Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology 16: 127–155, 2001.
© 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
127
“If you got everything, it’s good enough”: Perspectives on
successful aging in a Canadian Inuit community
PETER COLLINGS
Department of Anthropology, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Indiana, Pennsylvania,
USA (E-mail: [email protected])
Abstract. Structured interviews with 38 Inuit in the community of Holman were conducted
to examine Inuit definitions of successful and unsuccessful aging. Qualitative analysis of the
interview data suggests that (1) contrary to much of the literature about culture change in the
Canadian North, there appear to be no perceivable differences in the ways Inuit of different age
cohorts view aging and elderhood; (2) a successful old age is not one necessarily characterized
by individual good health, but rather by the ability of the individual to successfully manage
declining health; and (3) for Inuit, the most important determinants of a successful elderhood
are not material but ideological. That is, an individual’s attitudes in late life, and in particular
their willingness to transmit their accumulated wisdom and knowledge to their juniors, are the
critical determinants of whether an elder is viewed as having a successful old age.
Keywords: Canada, Culture change, Elderhood, Inuit, Circumpolar indigenous peoples,
Successful aging
Introduction
Scholars engaged in research on aging and late life have been interested in
defining what constitutes successful aging since Simmons (1945) asserted
that the desire for a long, healthy, and active life was a cultural universal. In
recent years, the quest for understanding what determines successful aging
has focused on different components of the biological, social, psychological,
and cultural features of aging. Indeed, numerous books and articles (see, for
example, Palmer and Luikhart 1972; Elrick 1978; Neuhaus & Neuhaus 1982;
Keith et al. 1994; Gibson 1995; Ikels et al. 1995; Steverink et al. 1998) have
endeavored to define what it means to age successfully and what variables
contribute to the attainment of a good old age. Little research (but see Keith
et al. 1994), however, has addressed the question of successful aging from
an emic viewpoint, seeking how contextual features of a cultural setting can
shape the ways in which people conceptualize and define what constitutes a
good old age.
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In the Western Canadian Arctic, the rapid and dramatic cultural changes
of the past three or four decades have convinced many outside observers
that the cultural viability of indigenous peoples such as the Inuit (Eskimo) is
decidedly suspect. Many observers residing in the communities as teachers,
nurses, and RCMP officers, in addition to a number of scholars, point to the
growing cultural chasm between young people and their elders. Examples
of this cultural gap that are often cited include the decline of the “traditional”
subsistence economy, the increase in youth problems of drug use, alcoholism,
vandalism, theft, and suicide, and the loss of the traditional language. Such
problems have seemingly led to two different phenomena in the community,
one best exemplified by the oft-repeated phrase, “the problem of the young
people” by residents in the community (which was also reported by John
O’Neil (1984) 15 years ago) and the increasing attention paid to the current
cohort of elders, who are often regarded as the exemplars of traditional Inuit
culture and repositories of traditional knowledge. The attention takes the form
of outsiders of all types rushing in to record stories, tales, life histories, and
other similar kinds of information, and it has the effect of reminding some
young people that elders, by virtue of being “traditional” are also “better”
people, creating a greater burden on the younger people to live up to their
elders in a political and economic setting where it is virtually impossible to
do so.
In light of the concerns outlined above, this paper examines Inuit conceptions of successful and unsuccessful aging through the use of qualitative
data generated from structured interviews with Inuit in the community of
Holman, conducted during 1997. In addition to the broader issues outlined
above, an examination of how Inuit themselves think about aging and define
a successful old age has several important uses. On the one hand, the investigation of qualitative data about Inuit conceptions of successful aging is of
critical importance in understanding how best to target health care delivery in
the contemporary Arctic. There has been a tremendous amount of detailed
health research in the north that focuses on Inuit health, nearly all of it
taking a quantitative approach to health and illness (Foggin et al. 1985;
Gagnon et al. 1991; Mayhall 1976; Shephard & Rode 1996) or by identifying particular health issues in the North (Berry 1985; Egan 1991; Jeppeson
& Harvald 1985). A second and smaller body of literature addresses the
adequacy of health care delivery and health policy (Canitz 1991; Noble 1978;
O’Neil 1986, 1988, 1989; Wenzel 1978, 1981), constructively criticizing
health care services in the North, paying particular attention to the importance of understanding the cultural context in which health professionals
are working. Little if any of this literature addresses native perceptions of
particular health issues (but see O’Neil et al. 1997). The use of qualitative
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129
data about successful aging therefore suggests some new ways of looking
at providing health care, especially to older individuals, often referred to as
“elders” in communities. As will be seen, this paper suggests that perhaps
the most important issue in the quality of an individual’s old age is something that health professionals are not equipped to provide in the North,
namely, good mental health generated by adequate kin connections and social
networks.
On another level, an examination of Inuit conceptions of a specific cultural
domain, namely, elderhood, identifies cultural themes that persist despite the
massive changes to a traditional culture. It is often suggested by scholars in
various disciplines that the rapid and dramatic cultural changes of the past
three and four decades in the North have created a cultural gap between
younger and older members of communities. This cultural gap is often
assumed to represent a severance of “traditional” culture as younger members
of the communities assume the cultural characteristics of Southern Canadian
society, a process often referred to as acculturation. This paper suggests that
while “acculturation” (however such an ambiguous term may be defined) is
no doubt occurring in the North, it has not yet permeated all spheres of Inuit
life, and, indeed, there is perhaps a greater degree of cultural persistence that
is generally assumed by outside observers.
