Silent Stones of the North

(National Geographic)

Before 2010, it was an image that few of us found familiar--stones stacked in a seemingly hasty, haphazard method in imitation of human form. Then came the Winter Olympics of 2010, hosted by Canada's third-largest city, Vancouver. The well-known Olympic logo was displayed beside what has become an increasingly prevalent symbol of Canada, in a nod to its indigenous cultures--the very same human-like stack of stones.

 This symbol could be called by two names. One is the inuksuk, the proper Inuit name for a traditional stone cairn. The other is inunnguaq, the name given to the very same structures that are void of any cultural significance. The Olympic logo that proliferated in 2010 was the latter, as it was an adoption of the image by greater Canadian society--a copy that lacked the spiritual and cultural investment placed in similar cairns that have stood in the Arctic regions of Canada, Alaska, and Greenland for thousands of years.

The literal meaning of the word inuksuk is "substitute for a person", also translated as the image of man, or something serving the function of a human. Another  translation is simply "beacon", while it may also be thought of as a sort of messenger, expressing some thought or intention that originated with a human and has been left in stone for another to find. The official Inuktitut dictionary--a collection of the Inuit language--defines it with more detail: "traditional stone beacon usually made of piled stones on some prominent point or hill as a guide to travelers and hunters or to give other information about game or directions."

(Canadian Museum of Civilization)

Not to be overlooked, however, is the spiritual nature of the inukshuit, which is especially absent in inunnguat (the plurals of inuksuk and inunnguaq, respectively). Knud Rasmussen, Danish polar explorer, described a tale from the Inuits that told the origin of several of their inukshuit. These particular ones had been erected after several Inuit women had drowned in the sea, having been carried away by an island of ice that split away from shore. The Inuit men, who had been away hunting, built inukshuit along the shore to mourn the deaths, but also in the belief that they would anchor the women's souls back onto dry land, a better place for them to rest than lost at sea.

(Canadian Museum of Civilization)

The inukshuit were used to mark migration routes for caribou herders, places of slaughter, places of worship or rites, and grave sites. Some of them were seen as carrying good fortune, while others, like scarecrows, were meant to discourage approach--warning the Inuits to stay away from places of bad fortune or perceived evil.

Fundamentally, the inukshuit served as mediums between the people and the land. The stones, always unfinished, still demonstrated man's methods of shaping the landscape, giving form and meaning to the rawness of nature.

Like Stonehenge or the monuments of Easter Island, the inukshuit have been mysterious to outsiders, and much of their meaning has been forgotten--yet just the same, they still stand watch over the frozen landscape of the north, relics of civilization with equivalent relevance to the cathedrals of Europe, Mesopotamian ziggurats, or the Buddhist stupas.With the more and more common appearance of the inunnguaq as a popular symbol in Canada, the significance of the inuksuk is also returning from the shadows of indigenous memory.

Map of inukshuit sites on Baffin Island, Canada
(tukilik.ca)

There is much more to be learned about these ancient relics, as well as the modern people that cherish them. For further insight, take a peek at the project to map the inukshuit locations throughout the Arctic over at the Tukilik Foundation.