3
Mind
H. Brody
1
In 1973, after a year in the Arctic, early one morning I visited Anaviapik’s house in
Pond Inlet. Anaviapik and Ulajuk were at their small kitchen table, drinking tea.
Everyone else was asleep. I went in, helped myself to a mug and sat down with
them. As always, they said how pleased they were to be visited. ‘Pulartiarit,’ said
Anaviapik, meaning literally ‘Visit well,’ ‘Be welcome.’ Then he asked: ‘Isumas-
saqarpit?’ ‘Do you have the material for thought?’, meaning ‘Is there something on
your mind?’ ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m just visiting.’
‘That’s good,’ said Anaviapik, ‘because I have a thought, and I have a question
for you.’
His question, which seemed to arise from a conversation that he and Ulajuk
had been having just before I came into their house, was this: ‘Qanuingmat tas-
sumanik Qallunaat isumaqattalaursimajuit Inunnit isumarqanigitunit iila isumarqi-
jugut Inuulluta? Taima isumangmata tusaumavit?’ ‘How is it that in the old days the
Qallunaat always thought that the Inuit had no thoughts and that we Inuit were
mindless? Is that what you have heard?’
As I thought about what to say, Ulajuk and Anaviapik smiled at me. Then
both of them burst out laughing. I recognized their laughter as a way of removing
any possible risk that they might sound aggressive. This was just a question, a puz-
zle, something they wanted to talk to me about.
2
In 1979, late in the year but before the snows had come, I arrived in Fort St. John
to discover that Thomas Hunter, the Dunne-za elder, was in hospital. Thomas was
now in his eighties, a small, tough man whose face had become a maze of wrinkles
but whose hands were still strong and whose eyes were still bright with curiosity
Brody H. 2000. Mind. In The Other Side of Eden, reproduced with permission of A P Watt Ltd on
behalf of H R Brody Ltd, and with permission of Faber and Faber, London.