Community background
The Inuit community of Holman is located on the western shore of Victoria
Island in the Canadian Archipelago. Most of the community’s 430 residents
are descendants of the northernmost groups of Copper Inuit, although there
are also several Inuit families from the Mackenzie delta region (approximately 600 km west of Victoria Island) who moved to the area in the
1920s and 1930s (Condon 1994; Usher 1965). The community was officially
founded in 1939 when the Hudson’s Bay Company established a trading post
on the northern shore of the mouth of Prince Albert Sound. A Roman Catholic
Mission was established in the same year. Throughout the 1930s to 1950s,
most of the Inuit in the region remained scattered in isolated hunting, fishing,
and trapping camps. Periodic trips were made to the trading post to trade
fox pelts for southern foodstuffs and manufactured durable goods. Reliance
upon these items increased over time as the Inuit became less dependent upon
localized resources and traditional procurement practices. In the early 1960s,
the Canadian government encouraged the Inuit of the Holman region to take
up full-time residence in the community. Public housing and other services
were provided to facilitate this process of population concentration, which
was completed by 1969. Although many families continued to spend much
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of the spring and summer in hunting and fishing camps out of the settlement,
the primary focus of life gradually shifted from the land to the village.
The settlement expanded dramatically during the 1970s and 1980s. In
addition to more public housing, the territorial and federal governments
provided a school, municipal services, a nursing station, hamlet office
building, community hall, and an extensive system of public works buildings
and garages. Other additions funded by the federal and territorial governments include a number of recreational facilities, including an indoor hockey
arena, two softball diamonds, a beach volleyball court, and a nine-hole golf
course. The Holman Eskimo Co-operative, established in the early 1960s,
has over the years expanded to include a hotel, retail outlet, crafts store, and
a state of the art print shop and carving studio.
Settlement in the community marks the advent of a series of material
changes implicated in the gradual reduction of Inuit participation in the
subsistence economy. These changes include the following: (1) the introduction of local and residential Canadian-style schooling, (2) the introduction
of new technology for subsistence (such as snowmobiles and outboard
boat motors), (3) increased opportunities for wage labor, (4) government
sponsored social assistance, (5) the collapse of the market for sealskins,
and (6) the steady deflation of the market for fox pelts. These changes
have worked together to alter patterns of socialization within the community.
The influence of compulsory schooling, for example, has been instrumental
in both changing young people’s expectations for future employment and
disrupting the flow of more “traditional” information and practical training
from parents to children. There is no doubt that young people today in
Holman know considerably less about hunting, fishing, and survival on the
land than their parents and grandparents simply because they have been raised
in a settlement and forced to attend school where such things are not taught.
This is not to say that young people today neither engage in subsistence
hunting and fishing nor value these activities. Younger Inuit simply find
that participation in such activities is constrained by economic and social
circumstances (see Condon et al. 1995).
Although the community is small and isolated, it is by no means a dull
place. There are ample recreational diversions for young and old alike,
including the gym, which is open every evening during the school year and
sponsors organized competition in basketball, volleyball, floor hockey, and
other sports. The hockey arena is open from November through April for
open recreation and league hockey. In addition, there are numerous other
programs sponsored by various organizations within the community, which
are designed to promote community involvement. These include several
organized sewing nights for women, cooking and nutrition classes sponsored
“IF YOU GOT EVERYTHING, IT’S GOOD ENOUGH”
131
by the health center, and drum dancing, which during 1997 occurred two
and sometimes three nights per week. All of these so-called “recreational”
activities also compete with Bible study groups at the Anglican church and
meetings of the Hamlet Council and the various committees of the Holman
Community Corporation. Most residents of the community are quite active in
community life in at least one of these domains.
According to most Inuit residents in the community, elders occupy a
special place in Inuit life both as providers of highly valued country (hunted)
food and as exemplars of an idealized, traditional lifestyle. Elders are often
the nexus of social relations in the community, especially regarding the
distribution of country food to immediate and distant family members, and
younger Inuit often speak of the “respect” they give to their elders in daily
life. Furthermore, both the federal and territorial governments and the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation (the native self-governing organization created by
the settlement of the western Arctic land claims settlement in 1984) also
provide numerous services for elderly in the community. Elders, defined
by the IRC as being over age 50, are eligible for what are locally termed
“elder payments.” These payments take the form of a one-time payment of
$2500 upon reaching age 50, followed by annual payments of $1500 for
every year thereafter (although in recent years these annual payments have
been suspended due to financial difficulties with the fund from which these
payments are made). Those who reach age 65 receive an old age pension
from the Canadian Government, which, based on an informal canvass of Inuit
elders, is approximately $700 per month. In spite of these payments, however,
most elders indicate that they rarely cover all of the household’s monthly
expenses, and elders frequently carry large debts with the Northern Store and
the Co-op, the two retail outlets in the community.
Health care in the community is for all Inuit free, and the health centre
is staffed by two full-time nurses. In addition to regular clinic hours, other
professionals visit the community on a regular basis. In the case of medical
emergencies, nurses can authorize a medical evacuation to Yellowknife by
special plane. In addition to clinical services, nurses and the community
health representative (a local woman who acts as liaison officer and interpreter) make weekly visits to elders in the community as a way of checking
up on elders who otherwise do not get out of the house or may be unwilling
to come to the nursing station to ask for assistance or treatment.
