Kinauvit means “What’s your name?”
For Inuit, a person’s name is an identifier. Takpannie lets you know which community I belong to in Nunavut. “Takpanie” is Inuktitut for ‘up there’. My grandfather Tommy Takpanie Sr. used to say, “we’re from ‘up there’ (meaning, the arctic). My anaana (mother) was born in Apex Hill, Nunavut, but I was born in Montreal and moved to Ottawa in elementary school.
But, what’s really, truly fascinating about our last name is that it’s made up.
Aren’t all names made up? Well yeah, but Inuit did not have surnames prior to enfranchisement. In fact, it was only in the 1960’s that my grandfather’s friend, Abe Okpik was hired by the Canadian government as director of “Project Surname” to travel to every community (in what was then) the Northwest Territories to ask Inuit what they wanted to be called. For over two years he met with every Inuit family across 55 settlements to ask what they wanted their last names to be recorded in census after the ‘dog tag’ system stopped.
Dog tag system? The Canadian government made Inuit wear numbered discs as part of Canada’s “Eskimo Identification Tag System.” E meant Inuit were from the east, and W meant west. My anaana (mother) was E7-1615. My grandfather Tommy- E7-880, and my grandmother- E7-430. Inuit were required to wear these numbered discs like dogs until ‘Project surname’. To add, as John Amagoalik poignantly said, “‘Eskimo’ is a Cree term, which means eater of raw meat, which is true! We are eaters of raw meat, but we don’t describe ourselves that way. We describe ourselves as human beings.”
So, ‘Eskimo’ was changed for ‘Inuit’- which means ‘people’ in Inuktitut. (‘Inuk’ means ‘person’).
'Kinauvit' explores who I am and where I come from and I gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the City of Ottawa.
