“ESKIMO” IS THE BEST-KNOWN TERM for the Native Americans depicted in this book, but it did not originate with them. In their language, they call themselves “Inupiat,” meaning “the people.” “Eskimo,” a term brought into Alaska by white men, is what certain Indian tribes in eastern Canada called their neighbors to the north. It probably meant “eaters of raw flesh.”
Nonetheless, “Eskimo” and “Inupiat” are used more or less interchangeably in northwest Alaska today, at least when English is spoken, and that is the usage followed in this book.
The Inupiat call their language Inupiaq. A few words in it—those commonly mixed with English in northwest Alaska—appear in the book, along with some local colloquialisms in English. They are defined below. As spelling varies among Inupiaq-English dictionaries, I have used when possible the most phonetic spellings for the benefit of non-Inupiaq readers.