Research methods
Interviews were conducted in Holman over a ten month period between
February and November 1997, with a convenience sample of 38 adult
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Inuit between the ages 23–86. Each potential participant was approached
beforehand and given a verbal and written description of the project and
an assurance of confidentiality. The sample size is approximately 25%
of the adult population of the community. Table 1 shows the number of
informants by age and gender. There were several difficulties in recruiting
and interviewing older people for the study, all of them pertaining to a
language barrier. Most elders are conversationally proficient in English,
which has become the lingua franca of the community, and all elders that
I approached expressed a desire to participate in the study. However, many
elders expressed a preference for using an interpreter, citing their English
as being too limited for in-depth discussions. Given budgetary constraints, I
was unable to pay interpreters for their time, making it difficult to motivate
potential interpreters and schedule interview times. Interpreters were also
much younger than elder informants. They were conversationally proficient
in Inuinaqtun, but they had difficulty translating the more obscure life stage
terminology. These problems did not eliminate potential informants from the
study, but they did make scheduling and executing interviews more difficult
than interviews arranged and conducted with younger informants.
Table 1. Age and sex of informants life course interviews
Age category
Male
Female
20–40
40+
11
8
13
6
Interviews were conducted in the home of the informant and typically
lasted 2 1/2 to three hours, including the obligatory social visits and cups
of tea before and after the interview. Interviews were taped and transcribed
following the interview, and handwritten notes of responses were taken simultaneously. Notetaking was necessary because the taped interviews were not
always reliable, as Inuit households are never quiet. Some informants kept
the television or radio on, which could profoundly affect the quality of the
recording. Children were ubiquitous in all households, pestering both interviewee and interviewer for attention by virtue of the novelty of the interview.
With elders, additional problems included the comparatively greater flow
of traffic through the house, as children and grandchildren came in to visit
briefly, often bringing or taking country food with them, and sometimes
stopping to listen to what their relatives had to say. These visitors never
stayed long enough to disrupt an interview, but they did lengthen the process.
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133
Transcriptions of interviews were done the same day, for fear the passing
of time would render ambiguous sections of tape completely unintelligible.
Interviewing with the men was conducted by myself and with the women, by
myself and my wife, Maya Shastri, although Shastri did the bulk of the work
with women.
It is worth noting that defining who is and who is not an elder in Holman
is an extremely difficult task. The two most important state institutions in the
lives of Holman Inuit, the IRC and the Canadian government, use chronological age to define entrance into elderhood (at ages 50 and 65, respectively).
There does, however, seem to be some confusion within the community as
to what elderhood actually means. There is no word in Inuinaqtun that even
closely resembles English terms such as “elder” or “elderhood,” which refer
to the specific cultural role of an aged person respected solely for his or
her knowledge and wisdom. Some elderly (over 70) Inuit in the community
suggest that age 50 is too young to be considered an elder because these
comparative youngsters do not behave the way that “elders” should. On the
other hand, one could easily argue that “elderhood” (a somewhat comparative
term used in other Inuit societies, especially in the Eastern Canadian Arctic,
is isumataq, or “one who knows things”) traditionally began when a man
and his wife became the camp bosses and principal figures of the ilagiit, the
extended family unit. In some cases, movement into the role of the camp boss
could occur as early as 35–40 years of age (see Collings 2000; Damas 1969;
Wenzel 1981a).
For the purposes of this paper, age 40 provides a break between “young”
and “old” in the subsequent analyses because it represents two groups
of people with quite different life experiences. Inuit under age 40 have
been raised principally in the context of settlement life. Consequently,
younger Inuit have experienced a high degree of formalized, Southern-styled
schooling in the community, they have been socialized as much by their
peers as they have been by their parents and grandparents (see Condon 1990,
1990a), and they came of age in a community in which the viability of
the subsistence economy has been undermined by the collapse of the fur
markets for sealskins and fox pelts (Wenzel 1991). Further reinforcing a line
between “old” and “young” at age 40 is linguistic usage. Whereas very few
younger Inuit are even conversational in Inuinaqtun, almost all Inuit over 40
know Inuinaqtun as a first language. Only the oldest Inuit are monolingual
Inuinaqtun speakers.
The data considered here are taken from a long interview that sought to
fulfill several objectives. First, I wanted to elicit the recognized life stages
that one passes through during the course of their life. Second, I wanted to
gather material on Inuit beliefs about the transitions between these stages.
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Third, I wanted to investigate Inuit perceptions of the typical experiences for
a person in each life stage, and the positive and negative events or experiences
that influence a person during this part of his or her life. Fourth, I wanted to
discover how the “typical” experiences of people in a particular life stage
were thought to have changed over time.
All participants in the study were asked the same set of questions. These
questions were designed to be open-ended, and they allowed participants the
opportunity to respond freely to the question. The open ended nature of the
interview was important because it allowed for a great deal of freedom for
both myself and the interviewees. Interviewees had the option of including
information they felt was important, and they had a wide latitude when
it came to interpreting the question. The interview itself is adapted from
Keith et al. (1994: 342–346), who conducted research in several different
cultural settings (!Kung and Herero peoples in Botswana, two sites in Ireland,
two sites in the United States, and Hong Kong) to study the effects of
different cultural phenomena on aging and human development. Their work is
summarized in numerous articles (examples include Draper and Harpending
1994; Draper & Keith 1992; Fry 1986, 1990; Fry & Keith 1982; Ikels et al.
1992) and in their book, The Aging Experience.
