Qargi
Qargi (Inupiaq:
The qargi was almost always a separate building because the dwellings were not large enough to hold very many men.[4] The qargi was a combination courthouse, church, workshop, dance hall, and received center, two or three times the size of a typical house.[5] It was the place where the storytelling, dancing, singing, and games (high-kick games[6]) that so enriched Yupik and Inuit life took place.[7] The qargi was a communal building in which women were usually not permitted.[5]
Prior to the arrival of Christian missionaries in the 1890s, every Inupiaq settlement had one or more of these ceremonial houses.[8]
Naming
Language | singular | dual | plural |
---|---|---|---|
Naukan Yupik | Qaygi | ||
Central Alaskan Yup'ik
|
Qasgi / Qasgiq[9] | Qasgit | |
Chevak Cup’ik
|
Qaygiq | Qaygit | |
Nunivak Cup'ig
|
Kiiyar[10] | ||
Inupiaq (Alaskan Inuit)
|
Qargi | Qargik | Qargich / Qargit |
Inupiaq (Little Diomede)[11]
|
Qaġsriq | Qaġsrik | Qaġsrit |
Inupiaq (King Island)[12]
|
Qagzriq | Qagzrik | Qagzrit |
Inuvialuk (Western Canadian Inuit)
|
Qadjgiq | ||
Inuktitut (Eastern Canadian Inuit) | Qaggiq ᖃᒡᒋᖅ | ||
Kalaallisut (West Greenland Inuit) | Qassi |
School
In many Iñupiat communities the qargi was the first institution to vanish as churches and schools became the dominant forces of change. At present, Iñupiat elders have no responsibility for the formal education of young Iñupiat.[13]
Before 1950, formal education for students in Chevak, Alaska took place in the qaygiq,[14] and in the homes of the people. The information taught to students in the qaygiq included history, values, rules, regulations, and survival methods.[15]
See also
References
- ^ James M. Savelle (2002), The Umialiit-Kariyit Whaling Complex and Prehistoric Thule Eskimo Social Relations in the Eastern Canadian Arctic Archived March 2, 2014, at the Wayback Machine, Bulletin of National Museum of Ethnology 27(1): 159–188 (2002)
- ISBN 978-1-889963-79-2.
- ^ Edna Ahgeak MacLean, Culture and Change for Iñupiat and Yupiks of Alaska
- ISBN 978-1-889963-92-1.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-7867-4123-6.
- ^ Arctic Studies
- ISBN 0-8032-6238-8.
- ^ St Lawrence Island Native American history Navajo rugs Archived August 5, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Qasgimi : In the Qasgi
- ^ Nuniwarmiut Piciryarata Tamaryalkuti, Nunivak Island Cup'ig Language Preliminary Dictionary Archived August 5, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Carol Zane Jolles (2006), Iñupiaq Maritime Hunters: Summer SubsistenceWork in Diomede, in Circumpolar Lives and Livelihood, A Comparative Ethnoarchaeology of Gender and Subsistence[permanent dead link], edited by Robert Jarvenpa and Hetty Jo Brombach, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London, 2006
- ^ Future King Island Speakers
- ^ MacLean, Edna Ahgeak (1986). The Revitalization of the Qargi, the Traditional Community House, as an Educational Unit of the Inupiat Community
- ^ Pingayak, John; Qaygiq (Men’s House)
- ^ Alaskool: Guidebook for Integrating Cup'ik Culture and Curriculum