Inuit Culture
hunting groups of fewer than a dozen. Each band was roughly identified with a locale and named
accordingly - eg, the Arvirtuurmiut of Boothia Peninsula were called "baleen whale-eating
people."
During roughly 4000 years of human history in the Arctic, the appearance of new people has
brought continual cultural change. The ancestors of the present-day Inuit, who are culturally
related to Inuppiat (northern Alaska), Katladlit (Greenland) and Yuit (Siberia and western
Alaska), arrived about 1050 AD. As early as the 11th century the NORSE exerted an
undetermined influence on the Inuit. The subsequent arrival of explorers, whalers, traders,
missionaries, scientists and others began irreversible cultural changes. The Inuit themselves
participated actively in these developments as guides, traders and models of survival. Despite
adjustments made by the Inuit over the past 3 centuries and the loss of some traditional features,