Thematic concepts in successful and unsuccessful aging
The responses from the answers to these questions were coded and analyzed
using the software program Ethnograph. Responses to the interview
questions fell into one of four categories: Natural, Domestic, Economic,
and Attitudinal. Natural themes included references to one’s health, one’s
physical activity, and one’s ability to live independently of others, considered
here to be consequences of physical senescence. Responses coded as
domestic themes included references to family and household relations,
such as the presence of and attention from grandchildren, having good and
attentive adult children, and the presence or absence of a spouse. Economic
themes included references to (1) the adequacy of the pension check; (2)
whether financial needs were met or not met (which included references to
adult children and grandchildren making demands on elders for money); (3)
access to country food (via exchange); and (4) whether the adult children
were gainfully employed or productive and thus able to provide economic
support in cash or labor. Attitudinal themes were the most frequently
mentioned. These included references to (1) one’s mental state (which
included mentions of emotional well-being and general life satisfaction);
(2) the presence or absence of alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana problems;
(3) references to the transmission of “wisdom” and “knowledge” to young
people; (4) respect from others in the community; and (5) sociality (which
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135
includes one’s disposition towards others, connections with friends, and
desire or willingness to participate in community life). Each of these codes
included a positive and negative dimension. Some examples of responses
containing themes from each category are listed below:
Natural
JA, age 74, male1 : It’s no good. I don’t like to be inutquaq [an old man] all
right. It’s no fun. When it’s young it’s good. Must be everybody doesn’t
like that. I can’t go anywhere because of my eyes, my legs. Can’t go
anywhere. You know inutquaq long time ago, they got two sticks to walk
around, they go hunting seals. Must be a hard life you know. I used to
hear about it.
RK, age 32, female: Elders doing good are always keeping busy with their
life. I always see them in the community doing completely different
things. I see them in one place doing one thing and then an hour, two
hours later I see them somewhere else doing something else. I wonder
where they get the energy from.
DN, age 40, female: They [elders doing well] are physically fit. Physically
and emotionally they don’t let things get to them like we do. There
is one person I know who is quite old and they’re still hunting and
everything.
Domestic
JB, age 31, male: That you’ve raised a family [is a good thing about being
an elder]. I guess that’s the main thing, that you’ve raised a good family.
RO, age 48, female: The best thing about being elder is seeing grandchildren.
DP, age 30, male: Grandparents, I guess. I don’t think anybody likes getting
old, but they sure like their grandchildren, too.
Economic
JK, age 32, male: I’ve thought about it [having a good old age] a few times.
And I’m at that age where I have to rely more on my children. I know
I’m going to want my children to provide for me if I ask, but I shouldn’t
have to ask. They should know by now, or they should know that they’ve
got to stick by you and be with you and help you and provide for you.
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PETER COLLINGS
JK, age 34, male: It must be kind of tough for some people because they
can’t go out and hunt like they used to, and the community isn’t looking
after people the way that they should. Years ago the community used to
look after itself, but compared to then, people are becoming alienated
within their community, and people don’t look after old people the way
that they should. Like I know my family’s pretty close knit and we look
after each other, but it’s like we take care of our own and that’s good
enough. It’s kind of sad because of the society we live in, but that’s the
way it is.
BB, age 55, male: One of my elder friends, he’s older than me, a good friend
of mine. He used to say that when he gets a discount at the coffee shop
or something, he’d say, “it’s good to get old.” So you get some good
breaks, and you get your pension and benefits from the government and
IRC, and these are good.
PN, age 33, male: It [the best things about being an elder] must be when
they get food brought to them by the younger people because granny
likes it when we bring her food, country food. They must like that. She
likes it, anyway.
Attitudinal
DO, age 60, male: For them life is really easy. They feel lazy, they don’t feel
for to do anything. Even they could do anything, but they don’t feel like
they’d like to. Because they’re old. Not young anymore.
HE, age 83, male: The best thing I like about being inutquaq is just having
the friendship of the other elders of the same generation, the elders
around me now. What I enjoy most, too, is being able to talk to young
people, people younger than I who have a long life ahead of them, about
what life has to offer, what expectations they can have about life, what’s
good about life, how they can make that life good for themselves.
SP, age 35, female: [The best thing about being an elder] is that you have
knowledge and wisdom. They’re interesting in the amount of information they have about changes. They always seem to have an answer for
a question, or they always seem to know why something happened the
way it did, and they’re so calm about it.
MK, age 58, female: An elder doing poorly in life has emotional problems
because of things earlier in life. Sometimes when they are lonely, they
start aging.
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137
Figure 1. Componets of successful aging. Total number of coded mentions: Older (n = 14):
53; Younger (n = 24): 105.
LG: age 26, female: I think it [a poor old age] is the same for a lot of
elders here. It isn’t necessarily because they are old. A lot of it is
drinking alcohol. Who would want to go talk to somebody they just saw
staggering down the road?
In the case of a response that includes multiple themes, that response
receives two or more scores, one for each mention. That is, DN’s comment,
“They are physically fit. Physically and emotionally they don’t let things
get to them like we do. There is one person I know who is quite old and
they’re still hunting and everything,” received two separate scores, one for a
“mention” (following Keith et al. 1994) of attitude and one for a mention of
health.
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PETER COLLINGS
Figure 2. Componets of scuccessful aging. Total number of coded mentions: Men (n = 19):
83; Women (n = 19): 75.
Results and discussion
Components of successful and unsuccessful aging
Successful aging
The coded interviews were used to generate data presented in the figures
that follow. The data in the interviews have been organized into categories
of age and gender. The histograms themselves are based on percentages
of responses. Figure 1 displays the positive mentions of aging, sorted by
age. It appears that there is some degree of agreement between younger
and older people about what constitutes successful aging. That is, 25%
of older people’s responses and 23% of younger people’s total responses
about successful aging involved mentions of health and functionality. Older
people mentioned attitudinal themes 45% of the time, while younger people
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139
Figure 3. Components of unsuccessful aging. Total number of coded mentions: Older (n =
14): 41; Younger (n = 24): 71.
mentioned such themes 41% of the time. If ages are combined and respondents are sorted by gender, as in Figure 2, a different picture emerges, one
that shows some differences. Women, for example, mention domestic issues
as important components of successful aging 20% of the time, compared
to only 13% frequency of mention by men. Men mention economic issues
at more than twice the frequency of women (24% vs. 9%). The differences
between women and men are perhaps indications of a more “traditional” style
of thinking. Men in Holman are expected to be providers for themselves and
their families, and women are still expected to be focused more on domestic
life. In both figures, however, it is clear that the frequency of mentions of
attitudinal themes is very high in comparison with other categories included
here.
