The Inuit are part of a wide group modernly called Eskimos. Scattered throughout the Arctic region, they occupy parts Canada, Greenland, and the Alaskan coast. They originated in in Western Alaska starting around 1000 A.D., and slowly expanded outwards. The Inuit have been around for a large span of time, and still exist today. With regards to the characteristics their society, the capacity for the presence of peace and violence is evaluated through ethnographic, archaeological, and historical evidence. The conclusion of the information provides a likely indication that the Inuit people possessed a high tendency for violence in the past.
The harsh ecological environment in which the Inuit lived in pressured them to lean towards violent acts in order to survive. Most of Western Alaska is a tundra biome, and the constant low temperatures inhibit the majority of any type of plant growth. Vegetation is often limited to shrubs and grasses. As a result, resources were scarce for the Inuit in the past. The difficultness of living in this environment was one the stronger factors that played a role in the Inuit use of population control. The specific …show more content…
This adds complication to the validity of this information as it is not from one sole explorer. Therefore, there is no telling exactly who this information came from. There is, however, more reputable information of other Arctic expeditions. When compiled together, the data represents ten Inuit populations from 1880 to 1930 (Smith 1994: 596). The data shows that there is a tendency for the ratio of childhood boys to girls, to be heavily weighted on the boy’s side. The average ratio was 173 boys for every 100 girls (Smith 1994: 596). “When there are far more young boys than girls in a society, we can assume that some type of infanticide was being practiced” (LeBlanc:
The harsh ecological environment in which the Inuit lived in pressured them to lean towards violent acts in order to survive. Most of Western Alaska is a tundra biome, and the constant low temperatures inhibit the majority of any type of plant growth. Vegetation is often limited to shrubs and grasses. As a result, resources were scarce for the Inuit in the past. The difficultness of living in this environment was one the stronger factors that played a role in the Inuit use of population control. The specific …show more content…
This adds complication to the validity of this information as it is not from one sole explorer. Therefore, there is no telling exactly who this information came from. There is, however, more reputable information of other Arctic expeditions. When compiled together, the data represents ten Inuit populations from 1880 to 1930 (Smith 1994: 596). The data shows that there is a tendency for the ratio of childhood boys to girls, to be heavily weighted on the boy’s side. The average ratio was 173 boys for every 100 girls (Smith 1994: 596). “When there are far more young boys than girls in a society, we can assume that some type of infanticide was being practiced” (LeBlanc: