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In later life the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian work, the Norwegian explorer and scientist Fridtjof Nansen (1861-1930) led the team that in 1888 made the first successful crossing of Greenland's interior. Finding themselves cut off from the rest of the world for the winter, Nansen and his men spent several months living among the Greenlandic Inuit. Although 'far too short a time in which to attain a thorough knowledge', it was nevertheless sufficient to form a strong acquaintance and affection. First published in 1893, this English translation of the 1891 Norwegian original offers a valuable insight into much that was, and remains, foreign and peculiar to European experience. The coverage ranges from culinary to linguistic observations, and Nansen is by turns repulsed, fascinated and full of compassion, asking what the future holds for a people 'already stung with the venom of our civilisation'.

Inuit

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Inuit children. --- Inuit infants.

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Inuit. --- Violence.

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Inuit rituals of the first time, which celebrate the first performances (pijariurniit) of Inuit children and adolescents, have often been mentioned by ethnographers of the Arctic, without ever being analysed as "ceremonial sequences," according to the phrase of Arnold Van Gennep, the inventor of the notion of "rites of passage." On the basis of oral and written data collected from Inuit elders, in Nunavik during the 1960s as well as in Nunavut during the 1970s and 1980s, this article tries to emphasize the cosmological dimension of these rites, in a perspective similar to that of many other present-day specialists. These rituals are principally clustered around two major life crises, birth and puberty, and make reference to two essential themes of Inuit thought, the production of the material conditions of human life and the reproduction of this same human life. These two themes constitute inseparable aspects of the dynamics of life, and they participate in the cyclicity of human souls, game animals and celestial bodies, well expressed by the phrases sila malillugu (following the direction of the cosmos) or siqiniq malillugu (following the sun's direction). This research field of rituals of the first time and, more generally, of rites of passage, should be more systematically examined throughout the Inuit area, because it gives access to the most subtile corners of Inuit religious philosophy, notably travesty and gender inversion, and to the sexual division of tasks in the socialization of children. Les rites inuit de la première fois, qui célèbrent les premières performances (pijariurniit) effectuées par les enfants et les adolescents inuit, ont été souvent mentionnés par les ethnographes de l'Arctique mais jamais véritablement analysés comme « séquence cérémonielle, » pour reprendre l'expression d'Arnold Van Gennep, l'inventeur de la notion de « rite de passage. » À partir de données orales et écrites recueillies auprès d'aînés inuit, tant au Nunavik, dans les années 1960, qu'au Nunavut, dans les années 1970-80, on tente de faire ressortir la dimension cosmologique de ces rites, dans une perspective proche de celle de plusieurs autres auteurs contemporains. Ces rites se concentrent principalement autour de deux grands passages de la vie, la naissance et la puberté, et renvoient à deux thèmes essentiels de la pensée inuit, la production des conditions matérielles d'existence de la vie humaine et la reproduction de cette même vie humaine. Ces deux thèmes constituent deux facettes inséparables de la dynamique vitale et s'inscrivent dans le mouvement cyclique des âmes humaines, des gibiers et des corps célestes que résume bien l'expression inuit sila malillugu (en suivant le sens du cosmos) ou siqiniq malillugu (en suivant la trajectoire solaire). Ce champ des rites de la première fois, et d'une façon plus générale celui des rites de passage, gagnerait à être systématiquement exploré partout dans l'aire inuit car il donne accès aux recoins les plus subtils de la philosophie religieuse des Inuit, notamment le travestissement et l'inversion des genres, et de la division sexuelle des tâches dans la socialisation des enfants.

Shamanism. --- Inuit.

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Inuit --- History.