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PETER COLLINGS
Figure 4. Components of unsuccessful aging. Total number of coded mentions: Men (n = 19):
59; Women (n = 24): 53.
Unsuccessful aging
Figure 3 displays negative mentions of old age, or, more appropriately,
mentions of what makes for an unsuccessful old age. There are several issues
that emerge. For older people, what is bad about old age clearly relates to
issues of poor health. While young people also state this, the discrepancy is
more likely due to the fact that older people are experiencing their limitations
more directly. Other categories seem to be equal, although young people are
seemingly more focused on attitudes than they are on health. Figure 4 displays
negative mentions of old age by gender, with ages combined. Much greater
differences emerge between males and females. Men seem to be preoccupied
with natural issues such as health and functionality, which account for 54%
of male negative mentions of old age. Women, on the other hand, mention
domestic issues much more frequently than do men (30% vs. 5%, respectively), but they mention domestic issues at an equal rate with attitudinal and
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141
natural issues. That men are preoccupied with health issues should be no
surprise. The self-worth of men depends largely on their ability to perform
physical activity. That men otherwise ignore domestic concerns as involved in
a poor old age is also not surprising since men typically spend much of their
time isolated from domestic activity. Or, put another way, domestic issues,
such as having ungrateful children, for example, would have minimal impact
on their quality of life compared to the impact that poor health would.
To summarize briefly, the positive things about growing old, or what
constitutes a successful old age, have to do primarily with having a good
attitude, and, secondarily, with having good health. The negative aspects of
growing old, or what constitutes an unsuccessful old age, differ for men and
for women. Men report that those individuals who are aging poorly either
have poor health or cannot perform normal physical activities. Women report
that those who are aging poorly have some combination of poor health, poor
domestic arrangements, and poor attitudes. An important question is, “What
are attitudes, and what does it mean to have a good or a bad attitude in old
age?”
Inuit perceptions of health and disability in old age
I expected that Inuit would cite the importance of good physical health and
functionality as keys to aging well, yet these factors receive lesser mention
than do issues of attitudes. What the analyses seem to show is that having
good health per se is not a prerequisite for aging well. Part of this stems from
the belief that there is no such thing as good health in old age. Inuit perceive
health as something that declines continually in old age, a universal that must
be confronted by everyone. There are old people who are in good health in
their old age and are still very active in the community. These elders, however,
are regarded as being people who took good care of their bodies when they
were younger. They continue to take care of themselves both physically and
emotionally, and they have had a certain degree of luck in avoiding injuries
and other environmental insults during their lifetime. Indeed, it would be fair
to say that most men view their bodies the way they view their snowmobiles,
as machines that, no matter how much care is given them, will eventually
break down. Indeed, Gubser (1965: 217) states, “just before an old person
dies, I was told, his body is worn out like an old tool; his bones soften,
his blood becomes very weak and thin, and he just dies.” One elder Inuk
in Holman explained his current physical condition as follows:
JA, male, age 74: Inutquaq is no good. You can’t do anything. It’s getting
weak. You can’t work good. Everybody is like that when they get old.
Not like white people, you know, these Eskimos. I know one white
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people from the TV, 97 year old, he’s like a young man, walking and
running. I saw that last year, I guess.
PC: What about somebody like Albert? You said he’s inutquaq [an old man]
and he’s still walking around and doing lots of things like a young man.
JA: Some people is like that, you know some of them. All inutquaq is not
the same.
PC: How come?
JA: Must be a good body, and they eat good. Never get sick much.
PC: So you never eat good? Is that why your body wore out?
JA: I eat good all right. I’m working too hard, so I get inutquaq quick. Travel
too much. I know I like to travel lots when I’m young. Even when I’m
old all right. Used to go to Fish Lake [approximately 90 km] from here,
and when I get down there, some people never have breakfast yet.
For men especially, it is how one manages growing limitations rather
than what those limitations actually are. And, perhaps ironically, those who
continue to be active hunters in spite of their limitations are thought to delay
their aging. Those who “quit” or “slow down” are thought to do so not
because of physical limitations but because their mind has changed, and they
have become “lazy” and have lost a desire to live or participate in community
life. Slowing down, therefore, speeds up the aging process. One older hunter
declared that ceasing activity would cause the body to seize up, much like
a neglected snowmobile engine. A related comment from one younger Inuk
about his father suggests a similar belief among young people:
PC: Think of a person who is an elder, you don’t have to tell me their name,
but think of someone who is doing good for their age. What makes their
life good?
JK, male, age 34: They’re active. I know a couple of elders in town that don’t
need to go far to enjoy life. They still go out on their own, they don’t
have any limitations, or that’s what they think, and that’s what makes
them live longer, that’s their life, and if they stopped doing these things
they would grow older faster. Therefore their limitations become larger.
And I know there are elders that will do that and there’s elders that stay
at home and they don’t go anywhere, and in my opinion they’re growing
older much faster. And to give you an example of that, there’s my father.
He’s growing old so fast. He’s not as active as he used to be and gets
“IF YOU GOT EVERYTHING, IT’S GOOD ENOUGH”
143
tired a lot quicker. If he didn’t stop going on the land a lot he’d still be
really strong today, like Paul [JK’s father’s brother]. Paul is an excellent,
excellent example of how an elder should be. He’s very active, he can go
many, many miles, he’s lively, and he doesn’t let anything stand in his
way. He doesn’t let his age bother him. He still provides for his family,
and I think if an elder lived like that they could live a long elderly life.
