45 pages • 1 hour read
Split Tooth
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Background
Cultural Context: Inuit Myth, Culture, and Language
Content Warning: This section discusses colonialism, abuse, and anti-Indigenous racism.
The Inuit are Indigenous peoples who live primarily in parts of the Arctic, including far eastern Russia, Alaska, northern Canada, Denmark, and Greenland. While Inuit culture varies across the Arctic, most Inuit were semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers prior to the advent of European colonialism. Typically, Inuit lived in sod houses and other semi-permanent structures during the summer, and in igloos (ice houses) during the winter. A traditional Inuit diet consisted of marine mammals, Arctic land mammals, birds, and fish, along with small amounts of plant matter like berries and tubers. Because of the climate in the Arctic, it is not possible to cultivate crops. Traditional Inuit communities usually made clothing from animal skins, which provide essential warmth in the harsh Arctic environment. In the Arctic, winter darkness and summer sun both last for months uninterrupted, with extremely cold winters and short, mild summers. The climate poses many challenges to the humans and animals who live there.
Many Inuit speak one of several closely related languages. These languages exist on a continuum, and those spoken in close geographic proximity are typically mutually intelligible. Inuktitut is among the most widely spoken Inuit languages, primarily used in the Inuit-governed Canadian territory of Nunavut. Experts debate whether Innuinaktun (also spelled Inuinnaqtun), also spoken in Nunavut, is its own language or a dialect of Inuktitut. Many Inuit languages are endangered today, though revitalization efforts are underway.
Prior to the arrival of Christian missionaries, many Inuit practiced animism. An angakkuq was a kind of spiritual healer. Although colonialism has had a major impact on Inuit lives, many people still hunt, make clothes and boots from animal skins, build temporary igloos (especially on longer hunting trips), and maintain traditional Inuit religious beliefs. These practices are important not just because they connect Inuit to their heritage, but because they are often necessary for survival.
Historical Context: Colonialism in the Arctic
Starting in the late 18th century, Europeans, particularly Christian missionaries, began colonizing parts of the Arctic. The 20th century saw a major increase in colonialism in the Arctic. Many Christians forced Inuit peoples to convert to Christianity and abandon their traditional beliefs. The arrival of Christianity in the Arctic caused a major rupture in Inuit life cycles. To prevent the Inuit from continuing their hunter-gatherer lifestyle, the Canadian government killed large numbers of sled dogs, essentially forcing the Inuit to remain in settled communities. In a bid to establish sovereignty in the Arctic, the Canadian government forcibly relocated some Inuit much further north than their traditional home territories, where survival was much more difficult. Many Inuit children were sent to residential schools, where they were forced to assimilate to white Canadian culture. Students at residential schools often experienced various forms of abuse, and poor living conditions led to the spread of infectious diseases. These colonial efforts had a major and ongoing impact on the Inuit. Today, many Inuit struggle with high food prices, the impacts of climate change, and attempts to restrict the seal hunts that are crucial to continued survival.
Despite these challenges, there have been major efforts to preserve and revitalize Inuit culture in recent decades. Nunavut, where Inuktitut and Innuinaktun are official languages, became an Inuit-governed territory in 1999. Inuktitut and other related Inuit languages can be written using the Latin alphabet or Inuktitut syllabics. Christian missionaries developed the writing system in the mid-1800s. Prior to that point, Inuit languages, like many languages around the world, had no written form. Language revitalization efforts ensure that new generations learn and speak Inuktitut and other Inuit languages. Decolonization efforts are a way of breaking the cycle of trauma and ensuring collective healing. Activists like Tanya Tagaq, Aaju Peter, and Alethea Arnaquq-Baril have worked to uplift and celebrate Inuit cultural practices like throat singing and traditional tattoos.
Colonial practice continues today in the Arctic with natural resource extraction in Indigenous lands. For example, researchers use seismic testing to search for oil and mineral deposits for resource extraction in the Arctic. Extracting these resources can provide important economic opportunities for Inuit in an area with relatively few job options. However, resource extraction contributes to environmental devastation and worsening climate change in the Arctic. Colonialism has had an ongoing and deeply destructive effect on Inuit communities and land across the Arctic.
Authorial Context: Tanya Tagaq and Wonderworks
Tanya Tagaq was born in 1975. She grew up in Cambridge Bay, Canada, in what is now Nunavut. While at high school in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, she developed an interest in throat singing. Traditionally, two women perform Inuit throat singing, but Tagaq is a solo performer. In 2015, she won a Juno award for her third album, Animism. Tagaq was also the subject of the 2022 documentary Ever Deadly. In addition to her music and writing, Tagaq has long been a vocal activist about issues facing the Inuit. She has raised awareness and produced music discussing the poor government response to the many reports of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit people (MMIWG or MMIWG2S). She is also a vocal supporter of seal hunting in the Arctic because it is crucial to Inuit survival and culture.
Split Tooth is Tanya Tagaq’s first novel. Critics often describe it as Magical Realism, though the novel deviates from that genre in important ways. Split Tooth blurs the lines of fiction, myth, and nonfiction, eschews a traditional narrative, and includes poetry and illustrations alongside more traditional prose. Because it stands outside of many Western conceptions of literary genres, some critics describe it as a “Wonderwork.” The term “Wonderwork” was coined by academic Daniel Heath Justice to describe works by Indigenous writers that are similarly difficult to categorize (Justice, Daniel Heath. “Indigenous Wonderworks and the Settler-Colonial Imaginary.” Apex Magazine. 10 Aug. 2017). Wonderworks can be opportunities for Indigenous writers to explore their own cultures, to innovate new kinds of storytelling, and to push back against rigid ideas about what certain genres should or should not include.
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