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Beringia is now inhabited by Eskimos or Inuit. They are quite close genetically to Asians and they are not really Amerindians. They came quite late. Notice the resemblance to, say, Japanese.
Once there were a mighty people. Ones who lived in the lands of inhospitable snow and ice. Many snows that several names for snow were known. A people who live nomadic. A people who were indigenous. Known by a derogatory term that means 'dog eater'. These who depended and respected above many things the dog. The partner who lived peacefully among them.
The whites came and saw prosperity of a different mind. Furs that were once a holy provision felt with gratitude when received. Once Honor was given to the live of each creature received as sustenance. Creatures of the land and of the deep were depended on. All was used and nothing wasted. Family's lived and depended upon each other. The timber line at times a refuge.
They were dispersed. Many perished when disease was an unwelcome guest in the tundra, the arctic. The land silent. Children stripped from the mothers arms to go and learn of Christianity. Non of the faith known as LOVE but all of the religion known as conformity. Numbers once many dwindling now into less that 40,000. This almost all in Canada now. Eastern Canada. Some remain now within the arctic of the Pacific coast.
There is an Island off of the coast near Tacoma Washington that hosts a mockup of the long ago culture. Totems and relics of a life once lived by many.
I found a wonderful collection of art
here..Dorthy Francis Artist.
Missing form my life a father who was one of these. A ghost of an enigma. Lost in time and space. I know of this without doubt now.
Last week the DNA test came back and indeed I am a daughter of an Inuit father. A have become the half sister of all of my siblings. Yet this was always so. The elder siblings told me so to my mothers denial. My sister who was thought to have the same father is actually my half sister. No less my sister. She knows who her father is. Many if not all of them know who the father of their flesh is. Now for me it is a confirmed mystery.
All the research is met with a vanishing people. A people of the earth who respected what had been given them through the creation, the creator of all things. My faith is the fellowship of My God and Father, My Lord and Savior. My faith is also of that lineage my maker set me along the path into being. I am half Inuit. Not Eskimo, I am not a 'dog eater'. How we would cringe if the N. word be used of a African or a J. for German. Yet a vanishing people known by few are called and known through the ignorance of causation.
I am no less a white woman, yet more of a indigenous soul. One who was here before the others. A people who were here as long, 1/4 Native American ( Cherokee) heritage I also own. I am 1/2 Inuit and 1/4 another.
I remember the first time I publicly acknowledged my curiosity, the probability of being less than white. I was the same person yet at church I was treated as less. Somehow as if more ignorant. Or a heathen. I see how even then my eyes were being opened to the religion less that was called by one who's name is higher. A name above all names demised by a people who think that they are the best superior. A heritage that took away the very existence of so many people. Who stole children to conversion. Believing whole-heartedly that this was 'the way'. Only it is that HE is the way. I see it now even now.
It is HE who is the way.
It is not the thought or idea of what people may conceive as the way all of humanity ought to believe. Many religions fall into the same sin thinking it holy. Holiness is non than compassion, humility, to be in right standing before God. God is holy, he has created all peoples. Many know Him, some by another name yet it is He they are intimate with. He is truth. He is reverence for his creation. It is His people who KNOW Him by name. A name spoken in many languages, many dialects and tongs. Many years ago He lead me to believe in His Son Christ Jesus. I see people who take a demanding stance to force others to believe yet that is coherence. It is to a man to come. Come unto me he said. Of ones own will. Not that of another.
These Inuit often as with many other cultures were forced into Him. Not drawn of honey but compelled through fear of hell burning and screaming. The called the old ways evil. Perhaps many were. Perhaps it was that God himself was a guide and a witness through the elders to holiness. Fear true fear to me is separation from God. It is then that the gnashing of the teeth is known.
These people ripped of the ways of their ancestors were forced into the ways of a salvation forced upon them. It is that salvation of an offering a message of holiness, a message of relationship that pulls holiness up as a innate desire. Not a fear of reprisal.
Many people are missing lost into an enforced compliance out of a fear of God.
Would it be that the presence of God be known as a desire to draw near to the God of their understanding. A god who gave all to gin our trust. Salvation through a name that is above all names. A relationship of mutual respect and adoration.
For many years the story's my elder brother told of my paternal linage were unsure It is a hard thing to have been lied to by my Mother. It is a hard thing to be of a people who have all but vanished. 40 who live in a tiny village just above the Washington State boarder. No way to contact them. Not able yet to gain much more understanding. Yet I understand more about who I think I am. The why of the way I believe, the way I walk upon this earth. No longer an alien confused by the denial of some and the assurance of others. I am who I am and have come from a long line of some of the most tenacious people who ever walked this earth. Those who survived in the arctic. When the respect of the earth and all of the sea those things upon and within the deep was the way of truth.
Many taboos of fear were also a torment to a people who are now little known some still live. I hope that one day I might learn more of them. One story I have heard years ago was when the Holy Spirit came to a church meeting of those who were in a relationship with God based in the Salvation of Christ Jesus. The doors closed and so the windows closed and a great wind swept through the congregation. There were so many suicides and much alcoholism in the village. After this meeting the whole of the village changed. Hope entered that land.
I am Inuit by my father who one day I might come to know his identity.
Who do you think you are? To many generations we are known by those things passed down through the flesh and the spirit. I would love to know from whence I have come.