He’s doing things every day, and he’s a little over 60 that bugger, or a
little older . . .
PC: Actually, he’s 77. He told me the other day.
JK: Yeah, and he’s still going. He’s still going 80 miles, 90 miles away, still
walks.
There persists a belief, especially among men, that aging can be staved
off by individual effort, and the physical decline of aging can be slowed or
even reversed by activity. Holman is rife with examples of old men who
continue to hunt and travel in spite of orders from physicians, nurses, and
family members. Old men return from surgery in Yellowknife, go home,
pack their sleds, and go hunting or fishing because the weather is favorable.
Certainly, old men resist attempts to limit their activity, even those who are
barely mobile, as the following implies:
PC: Can you slow it down? Can someone avoid becoming old for a long
time?
SP, female, age 35: There’s some elders that are about 80 or late 80’s that
don’t want to slow down, going out on the land, or going dancing, like
take my grandfather Isaac, for instance [Isaac is 83 and needs a walker
to be mobile]. He still wants to go out. He doesn’t want to slow down
and stay home. And we worry about him when he goes out on the Honda
and doesn’t come back when he says he’s going to come back at a certain
time. And we say that he ought to be more careful. And he gives us heck
when we worry about it, saying that he knows how to get home.
The older men are especially hard on themselves and each other when they
begin to show signs of weakness. Consider the following:
PC: What is the worst thing about being inirnikhaq (middle aged, or young
elder)?
DO, male, age 60: Nothing. Two to three years ago was my worst things.
Really, really worse, really bad. Can’t even lift five gallons of gas, can’t
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PETER COLLINGS
even lift it up, not even to my ski-doo. I had to tie rope to move cans to
my ski-doo. Because of arthritis. For three months I sit like that. Right
there [hitting the sofa]. I eat, eat, eat. Never go anywhere. Really bad
arthritis. My wife start telling me “you should get up and walk around,
go somewhere. You’re not sick.” She had arthritis once and fight it and
get better. I said “nah. I don’t feel like it. My sinews are sore.” TS [a
friend of DO], he came, and he ask me, “Donald, you like hunting?”
“Yes,” I said “yes, I like hunting.” TS said, “if you like hunting, you
should walk around for awhile. Walk really far. If you sit like that you
aren’t going to shoot anymore.” So I go out and walk up the bluff three
times a day. I walk all around. Every day I exercise for a half hour.
Half an hour is a really long time to exercise. I get hot and really sweat.
Time goes so slow. That’s how I can carry two jerry cans now. My life
has come back to normal. That’s why some people are sitting around.
They can’t go anywhere anymore. Maybe if WB listen to the doctor he
could have a good life right now [WB, 68, is confined to a wheelchair
and cannot walk]. Boy, half hour is a really long time. I don’t exercise
now. My life is back to normal. I got no more sore sinews, that’s why [I
don’t exercise anymore]. I get so much arthritis one time. I can’t even
lift my cup. Can’t even use the axe. Now I can do anything. I could
push my boat by myself. I can put my Honda in the boat by myself.
I feel really good. Three years ago my life was really worse. I never
forget.
DO clearly has the notion that his own activity prevented his problems
from worsening and even cured them, much as his wife had successfully
fought the same problem. Furthermore, he blames the physical problems
of others on their own inactivity, referencing WB, who is confined to a
wheelchair and has been unable to walk for five years. Embedded in this
statement is the social and political rivalry between two kin groups that has
been generated over the long lives of these two individuals, but it is clear
that DO is attributing his own and others’ physical disability to individual
motivation.
For women, on the other hand, physical decline is recognized as a reality
of aging, but the consequences are not nearly as dramatic. Few women travel
on the land anymore. Women who do travel do so only infrequently, generally
making short trips in the spring to fish or making short trips to campsites
for duck hunting in spring. A few make much longer journeys with their
husbands to hunt caribou in the summer and fall months. Nevertheless, even
though women are generally insulated from the consequences of deteriorating health on their physical activity by virtue of the roles they are expected
to assume, they share similar beliefs that men do about resisting aging by
“IF YOU GOT EVERYTHING, IT’S GOOD ENOUGH”
145
sheer force of will. When discussing older people who are still active in
community life, women will typically refer to them as people who are “not
letting themselves slow down.”
The views Inuit hold about managing declining health in old age are
in general agreement with Sharp’s (1981) description of Chipewyan attitudes about age. Chipewyan men, according to Sharp, also go to tremendous
lengths to remain active and therefore delay decrepitude, and they view
“retirement” from hunting as an end to their life as a “complete adult.”
Women, on the other hand, are less affected by their declining health.
The activities they commonly perform – child care, sewing and handicrafts
production, and food processing and preparation – are often cooperative
efforts. Physical limitations do not preclude assuming other roles in supervising or instructing others. These types of cooperative activities are clearly
not possible in the bush-oriented life of men, which depends upon physical
and often solitary activity.
The meaning of attitudes and aging
I raised the question earlier, “What are attitudes, and what does it mean
to have a good or a bad attitude in old age?” I noted that mentions categorized as attitudinal included a number of different subthemes. These
included mentions of an individual’s mental state, alcohol and drug use,
respect, wisdom, and sociality. Mentions coded as indicative of one’s mental
state included comments about emotional stress, which included commonly
used phrases such as “worrying,” “relaxing,” loneliness, and life satisfaction.
Mentions coded as alcohol included references to alcohol, drug, or tobacco
use as problematic in one’s life. Mentions of respect include mentions of the
degree to which others are willing to seek one out for advice and then follow
it. Mentions of wisdom refer to the possession of knowledge and the ability
and willingness to transmit that knowledge to younger people. Mentions of
sociality include referrals to one’s involvement in community life, disposition
toward others, willingness to help other people, and generosity.
