Taissumani, March 23

The Book of Wisdom for Eskimo to be a laughable document. (HARPER COLLECTION)
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Because of passages like this, “R. C. M. Police, The Eskimo’s Friend,” many Inuit consider the The Book of Wisdom for Eskimo to be a laughable document. (HARPER COLLECTION)

Last week I wrote about the 1947 publication, The Book of Wisdom for Eskimo, the first non-religious book published for Canadian Inuit (Labrador not yet being a part of Canada).

I mentioned that many Inuit find the text laughable, even offensive in its simplicity. I gave an example from a section entitled “Where Sickness Comes From.”

Here is another example from the page following an illustration captioned “R. C. M. Police, The Eskimo’s Friend”:

“The Traders are working with the Police to help you and your families and the King has instructed them to issue goods only when it is necessary. He does not wish you to become lazy and expect to receive goods any time. You are to continue to work hard at hunting and trapping, teaching your children to be good hunters and workers.”

The English text, supplied by two branches of the federal government, was translated into Inuktitut by Sam Ford, a former Hudson’s Bay Co. employee who had joined the government after his retirement as a trader. And so it is natural to think of the syllabic text as Ford’s.

Sam Ford’s syllabics have been criticized but the truth is, they are not Sam Ford’s syllabics. Syllabics is not used in Labrador and Sam, it turns out, didn’t know syllabics very well despite his fluency in Inuktitut and his years spent among Inuit who wrote in syllabics.

So Ford wrote out his translations in a Roman orthography and Alex Stevenson, a government employee who also had lived many years among Inuit, transliterated them into syllabics.

The title was stamped on each copy of the book using a large rubber stamp made for the purpose. The syllabic text inside the book was handwritten.

One wonders why the department did not borrow a mission typewriter to prepare the text. Could it be that the missions were uncoöperative and resented this incursion by the government into what they had always considered their own turf?

In 1949 the government decided that the book should be reissued in a version that would find use in the western Canadian Arctic as well. And so a second translator, Cyril Wingnek, was engaged.

The title page says that he was from Port Brabant, a name that has disappeared from modern maps – in fact it is Tuktoyaktuk. Wingnek’s task was to translate the government text into a western dialect for printing in the Roman orthography.

This was long before efforts were made to have a standard Roman orthography for all Inuit. In the west the Anglican mission had its own orthography, but individuals who wrote at all often used their own idiosyncratic version. The Roman orthography title was Khaoyimayum titigangit Inuinnangmun.

Little is known of Cyril Wingnek, except that he was also an amateur photographer, some of whose photographs are in various collections in the national archives in Ottawa, and that he served as an interpreter on the federal government’s Eastern Arctic Patrol in or around 1950. He may have been from the Central Arctic as he has descendants today who live in Cambridge Bay.

This revised edition of the book was 95 pages in total, with English appearing first, Inuktitut syllabics in the middle, and western Eskimo at the end. The English text, the basis for the translations, was unchanged from the first edition. Betty Kosior’s sketches were augmented with photographs.

This book must have been well received because the next year the department decided to revise it completely and reissue it. The book would be “a primer for Eskimo in mastering their difficult environment and in the use of the white man’s techniques, implements and foods.”

There was no explanation of why the Inuit should need written information on how to master the “difficult environment,” which they had mastered for centuries.

Betty Kosior, the original illustrator, would be replaced by Dr. Carter B. Storr, the principal of Elgin Street School in Ottawa, an “avid student of Eskimo culture.”

The contents would include hygiene, the use of family allowance cheques, care of hunting equipment, conservation and planning for times of scarcity. Most of these had been covered to some extent before. But a new section would give basic information about the political environment in the North — Inuit had been given the right to vote that year.

But the revised book was never issued. Sam Ford was killed in a helicopter crash on Aug. 6 and the department became painfully aware of how scarce its resources were. There was only one other permanent departmental officer with a reasonable knowledge of Inuktitut.

That was Alex Stevenson. The intent was to have him finish Ford’s translation work and then transliterate the result into syllabics. But the job was not completed. Perhaps Stevenson’s knowledge of Inuktitut was insufficient for the task.

The Book of Wisdom for Eskimos in its two editions would continue to serve as a basic text in health and civics for Canadian Inuit for some years.

Taissumani recounts a specific event of historic interest. Kenn Harper is a historian, writer and linguist who lives in Iqaluit. Feedback? Send your comments and questions to kennharper@hotmail.com.