Who are the women of the Arctic? What trials do they endure? What joys do they reap? Inuit Woman: Life and Legend in Art, at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton until April 2, offers a glimpse into the female condition in the North.
The 35 carvings and 28 prints, on loan from the Winnipeg Art Gallery's Twomey Collection, explore the iconography of female roles in Inuit society. The "life" component of the exhibit depicts women engaged in traditional tasks. The implements of labour - e.g., the ulu, or woman's knife, and the kudlik, or stone lamp - take on a symbolic force, as does the wearing of the amautik, or mother's parka. The word amautik (from the Inuktitut word for "carry") refers to the pouch (amaut), in which babies are carried on their mother's back until they are two or three. This ingenious garment allows the child to be swung to the front for breast-feeding, and the large hood allows fresh air to filter down to the amaut. FIGURE
The "life" works are wonderfully instructive, but equally interesting are the origin myths depicted in the "legend" component of the show. In the shamanic traditions of the Inuit, women are associated with the sea, the sun and birds. The sea spirit, Sedna, a sort of mermaid who gives birth to various sea creatures (or, in other versions, a new race of humans), is an archetype that recurs in numerous cultures. Several exquisite sculptures, including one by Juanisi Irqumia Kuanana, depict the fate of a bad mother transformed into a narwhal. The often violent stories behind these artworks usually relate to weather, luck or taboos; for example, The Story of Sun and Moon, as shown in a striking print by Luke Anguhadluq called Sunwoman, cautions against incest.
Darlene Coward Wight, curator of Inuit art at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, remarks on the power and strength conveyed in these works. Traditionally, she notes, Inuit women performed "essential roles ... in partnership with the men in their families. ... [I]n the modern society of today's north, women are moving into positions of political and social power on an equal footing with men."