Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T16:59:26.207Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘No whale, no music’: Iñupiaq drumming and global warming

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2009

Chie Sakakibara
Chie Sakakibara*
Affiliation:
The Earth Institute at Columbia University, Hogan Hall, 2910 Broadway, New York 10025, USA ([email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article explores how climate change has recently influenced the Iñupiaq cultural identity as the people of the whales. Their traditional whaling cycle reveals strong indivisibility of music, emotions, and place based human identity. To illustrate such integrity of the Iñupiat and their culturally critical bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus), a search was made for specific ways in which climate change influences Iñupiaq spiritual and physical ties with the whale in relation to traditional music making. Traditionally, the Iñupiat say that it is the whale who brings them music, thus no whale harvest means no music production. However, when the environment is less predictable, the homeland eroded, place based songs gone, and human-whale integrity threatened, how specifically are these changes manifested in the Iñupiat-whale relationship? Providing detailed descriptions of 2005–2006 nalukataq (midsummer whale feasts), this article examines how contemporary Iñupiat respond to environmental changes in the emotional and cultural dimensions through their music making.

Type
Research Article
Information
Polar Record , Volume 45 , Issue 4 , October 2009 , pp. 289 - 303
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ahgeak, M. 2006. Interview. 18 June 2006. Barrow, AK.Google Scholar
Ahmaogak, G. 2005. Interview. 20 October 2005. Barrow, AK.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Akpik, F.K. 2005. Interview. 10 July 2005. Barrow, AK.Google Scholar
Akpik, R. 2006. Interview. 20 June 2006. Barrow, AK.Google Scholar
Anchorage Daily News. 2006. Arctic Ocean ice crashes on Alaska shores. Anchorage Daily News 27 January 2006.Google Scholar
Anon (Anonymous). 2006a. Interview. 16 June 2006. Point Hope, AK.Google Scholar
Anon (Anonymous). 2006b. Interview. 13 July 2006. Barrow, AK.Google Scholar
Attali, J. 1995 [1985]. Noise: the political economy of music. St. Paul: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Baumann, G. 1987. National integration and local integrity: the Miri of the Nuba Mountains in the Sudan. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Blackman, M.B.Sadie Brower Neakok: an Iñupiaq woman. 1989. Seattle: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Bodenhorn, B. 1993. Christmas present: Christmas public. In: Miller, D. (editor). Unwrapping Christmas. Oxford: University of Oxford Press.Google Scholar
Bodenhorn, B. 2001. It's traditional to change: a case study of strategic decision-making. Cambridge Anthropology 22 (1): 24–51.Google Scholar
Boeri, D. 1983. People of the ice whale: Eskimos, white men, and the whale. New York: A Harvest.Google Scholar
Brewster, K. 2004. The whales, they give themselves: conversations with Harry Brower, Sr. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press.Google Scholar
Brower, C.D. 1994. Fifty years below zero: a lifetime of adventure in the far north. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press.Google Scholar
Brower, C.D.N. 2004. Interview. 25 November 2004. Barrow, AK.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brower, E. Sr. 2005. Interview. 18 August 2005. Barrow, AK.Google Scholar
Brower, E. Sr. 2006. Interview. 29 June 2006. Barrow, AK.Google Scholar
Burch, E.S. 2006. Social life in northwest Alaska: the structure of Inupiaq Eskimo nations. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press.Google Scholar
Carney, G. 1994. Sound of people and places: a geography of American music from country to classical and blues to pop. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Edwardsen, D.P. (editor). 1993. Uqaluktuat: 1980 elders’ conference women's session. Barrow, AK: North Slope Borough Commission on Iñupiat History, Language and Culture.Google Scholar
