Bibliophilia: Sinews of Survival by Betty Issenman

Sinews for Survival: The Living Legacy of Inuit Clothing by Betty Kobayashi Issenman, (ISBN: 9780774805964), about the clothing of the Arctic people.

(Parka, 154 cm, trousers, 84 cm, mitts, boots, tool kit, snow goggles, of caribou skin, sewn with sinew, Copper Inuit, 1850s. The costume, made of the fine, dark summer gathered skins of caribou, was collected during one of the searches for Franklin.)

WOW!

(Jennie Kanaiyuk of Nulahugiuq, NWT, photographed here in 1916, was born in 1903 and died in 1931, a victim of tuberculosis. Her parents, Ikpukkuaq and Higilaq, adopted the anthropologist Diamond Jenness as their son, and Jennie acquired her English name through her relation to him. In this photograph she wears shoes over her boots. The inserts over the chest of Copper Inuit parkas were sometimes outlined in strips of red, black, and white bands, as in the amauti worn here.)

Anyone who assumes these people are “primitive” has never taken a good hard look at their clothing and how they make it. Rather than a few roughly cut hides crudely sewn together, their garments are made from dozens of precisely shaped and cut pieces, immaculately joined into clothes perfectly suited to their environment. And instead of just using one hide, many times they sew different colours of fur in little pieces here and there just for the aesthetic effect. The combination of form and function shows what a sophisticated society they really are. And that they’re capable of doing it with bone and ivory needles and sinew makes it all the more impressive.

(Two Caribou Inuit girls, Padlei, NWT, 1950.)

The result are beautiful.

(Woman’s Seal Skin Boot.)

I sew by hand and think that my stuff looks reasonably sharp, but the detail they’re capable of achieving, is utterly astonishing. There is tailoring involved here that would be the envy of a Saville Row tailor.

(Man’s Seal Skin Boot.)

I’ve always been in awe of their ability to survive in such an inhospitable climate, and that adaptability extends to clothing that is ideal for the conditions they live in. The fact that they made kayaks, and waterproof garments to wear while bobbing around in the Arctic Ocean hunting whales, is incredible not just for the bravery it takes, but also for the sophisticated thought and skills it requires to manufacture them.

(Seal Skin Dry Suit.)

(Most of the pictures are missing from this preview, but the text is on par with the images in this book.)

The sad fact is of course that the skills required to make these garments has been steadily disappearing. I suspect that the number of people who can still make them numbers in the hundreds, dozens, across the whole area from Siberia to Greenland. If the supply of crappy clothes from WalMart doesn’t arrive, they likely have nothing to wear.

(Widow’s Amauti Front & Back.)

Anyone with an interest in clothing or primitive skills or craft or native arts or ethnography or anthropology, owes it to them self to check this book out.

http://www.ubcpress.ubc.ca/search/title_book.asp?BookID=192