The role of positive attitudes in old age
Figures 5 and 6 display the positive mentions of attitudinal components in
old age. As was the case with the data presented earlier, the differences
between older and younger people, shown in Figure 5, are not as great as
the differences between men and women (Figure 6). For both younger and
older people, mentions of mental state and mentions of wisdom predominate.
In these figures, mentions of one’s mental state refer to the ability of the
individual to remain emotionally stable over time. That is, one who is satisfied
with his or her life, who takes care of him or herself emotionally, and who
146
PETER COLLINGS
Figure 5. Attitudinal components of successful aging. Total number of coded mentions: Older
(n = 14): 24; Younger (n = 24): 43.
“takes it easy” or “doesn’t worry” has a good life. Indeed, “taking it easy” and
“not worrying” were frequently mentioned and highlight the importance of
remaining on an emotional even keel and dismissing events and possibilities
over which one has little or no control. Figure 6 shows that this issue is of
particular importance to men. For men, the ability to control one’s worries
about family, material needs, money, and subsistence is an important factor in
aging well. For women, on the other hand, wisdom is a much more important
component of successful aging. In this case, positive mentions of wisdom
refer specifically to both the individual’s function as a repository of cultural
knowledge and his or her involvement in community life by interacting
with younger people and talking to them, teaching them about “traditional”
cultural values. Why would “wisdom” be more important to women? A likely
explanation is that women have more opportunities to interact with each other
than do men. Women maintain diverse social ties through organized sewing
nights, which, during 1997, met three nights a week: one evening organized
“IF YOU GOT EVERYTHING, IT’S GOOD ENOUGH”
147
Figure 6. Attitudinal components of successful aging. Total number of coded mentions: Men
(n = 19): 33; Women (n = 19): 34.
for girls, one night for adults, (both supported financially by Hamlet) and one
night for the Anglican Ladies Auxiliary. Each of these events is organized
by elder women, who spend much of their time engaging younger women,
instructing them in sewing skills. Women also interact more frequently, especially with their siblings and parents, in everyday domestic settings, and it
is young women who are more likely to be regular visitors in their parents’
household. In contrast, older men are more isolated. Their physical decline
bears more heavily on their self worth and their ability to engage in more
masculine, and physically challenging, activities.
The role of negative attitudes in old age
Figures 7 and 8 break down attitudinal themes by negative mentions and
show that while wisdom is an important component of aging well, a lack of
wisdom, or lack of engagement, is not even mentioned as part of aging poorly.
Rather, problems with alcohol receive quite a bit of attention here, particularly
among young people. Mental state and sociality, or disposition toward others,
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PETER COLLINGS
Figure 7. Attitudinal components of unsuccessful aging. Total number of coded mentions:
Older (n = 14): 15; Younger (n = 24): 24.
receive more attention from older people. For young people, the preoccupation with alcohol problems is, I think, partly a reflection of issues in their
own lives rather than issues in the lives of older people. Older people, for
their part, are saying that a person not doing well in old age is difficult to get
along with, stingy, and generally unpleasant. A person in a poor mental state
is one who worries too much, who is not emotionally stable, and is generally
not satisfied with the choices made during life. Figure 8 shows some differences between men and women. Unlike Figure 6, which showed that men
viewed mental state as an important component of successful aging, Figure 8
shows that women more frequently mention having a poor mental state as a
component of unsuccessful aging. In this case, the comments women made
were generally not about stress or life satisfaction but about loneliness, which
corresponds with other concerns women have about domestic issues in old
age. Men, for their part, mentioned sociality more frequently, but men’s
mentions of sociality issues centered around an individual’s disposition in
“IF YOU GOT EVERYTHING, IT’S GOOD ENOUGH”
149
Figure 8. Attitudinal components of unsuccessful aging. Total number of coded mentions:
Men (n = 19): 22; Women (n = 19): 17.
terms of generosity and willingness to help others. These attitudes correspond
to economic issues, particularly issues of sharing food and lending equipment
to others.
Wisdom and cultural transmission in the contemporary community
There appear to be few major differences between younger and older people
in terms of how aging, particularly successful aging, is perceived. However,
understanding the current reality of aging requires understanding how cultural
changes have affected the ways in which people conceive of aging and what
issues may affect the elderly in the future. One frequently cited component
of aging well was the “wisdom” possessed by an elder, which frequently
referred to an elder’s ability to communicate with younger people. Indeed,
part of the determination as to whether an elder is recognized as particularly
knowledgeable necessarily involves his or her ability to communicate with
younger people. Indeed, having older people “talking” to younger people was
universally recognized as one of the primary experiences of the current cohort
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PETER COLLINGS
of elders, who reported that the ability to become a responsible adult was
partly due to having this input from their own elders. This intergenerational
communication is not limited to Holman; rather, it appears to be a feature of
all Inuit societies. Guemple (1972), for example, cites the special relationship forged between a man and his grandson, perhaps the most important
relationship in each of the participant’s lives, which served both as a vehicle
for assisting an older hunter and instructing a younger one. In the modern
community, attempts are made on a broader scale to incorporate elders into
the educational sphere in just such a manner. The school has actively incorporated elders into its curriculum, and the Hamlet sponsors youth camps on
the land during the summer, the activities of which are directed entirely by
elders.
