped 30 years ago amid
charges of racism, writes John Goddard
Jan. 8, 2006. 01:00 AM
[full text]
<http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1136589011955&call_pageid=968332188854&col=968350060724>
Copyright Toronto Star Newspapers Limited.
David Ruben grew up as Piqtoukun W3-1119, a name he now views with nostalgia.
His parents named him Piqtoukun, meaning "powerful wind," after a
close friend who died.
The federal government added W3-1119, meaning person number 1,119
living in the Western Arctic, District 3. Ottawa also gave him a disc
with the number on it to wear.
Now, 30 years after the program was scrapped over charges of racism,
the numbers are popping up in another form.
Inuit are using them as PIN codes, computer passwords and
identification tags for their belongings. In Arctic communities, the
numbers are appearing as vanity house numbers and some men wear an
ujamik (disc number) as a ball-cap logo.
"My number is an extension of myself as a person," says Ruben, born
in the Arctic coastal settlement of Paulatuk in 1950. He is now an
accomplished soapstone sculptor, with works at the Art Gallery of
Ontario and Canadian Museum of Civilization.
"I see the lighter side of it," he says by phone from Jackson's
Point, on Lake Simcoe, where he has lived for the past five years.
"I use it as an identification (on carvings) and for a little while
(until Ottawa rejected the move), I used it for a tax-exempt number
on my tax return. I thought W3 had its privileges."
Across the Arctic, similarly wistful affection for the numbers is widespread.
"At school, I was Nokkahak E1-721," says Elisapee Karetak, who was
born in an igloo west of Hudson Bay in 1956 and has written a film
about her mother, called Kikkik E1-472.
"That number is part of my identity. I had a disc until about 10
years ago, and if I found it, I'd wear it (as a necklace)."
Zebedee Nungak, former head of Makivik Corp. in Arctic Quebec, says
until recently he wore his number embroidered on his baseball cap and
once applied to Ottawa to have his lost disc replaced.
"The disc number has a special significance in our lives, even with
the abundance of identifications we carry today," he says by phone
from his home in Kangirsuk, Que. "I would wear my ujamik E9-1956 very
proudly."
Early in the last century, names proved difficult for both cultures
in the Far North, indigenous and colonial alike.
Inuks who couldn't pronounce white people's names solved the problem
by making up nicknames in their own language.
Art teacher James Houston, who died last spring, became "the
left-handed one" in Inuktitut.
West Baffin explorer Graham Rowley, who died last year at 92, was
always "the young man."
RCMP officers, however, weren't allowed to invent nicknames. Part of
their job was to keep strict records of births, deaths and family
allowance payments. Likewise, fur traders had to list transactions
with each trapper, and doctors on annual visits had to keep health
records on each patient.
For years, their only option was to listen carefully to guttural
Inuit pronunciations and try their best to transliterate a name,
often with comic results.
"(Every official) developed his own bizarre spelling system," recalls
John MacDonald, who once was a Hudson's Bay Company manager at Arctic
Bay, on Baffin Island.
"You can still look through the old lists and be able to tell very
well if they were compiled by a French priest or a Scottish trader,"
says MacDonald, former co-ordinator of the Igloolik Research Centre.
"But it is very hard sometimes to make head or tail of who the names
actually referred to."
More problematic for the bureaucracy, Inuit often changed their name.
A hunter suffering a lean winter might change names for good luck,
perhaps going through five or six in his lifetime. Or he might be
known by different names to different people.
Until the 1970s, every Inuk was issued a loonie-sized, burgundy ID
disc made of pressed fibre. The hole was to be threaded with a
caribou thong for sewing the ujamik into a parka for safekeeping
Traditionally, Inuit also believed in the transmigration of souls.
If a person died, the next baby born might not only be named after
the person but also be regarded as that person.
"The reason for this is that it eases the feeling of bereavement of
the lost one," says Louis Tapardjuk, a long-time authority on the
subject and now Nunavut's minister of culture, language, elders and
youth.
Rather than interfere with the established naming system, federal
officials simply added their own.
In 1941, Ottawa approved a "system of identification discs for
Eskimos," writes A. Barry Roberts in his 1975 book, Eskimo
Identification and Disc Numbers: A Brief History.
Every Inuk was issued a number on a loonie-sized burgundy disc made
of pressed fibre. Supporters likened it to a soldier's dog tag, with
the same connotations of pride and honour.
It had the number on one side and the king's crown on the reverse. It
also had a hole in it, to be threaded with a caribou thong and sewn
into a parka for safekeeping.
At every RCMP post, an official "disc list" kept track of names -
however spelled - numbers and individuals' vital statistics.
Official correspondence always referred to an Inuk by name and
number, as in "Piqtoukun W3-1119." Disc numbers were also included on
all birth, marriage and death certificates.
"By the 1950s, Inuit had adapted to the system extremely well," says
Thomas Peotschke, a senior analyst at Ottawa's northern political
development directorate.
"They would use their own Inuit names with one another and ... their
numbers for family allowance, for paycheques and in dealing with the
Hudson's Bay Company."
By the late 1960s, however, the disc numbers began to look quaint - or worse.
Most Inuit had moved into permanent settlements. Many had also
learned to write their names, either in the Roman alphabet or in
syllabics.
For critics, almost invariably from southern Canada, disc numbers
became a symbol for what they saw as an uncaring official attitude
toward northern peoples.
"Most of us know about the tattooed numbers and yellow Stars of David
inflicted on Jewish people in Nazi Germany," writes journalist
Valerie Alia, taking the most extreme view possible in her 1994 book,
Names, Numbers and Northern Policy.
"Although these were certainly more sinister than the disc numbers
... we cannot ignore the historical context: both systems emerged in
the 1930s and 1940s, both involved minority peoples who were publicly
relabelled by government."
No Inuk is known to have made a similar accusation, although some
have been known to lampoon the discs at Ottawa's expense. Three years
ago, pop singer Lucie Idlout called her debut album E5-770: My
Mother's Name and, in punk verse, compared disc numbering to cattle
branding.
David Ruben says that once, for fun, he used his number as a shoulder
tattoo in a sculpture he called Sea Spirit Protecting Pearl of
Wisdom. But the buyer didn't think it was funny. "So I smoothed it
out," Ruben says.
In any case, federal officials eventually decided they could do
better than a numbering system. In 1970, they launched Project
Surname to re-register all Inuit with a first and last name, sweeping
the traditional Inuit naming system aside.
The last numbered discs were issued in the Northwest Territories in
1975. (In Arctic Quebec, the program dragged on until 1978.)
But neither federal program has entirely killed the old ways.
Elisapee Karetak, who now lives in Iqaluit, goes by several identities now.
"Elisapee" is her English name, an Inuit adaptation of Elizabeth.
"Karetak" is her husband's last name.
"Nokkahak" is her original Inuit name, still used by elders and her
closest friends, which she now transliterates as "Nurrahaq."
And her disc name "E1-721," she says, remains a permanent and
honoured part of who she is.