Inuit And Amish Cultural Diversity Or Cultural

Inuit And Amish, Cultural Diversity Or Cultural De Essay, Research Paper

Inuit and Amish, Cultural Diversity or Cultural Destruction.The Inuit and the Amish, the differences between them are as great as the distance which separates them. Yet these two groups of people do share one distinct commonality: they each represent a very unique society. Why is it then, that the Amish have been able to almost completely withstand the influences of the vast North American culture which surrounds them while the Inuit way of life has been forever changed by its contact with the inhabitants from south of the Arctic Circle.The Inuit are people of Arctic Mongoloid ancestry inhabiting small enclaves in the coastal areas of Greenland, Arctic North America and extreme northeastern Siberia. Their name for themselves is Inuit (in Siberian and some Alaskan speech, Yuit), meaning “the people.” Traditional Inuit beliefs are a form of animism, according to which all objects and living beings have a spirit. All phenomena occur through the agency of some spirit. Intrinsically neither good nor evil, spirits have the ability to affect people s lives and, although not influenced by prayers, can be controlled by magical charms and talismans. The person most effective in controlling spirits is the shaman, but anyone with the appropriate charms or amulets can exercise such control. Shamans are usually consulted to heal illnesses and resolve serious problems. Communal and individual taboos are observed to avoid offending animal spirits, and animals killed for food must be handled with prescribed rituals. Inuit rituals and myths reflect preoccupation with survival in a hostile environment. Vague beliefs of an afterlife or reincarnation exist, but these receive little emphasis. Most communal rites center on preparation for the hunt, and myths tend to deal with the relationships that exist between humans, animals, and the environment. While none of these beliefs is grounded in any scientific theory or explanation that we (western-based science society) would find acceptable, nearly all Inuit held fast to them – until recently. As we continue to approach the twenty-first century these Inuit beliefs are fading away. Inuit youth attend schools who s curriculum has been developed by non-Inuit people (i.e. North American policy makers). Historically, the Canadian government s attitude to education was characterized by the same reluctance to make a policy that informed its other dealings with the Inuit. It did not start building schools in the North West Territories until the late 1940s. Before that time it was happy to turn over the responsibility for education to the various missions, mainly Anglican and Catholic which got a government subsidy for building schools and residences. However, the missions did not reach many of the Inuit (in 1944 it was established that over 80 per cent of Inuit children were not being taught in schools), and were a mixed blessing for those whom they did reach. As the Minority Rights Group state in their book Polar Peoples Self-determination and Development, “they [the mission schools] took the children away from their families, taught them in foreign ways and in foreign languages, and in many cases forbade them to speak their mother tongue. ” The book also cites examples of the brutality with which native children were treated at these schools. Severe corporal punishment was accepted as normal and sexual abuse by priests and teacher occurred regularly in some places. Much has changed in the last five decades. Schools in the arctic have become places where children go to learn and have fun (as they should have always been). School systems have evolved from the once sporadic settlement schools and a great deal of Inuit input is used in creating the curriculum for the schools. Despite these considerable strides, a large number of the teachers in the Inuit school system are non-Inuit and much of the curriculum is taught in English. This forces students to learn how to speak english. While there is always great benefit in being fluent in another language (particularly english), this parallels a scenario where a French teacher is placed into a classroom filled with English-speaking students and expecting the student to learn the language in order to obtain their education. Quite simply, most of us would find that unacceptable! In the 1970s a cultural inclusion program was established in some schools. This meant that the older Inuit would come into the schools regularly to teach the boys how to build qamutit (wooden sleds), and the girls how to sew kamit (sealskin boots). However, this program had only limited success. Other modifications have been made to the educational system since then, though. Since it has long been the case that in the lengthy days of spring, children would spend most of their time outdoors and would also go camping on the land with their parents, some schools have incorporated the camp cycle into the last two weeks of school, allowing pupils and teachers to learn from the older Inuit. Also, a teacher education program has been in place since 1980 in Frobisher Bay training Inuit to be teachers. Thirty-seven of the 359 teachers in Inuit schools have graduated from the program (Minority Rights Group, 1994). The number of native students going on to post-secondary education has jumped from 16 in 1978-79 to 154 in 1983-84 (ibid.). High schools in the North West Territories function m