Inuit family, 1917. A man, a woman, and child, dressed in furs, sitting on a log. A second child is in a pack on the back of the woman. The woman is sewing, the man carving a bone.
10 May 2021
The English word Eskimo is a borrowing from Spanish and French and ultimately comes from the Cree ayaskīmēw. The literal meaning of the Cree word is uncertain, but it seems to be related to a verb meaning to make the rawhide webbing of snowshoes (the morpheme ask means raw). In Cree, the word could refer to a variety of peoples: the Inuit, the Mi’kmaq, the Huron, among others. In English, Eskimo is used to refer to the Inuit (Alaska, Canada, Greenland) and the Yupik (Siberia and Alaska) and is sometimes taken to include the Tlingit, Athabaskan, and Aleut peoples.
But use of Eskimo is considered to be offensive by many, especially in Canada. The offense arises, in part, because of the widely believed, but false, etymology of the word as meaning an eater of raw flesh, and in part, because it is a label outsiders have given them rather than their own name for themselves. As with most names for indigenous peoples, it’s polite to refer to them by their preferred name, which is often a more specific ethnic affiliation, in this case Inuit, Yupik, or Iñupiat (another name for the Inuit), which is usually more accurate and precise as well. But Eskimo persists in some corners because there is no other word that refers generally to the indigenous people of the Arctic and some, particularly in Alaska, prefer that name.
Eskimo starts appearing in English by 1584, and this first known use mirrors the present-day confusion over who exactly the word is supposed to represent. It appears in a manuscript by Richard Hakluyt, one of the foremost advocates of English colonization of North America. Not only does he apply the word to a different indigenous people, he does so in the context of exploiting those people for profit:
To leave them and to comme to our nation I say that amonge other meanes to encrease her Maiesties customes this shalbe one, especially that by plantinge and fortifienge nere Cape Briton, what by the strengthe of our shipps beinge harde at hande & bearinge the sway already amongest all nations that fishe at Newfounde lande, and what by the fortes that there may be erected and helde by our people, wee shall be able to inforce them havinge no place els to repaire vnto so convenient, to pay vs suche a continuall customme as shall please vs to lay vpon them: which Imposition of twoo or three hundred shippes laden yerely with sondry sortes of fishe, trane oyle, and many kyndes offurres and hides, cannot choose but amounte to a greate matter beinge all to be levied vpon straungers: And this not onely wee may exacte of the Spaniardes and Portingales but also of the frenche men our olde and auncient enemyes: what shoulde I speake of the customes of the greate multitudes of course clothes, welshe frise, and Irishe ruggs that may be vttered in the more northerly partes of the Lande amonge the Esquimawes of the graunde Bay and amonge them of Canada, Saguynay, and Hochelaga which are subiecte to sharpe and nippinge winters, albeit their Sommers be hotter moche then oures. Againe the multitudes of smallyron and copper workes wherewith they are excedingly delighted, will not a little encrease the custommes beinge transported oute of the lande: I omitt the rehersall of a Thowsande other triflinge wares, which besides they may sett many women, children, and ympotent persons on worke in makinge of them woulde also helpe to the encreasinge of the custommes: Lastly whatsoeuer kinde of commodities shoulde be broughte from thence by her Maiesties subiectes into the Realme, or be thither transported oute of the Realme, cannot choose but inlarge the Revenewes of the Crowne very mightely and inriche all sortes of subiectes ingenerally
When he writes of the graunde Bay, Hakluyt is referring to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the region he is referring to are the modern-bay Maritime provinces of Canada. As such, he is probably not referring to Inuit, who did not live in the region, but rather is using it in the original Cree sense in reference to the Innu or Mi’kmaq. Despite being a staunch advocate for English colonization of North America, Hakluyt never visited the New World himself, and he undoubtedly acquired the word Esquimawes while in France, where he had been living immediately prior to writing this tract.
A century later, Eskimo is being used to refer to the Inuit. From the 5 July 1689 entry in the journal of Henry Kelsey, a fur trader and explorer for the Hudson’s Bay Company:
Now we intended to go to ye sea side for better going but found ye same & foggy by reason of ye Ice toward night came to ye Boy not suffering me to speak aloud in pretence ye Eskemoes would hear us dist 16 Miles.
And again in the summer of 1719 (the crossed-out portion is in the original):
In 1719 June 22nd the trade being ov[e]r I sailed w[i]th ye prosprs. for churchill[;] ariv’d ye 30th[;] ye 2d July I sailed w[i]t[h] ye success in compny. Jno Handcock master[;] ye 5th traded two of your slaves for 2 Eskemoes w[i]th Eskemoes[;] ye 20th I changed two of your slaves for 2 Eskemoes in order to gett interpeters of their Language & to know w[ha]t their Cuntry afforded[;] so I proceeded to ye no[rth]ward seeing & trading w[i]th several parcels of Eskemoes till ye 28th[;] then I return’d & ye 9th of Augst. gott to york fort.
Sources:
Hakluyt, Richard. Discourse of Western Planting (1584). David B. Quinn and Alison M. Quinn, eds. London: Hakluyt Society, 1993, 66–67, 169. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Kelsey, Henry. The Kelsey Papers. Ottawa: Public Archives of Canada, 1929, 27, 114. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, March 2021, s.v. Eskimo, n. and adj.
Photo credit: George R. King, 1917. National Geographic, June 1917, 564. Public domain image.