Introduction-E

What would you do whenever the (supply) ship arrived?
Pauloosie: The ship. They would all be out, full of joy.
Over there you were all Inuit. None of you were able to speak English but
you’d get by with qallunaat?
Pauloosie: Some of them. The person for whom I’m named Ammaalik would always
speak English. Yes, some of them were able to speak a bit of English. We, however, were
not able to speak English.
Had the ships been arriving while you were a child, or was it not until you
were an adolescent?
Pauloosie: When I was a child I was living at Qikiqtan. But even when I was a child the
ships would arrive.
I have heard that women used to get pregnant from qallunaat in
exchange for tobacco. Have you heard of this?
Pauloosie: Yes, before my time, it used to be like that. This practice was carried out. This
is something I’ve only heard about.
It is something that you’ve only heard about?
Pauloosie: Yes. It is something I have only heard about. I didn’t see it, but I think what
has been said is the truth.
Can you tell us a little bit about Inuit becoming pregnant from qallunaat?
Can you tell us about what you have heard?
Pauloosie: I have not experienced it, however. I have really only heard about women
being made pregnant. [Regarding] this thing that you asked about women getting
pregnant in exchange for tobacco, they say that some husbands used to send their wives
because they wanted tobacco so badly. This is what they used to do.
Their husbands wouldn’t be selfish about letting them be shared, as long as
they got tobacco?
Pauloosie: They would give their wives to a qallunaaq so that she would obtain tobacco.
This was something that I had actually heard about. It is something about which I’ve
heard more than once which is why I’m able to talk about it. If it were something about
which I was told only once, it would seem nonexistent to me.
98 Introduction to the Oral Traditions