Feld, S. 1990. Sound and sentiment: birds, weeping, poetics, and songs in Kaluli expression. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Fitzhugh, W., and Kaplan, S.. 1982. Inua: spirit world of the Bering Sea Eskimo. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution.Google Scholar
Frankson, E. 2002. Tulugigraq: ancestral stories of a time before the land was divided (transcribed and translated Simmonds, D.). Barrow, AK: North Slope Borough Iñupiaq language program.Google Scholar
Frankson, E. Sr. 2005a. Interview. 20 August 2005. Point Hope, AK.Google Scholar
Frankson, E. Sr. 2005b. Interview. 2 September 2005. Point Hope, AK.Google Scholar
Frankson, E. Sr. 2006a. Interview. 15 June 2006. Point Hope, AK.Google Scholar
Frankson, E. Sr. 2006b. Interview. 22 June 2006. Point Hope, AK.Google Scholar
Frankson, Es. 2005. Interview. 20 August 2005. Point Hope, AK.Google Scholar
Frankson, P. 2006. Interview. 19 June 2006. Point Hope, AK.Google Scholar
Frith, S. 1996. Towards an aesthetic of popular music. In: Leppert, L., and McClarey, S. (editors). Music and society: the politics of composition, performance and perception. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press.Google Scholar
Giddings, J.L. 1967. Ancient men of the Arctic. New York: Knoph.Google Scholar
Glenn, R. 2005. Interview. 21 April 2005. Barrow, AK.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hopson, L. 2006. Interview. 15 June 2006. Barrow, AK.Google Scholar
Johnston, T.F. 1975. The Point Hope videotapes. I–IV. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Fairbanks, Department of Music.Google Scholar
Johnston, T.F. 1977. Differential cultural persistence in Inuit musical behavior, and its geographic distribution. Études/Inuit/Studies 1 (2): 58–72.Google Scholar
Kaleak, J. Sr. 2005. Interview. 20 July 2005. Barrow, AK.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kazlowski, S. 2008. The last polar bear. Seattle, Wa: Mountaineers Books.Google Scholar
Kean, G. (editor). 1981. Puiguitkaat: 1978 elder's conference. Barrow, AK: North Slope Borough Commission on Iñupiat History, Language and Culture.Google Scholar
Killugvik, S. 2005. Interviews. 4 September 2005. Point Hope, AK.Google Scholar
Killugvik, S. 2006. Interviews. 9 July 2006. Point Hope, AK.Google Scholar
Kingik, E. 2006. Interview. 15 November 2006. Barrow, AK.Google Scholar
Kingik, G.B. 2005. Interviews. 20 August 2005. Point Hope, AK.Google Scholar
Kingik, G.B. 2006. Interviews. 22 June 2006. Point Hope, AK.Google Scholar
Kinneeveeauk, H. Sr. 2006. Interview. 23 June 2006. Point Hope, AK.Google Scholar
Laugrand, F., and Oosten, J.. 2008. The sea woman: Sedna in Inuit shamanism and art in the eastern Arctic. Fairbanks, AK: University of Alaska Press.Google Scholar
Lane, S.E. 2005. Interview. 20 August 2005. Point Hope, AK.Google Scholar
Lane, S.E. 2006. Interview. 4 September 2006. Point Hope, AK.Google Scholar
Larson, M.A. 1995. And then there were none: the ‘disappearance’ of the Qargi in Northern Alaska. In: McCartney, A.P. (editor). Studies in whaling no. 6. Indigenous ways to the present: native whaling in the western Arctic. Edmonton: Canadian Circumpolar Institute Press: 207–220.Google Scholar
Lisbourne, P. 2006. Interview. 20 June 2006. Point Hope, AK.Google Scholar
Lowenstein, T. 1992. Things that were said of them: shaman stories and oral histories of the Tikigaq people. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Lowenstein, T. 1993. Ancient land: sacred whale: the Inuit hunt and its rituals. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.Google Scholar
Maguire, R. 1988. The journal of Rochfort Maguire, 1852–1854: two years at Point Barrow, Alaska aboard HMS ‘Plover’ in the search for Sir John Franklin Bockstoce, J.R. (editor). London: The Hakluyt Society. 2 vols.Google Scholar
Nageak, B. 2005. Interview. 8 August 2005. Barrow, AK.Google Scholar
NASA Earth Observatory. 2007a. Record Arctic sea ice loss in 2007. URL: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17782Google Scholar
NASA Earth Observatory. 2007b. Beaufort Sea sea ice 2005 and 2006 URL: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17353Google Scholar
Nashookpuk, W. 2005. Interview. 20 July 2005. Point Hope, AK.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
North Slope Borough. 1993. Taking control: the story of self determination in the Arctic. Barrow, AK: North Slope Borough Public Information Division.Google Scholar
Okakok, R. Sr. 2005. Interview. 2 July 2005. Barrow, AK.Google Scholar
Oktollik, D. 2005. Interview. 18 August 2005. Point Hope, AK.Google Scholar
Oquilluk, W.A. 1981. People of Kauwerak: legends of the northern Eskimo. Anchorage: Alaska Pacific University Press.Google Scholar
Porteous, J.D. 1990. Landscapes of the mind: worlds of sense and metaphor. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rasmussen, K. 1952. Qarrtsuluni. The Alaskan Eskimos as described in the posthumous notes of Dr. Knud Rasmussen. In: Ostermann, H. (editor). Report of the fifth Thule expedition 1921–1924: the Danish expedition to Arctic north in charge of Knud Rasmussen, Ph.D. Copenhagen: Gyldendalske Boghandel, Nordisk Forlag X(3): 100–102.Google Scholar
Rainey, F.G. 1947. The whale hunters of Tigara. Anthropological papers. New York: American Museum of Natural History.Google Scholar
Reimer, C.S. 1999. Contributions in psychology: 36. Consulting the Iñupiat eskimo. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Riccio, T. 1993. A message from eagle mother: the Messenger's feast of the Inupiat Eskimo. The Drama Review 37 (1): 115–146.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Riccio, T. 2003. Reinventing traditional Alaskan native performance. Lewinston: The Edwin Mellen Press (Studies in Theatre Arts 17).Google Scholar
Rock, D. 2005. Interview. 28 August 2005. Point Hope, AK.Google Scholar
Sakakibara, C. 2008. Our home is drowning: Climate change and Iñupiat storytelling in Point Hope, Alaska. The Geographical Review 98 (4): 456–475.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sheehan, G.W. 1995. Whaling surplus, trade, war, and the integration of prehistoric northern and northwestern Alaskan economies, A.D. 1200–1826. In: Hunting the largest animals: native whaling in the western Arctic and subarctic. Edmonton: University of Alberta. (Studies in whaling 3. Occasional publication 36).Google Scholar
Schutz, A. 1977. Making music together: a study in social relationship. In: Kemnitzer, J.D., and Schneider, D. (editors). Symbolic anthropology. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Seeger, A. 1987. Why Suyá sing: a musical anthropology of Amazonian people. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press.Google Scholar
Solomon, L. 2006. Interview. 9 June 2006. Barrow, AK.Google Scholar
Stokes, M. (editor). 1997. Ethnicity, identity and music: the musical construction of place. New York: BERG.Google Scholar
Turner, E. 1993. American Eskimo celebrate the whale: structural dichotomies and spirit identities among the Inupiat of Alaska. The Drama Review 37 (1): 98–114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waterman, C.A. 1990. Jújú: a social history and ethnography of an African popular music. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Williams, M.D.P. 1996. Alaska Native music and dance: the spirit of survival. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Wohlforth, C. 2004. The whale and the supercomputer. New York: North Point Press.Google Scholar
Wood, N. 2002. Once more with feeling: putting emotion into geographies of music. In: Bondi, L., Avis, H., Bankey, R., Bingley, A., Davidson, J., Duffy, R., Einagel, V I., Green, A.-M., Johnston, L., Lilly, S., Listerborn, C., McEwan, S., Marshy, M., O'Conner, N., Rose, G., Vivat, B., and Wood, N. (editors). Subjectivities, knowledges, and feminist geographies: the subjects and ethics of social research. New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers: 57–71.Google Scholar
Worl, R. 1980. The North Slope Inupiat whaling complex: In: Kotani, Y., and Workman, W. (editors). Alaska native culture and history. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology (Senri ethnological studies no. 4): 305–332.Google Scholar
Zumwalt, R. L. 1988. The return of the whale: Nalukataq, the Point Hope whale festival. In: Falassi, A. (editor). Time out of time: essays on the festival. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press: 261–276.Google Scholar