Introduction-E

Christians, knowing what we know now. We used to believe everything that we were
raised to believe, such as abstaining from certain things, abstaining from eating raw
meat. Christians today are just starting to understand the things that they shouldn’t be
doing as Christians. Back then, when we no longer followed the traditional way of life,
I think we got lost along the way as there were no set rules to follow, once the traditional
ways were condemned. The only requirements we had to follow were no hunting on
Sundays for the men, no sewing for the women and not doing anything on Sundays.
Those were basically the rules we had to follow. It did not matter if we judged other
people or disliked them. It was because we had no rules to follow that we were doing
these things.
You mentioned abstaining from eating raw meat when Christianity started.
Elisapee: Yes, I mentioned earlier that women who had just delivered babies would be
required to abstain from eating raw meat. This practice was followed as it was one of
the rules that the women had to follow. All along we had to follow God’s rules too, as
they are just as valid. As He is our Creator we must follow what He wants us to do. We
can look up to how our ancestors followed the required rules. If we let go of them, we
should have the respect for the rules that apply to Christianity. We are told that we
should love one another. I cannot say that it changed suddenly, as it was gradual.
We used to say and think that the Catholics were following the wrong religion. The
people around the Iglulik area were more into this religion. Maybe Paniaq is not
Catholic, but we called the Catholics the people who made the sign of the cross. That
was before we really understood the word of God. We were also told by our own
ministers that we were not to go to them as they were following the wrong religion,
which probably influenced us more to turn against them. That was one of the things that
changed our life as well. It had always been the way of Inuit to help each other, without
thinking twice about what type of people they really were. If they required dogs, they
would be given what they needed even if they were from Iglulik, for the Iglulik people
used to help those who were from the Mittimatalik area. It was a way of helping each
other. Even that way of life was destroyed by the arrival of Christianity. We started to
look down on each other. Myself, I thought I was following the perfect religion, since
our minister was a non-smoker and the Catholic priest smoked a pipe. I definitely saw
that as a sin and a reason to go against their religion. He would be smoking a bent pipe
and the tobacco smelled awful. It used to smell like cigars. Do you know what cigars are?
Yes.
Elisapee: Our minister didn’t smoke, and his house had a beautiful aroma. I thought
because of that I surely was following the perfect religion. I guess we just believed in our
32 Introduction to the Oral Traditions