Troy H. Cantrell questions

Dear Troy H. Cantrell,

thank you for your interest in a community that is usually never in the news or on the minds of many. You had several questions. Let's hope the › Pages › Public Figure › Author Facebook format will be able to display it.

It is the whole community. My Grandfather married an Inuit girl and she became my grandmother. This part of my family is part of the North Slope Borough.

There about sixty people in our community and less than 10,000 in the entire borough. Of the sixty (including Old,Kids,women) maybe 16 to 20 men go The hunt is traditionally a very male dominated affair.Women in traditional families usually assume a secondary role in Inuit society. At mealtime, an Inuit woman was required to serve her husband and any visitors before she herself was permitted to eat. But at the same time, a common Inuit saying extolled women in this way: "A hunter is what his wife makes him." I remember my grandmother being very traditional wwhen she was with family, but not so much with Grandpa. He worshipped the ground she walked on. They had a very loving relationship. While the hunt is still a man's affair. They don't mind their Texan cousin mingling along, when I am visiting. There are 3-4 men in an Umiak (boat) that go hunt the whale.

The word "Eskimo " comes from the Algonquin Indians of eastern Canada. It means "eaters of raw meat." Recently, it has begun to be replaced by the Eskimos' own name for themselves, "Inuit," which means, "real people."