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Kinauvit?
Kinauvit?: Whats Your Name? The Eskimo Disc System and a Daughters Search for her Grandmother | Norma Dunning
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From the winner of the 2021 Governor General's Award for literature, a revelatory look into an obscured piece of Canadian history: what was then called the Eskimo Identification Tag System In 2001, Dr. Norma Dunning applied to the Nunavut Beneficiary program, requesting enrolment to legally solidify her existence as an Inuk woman. But in the process, she was faced with a question she could not answer, tied to a colonial institution retired decades ago: What was your disc number? Still haunted by this question years later, Dunning took it upon herself to reach out to Inuit community members who experienced the Eskimo Identification Tag System first-hand, providing vital perspective and nuance to the scant records available on the subject. Written with incisive detail and passion, Dunning provides readers with a comprehensive look into a bureaucracy sustained by the Canadian government for over thirty years, neglected by history books but with lasting echoes revealed in Dunnings intimate interviews with affected community members. Not one government has taken responsibility or apologized for the E-number system to date a symbol of the blatant dehumanizing treatment of the smallest Indigenous population in Canada. A necessary and timely offering, Kinauvit? provides a critical record and response to a significant piece of Canadian history, collecting years of research, interviews and personal stories from an important voice in Canadian literature.
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I had no idea that the Canadian government used a numbering system to label Inuit/Eskimo people. The system has been stopped, but only in the last 50 years or so. Each person was required to wear a tag with their number engraved on it, and they had to have that number memorized. They were expected to use it for healthcare, at school, and making purchases of many kinds. All because their naming tradition was different than the colonizers, who ⬇️

Soubhiville Found Inuit names too difficult to pronounce and spell, and because they don‘t use a family surname. Many feel this numbering system was degrading and meant to reduce people to numbers, similar to in prisons. 11mo
Anna40 😧 That‘s awful 11mo
Soubhiville I came across this on Libro.FM and it piqued my interest due to my ancestry, which includes some Inuit. Some of the book gets dryly academic, but I appreciated the perspective and stories from the elders who still know their disc numbers. (edited) 11mo
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Bookwomble Fuuuuuck! 😱 11mo
Tamra Ugh, dehumanizing for certain. The US govt. still uses numbers to identify prisoners & detainees. 11mo
Aimeesue Yowza. 😳 11mo
Hooked_on_books Wow. I don‘t have words for this. So good to treat other people like animals. 😑 11mo
Soubhiville @Hooked_on_books right?! The author pointed out that Canada is generally seen as a “good” country, but this is a dark side for sure. I suppose if you dig in every country has some dirty secrets. 11mo
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