In spite of this institutional effort, however, this form of cultural transmission is in danger of becoming forever damaged. Many of the elders
interviewed for this study, especially those whose command of English was
rather weak, indicated that they could no longer converse with their grandchildren because their grandchildren had no knowledge of Inuinaqtun. In addition
to the language barrier, the elders’ style of knowledge transmission can be
somewhat difficult to understand. Elders, when asked a question, typically
do not respond with simple answers. They prefer instead to use stories from
personal experience to answer questions or to educate others, as investigators
of oral tradition and traditional knowledge systems have repeatedly pointed
out (see Cruikshank 1981; Morrow 1995, as examples). Often, such stories
appear at first to be entirely unrelated to the question at hand but, as they
progress, an attentive listener will discover the meaning within the lengthy
narrative. Indeed, most of the interview questions with older people were
answered in this manner. It is entirely possible that young people raised and
educated in a southern based school system and heavily exposed to southern
styles of discourse would find this style of teaching difficult to understand, if
not outright mystifying.
The significant language barrier alone is enough to disrupt the cultural
communication between grandparents and grandchildren, but a further
complicating factor is the nature of residence patterns in Holman today.
Nearly all elders reside independently of their adult children, some in the
“old folks home,” a building containing four apartments designated for single
elderly because of its central location in the settlement, or in other public
units in town. Consequently, the casual interaction between young and old
afforded by virtue of living in the same house is lost, and interaction occurs
by determined effort. This loss is coupled with the decline in social visitation
in the community, best exemplified by the following interview excerpt:
MS: What is it like for children growing up in Holman today?
“IF YOU GOT EVERYTHING, IT’S GOOD ENOUGH”
151
JE, age 36, female: They get away with too much, more spoiled than when
I was a kid. They don’t seem to appreciate the outside world. We were
always playing out. It didn’t matter what kind of weather it was. We
were out there. We used to always visit aunties and uncles. They don’t
seem to do that any more.
MS: Why do you think that is?
JE: (giggling) Because adults don’t do it any more either. We also didn’t
have TV and telephone when we were kids. If my parents wanted to
know how some one was doing, they stopped by to see. Now you just call
them up and say, ‘How are you doing?’ and then you hang up. Even a few
years ago I would go visit relatives, but then it was kind of, well, funny,
because they never come over here to visit me. So I stopped visiting
them. The only people I visit now is my mom and my sister.
The barriers then, between communication from elders to young people
are linguistic and physical, but the situation is not entirely hopeless. The
recent popularity of drum dancing, for example, has been a positive influence
in the community, as it provides a forum in which people of all ages interact
on a regular basis. Granted, much of an evening of drum dancing is spent
dancing and singing, but meaningful interaction beyond dancing does occur.
Sewing nights provide ample opportunities for interaction between younger
and older women, and much more than instruction in how to prepare caribou
skins for kamik (skin boots) construction occurs during these nights. It does
seem, however, that while women have opportunities to transmit knowledge
to younger people, men are much more limited.
Conclusions
At the outset of this paper, I suggested that cultural changes to Inuit society
over the past several decades might be expected to lead to different perceptions by younger and older Inuit of what constitutes a successful or unsuccessful old age. For Inuit in Holman, there appear to be no major differences
in the ways younger and older people think about aging. Rather, the differences that emerged are between men’s and women’s perceptions of old age. In
general, having a successful old age is largely dependent upon an individual’s
attitudes during late life, particularly regarding his or her willingness to act as
an advisor and transmitter of wisdom and knowledge (or ihuma, the Inuktitut
term for these concepts – see Briggs 1970: 358–363; Gubser 1965: 211–213
for discussions) that he or she has developed over the course of his or her
life. While health issues (labeled “natural” issues here) are important in late
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PETER COLLINGS
life, Inuit seem to perceive old age as characterized by declining health and
functionality, a reality that all Inuit must address. For men, those who are
doing particularly well in their old age are not those who have good health,
for there appears to be no such thing, but rather those who have managed
their declining health better than others and have refused to “quit” in the
face of increasing limitations. For women, health issues are of lesser importance, and attitudinal (such as the transmission of knowledge) and domestic
arrangements seem to be more important.
Nevertheless, Inuit do not seem to believe that there is such a thing as
a truly “good” old age. For Inuit, one of the definitions of being truly old
involves a loss of functioning and a withdrawal from community life, both of
which are regarded here as part of an unsuccessful age. Or, as one Inuk has
concluded when asked about the quality of a life for an old person:
Like I’m not really a good life right now you know because I can’t run.
No more best times, but I never worry about best times anymore, because
my life is heavy. It’s not young anymore. One of my friends from Tuk
[Tuktoyuktuk, another Western Arctic community], I saw him last fall.
He’s just like me. He told me he got no more best times because he is
not lively anymore. But it’s a good life, though. If you got everything, it’s
good enough (DO, male, age 60).
Acknowledgments
This research was made possible by a grant from the National Science
Foundation, Office of Polar Programs (grant # OPP 9618271) and graduate
research fellowship from the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C. Their
support for this project is greatly appreciated. I would also like to thank all the
members of the community of Holman, especially those who submitted to my
silly and sometimes mystifying questioning. Although I cannot mention you
by name, you know who you are, and I thank you for your time and patience.
Additional thanks are extended to Patricia Draper, Patricia Johnson, and two
anonymous reviewers for providing useful comments on earlier versions of
this manuscript.
An earlier version of this paper was the recipient of the 2000 Arctic
Research Consortium on the United States Award for Arctic Research
Excellence.
“IF YOU GOT EVERYTHING, IT’S GOOD ENOUGH”
153
Note
1. Following standard ethnographic practice, the identities of individuals have been withheld to protect their anonymity. Throughout this paper, identities have been obscured by
changing names (and initials) and ages of individuals to prevent those with a knowledge
of the community from identifying informants. In several cases, personal circumstances
that might also provide clues to identification have also been altered where necessary.
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