Ajurnarmat

80.jpg

Ajurnarmut

Ajurnarmat magazine was the first ever published by the Inuit Cultural Institute, created to inform Inuit of the cultural issues.The magazine contains stories of travel and interviews with elders. 

This entry from An Annotated Bibliography of Canadian Inuit Literature references commentary on Inuit life by three Inuit elders Bruce Mititok, Andy Mumgark and Barnabas Pirjuaq (Gedalof p. 30).

Barnabas Pirjuaq, a respected edler from Baker Lake, Nunavut has also contributed a story "Before the Qallunaat Came" to the compilation by Hans Blohm, The Voice of the Natives: The Canadian North and Alaska (2001).

The word qallunaat means people who are non-Inuit. See the OED dictionary entry here. Inuk writer Zebedee Nungak and filmmaker Mark Sandiford have made the documentary Qallunaat! Why White People are Funny. The National Film Board (NFB) description of the film reads:

"This documentary pokes fun at the ways in which Inuit people have been treated as “exotic” documentary subjects by turning the lens onto the strange behaviours of Qallunaat (the Inuit word for white people). The term refers less to skin colour than to a certain state of mind: Qallunaat greet each other with inane salutations, repress natural bodily functions, complain about being cold, and want to dominate the world. Their odd dating habits, unsuccessful attempts at Arctic exploration, overbearing bureaucrats and police, and obsession with owning property are curious indeed."

See NFB website.