Toronto, Canada;
1965

No man can embrace True Art
Until he has Explor'd and cast out False Art.
...................................................- Blake

Contrary to much that has been written, stone carvings made by modern Canadian Eskimos do not constitute an indigenous art newly discovered but ancient in origin. These carvings came into being after 1949, as the direct result of the teachings & promotions of James Houston, an artist representing first the Canadian Handicraft Guild & later the Canadian government. The carvings share little with traditional Eskimo art or even with Alaskan or Greenlandic souvenirs, though they do show marked resemblances to Houston's own art work. Full credit goes to him, not for liberating a repressed talent, but for creating a new, delightful art that brings financial assistance to needy Eskimos & joy to many Western art connoisseurs.

Most of these carvings are massive, heavy & fragile, designed to be set in place & viewed by strangers. The traditional role of art is gone: object has replaced art. Traditional perspective is gone: stability & single perspective have replaced mobility & multiple perspective. Traditional notions of discovery & revealing are gone: asked by the Queen how he decided what to carve, an Eskimo replied that he consulted Mr. Houston because he had no desire to produce anything unsalable.

That Eskimos could move into a new art form with ease & success is significant: clearly old resources combined with new notions of individualism. That the government should promote this art is understandable: such publicity increased Eskimo income, helped certain government agencies & policies, and appealed to Canadian nationalism.

What is less commendable is the acceptance of this propaganda as reliable and this art as "Eskimo." To link art with souvenirs seems equally misplaced. "It's the power of belief," writes Froelich Rainey, "which makes all the difference between original native art and contemporary native crafts."

Can the word Eskimo legitimately be applied to this modern stone art? I think not. Its roots are Western; so is its audience. Some carvers have been directly trained by Houston; others follow a governmental manual. Carvings are produced by Eskimos working at craft centers in the north and by tubercular Eskimos in southern sanatoriums. Not a few are made by Chinese in Hong Kong, a competition that led the Canadian government to put labels of "authenticity" on Eskimo-made carvings. The following news item shows how complicated even this became:

OTTAWA: Jack Shafter, vice-president of Regal Toy Co., today accused the Department of Northern Affairs of "wheeling and dealing" in making private arrangements for commercial production of Ookpik, the fuzzy, saucer-eyed version of the Arctic owl. Designed by an Eskimo woman in Fort Chimo, N.W.T., and made of sealskin, Ookpik was promoted by the Government at trade fairs. When orders out-stripped Eskimo production, Northern Affairs granted rights to the Reliable Toy Co. to manufacture Ookpiks of white plush synthetic fabric to sell at about $2.98. Another version, made of imported possum pelts, sells at around $7. Ookpik has been registered with the trademark division and unauthorized copies are illegal. Lawrence Samuels, vice-president of Reliable, said: "We've been told bluntly to keep our mouths shut about this thing. Any public relations or publicity will have to come from Northern Affairs."

In addition to carving stone, Eskimos were trained to make totem poles, pottery & prints, though all were alien to Eskimo culture. Production of totem poles was abandoned and pots sold poorly, but prints proved enormously popular. They combined Siberian designs with techniques learned directly from Japanese printmakers. By error, Siberian designs were included in a booklet on Canadian native designs and Eskimos were given this booklet for reference. Many Eskimo prints displayed in art museums & printed on Christmas cards owe their forms to this error.

That Eskimo artists have the desire & confidence to improvise is a happy situation. I regret, however, that the new ideas & materials they employ are supplied by us, not selected by them. We let the Eskimos know what we like, then congratulate them on their successful imitations of us.

What shall we call this new art? Eskimo? If so, what does that word mean?

In the United States, many of the plastic Christian art objects are produced by Jews: plastic Jesuses for dashboards; grains of sand from the Red Sea embedded in plastic cubes with the caption: "He trod on this"; even a plastic do-it-yourself crucifixion kit. The fact that Jews make these doesn't mean they are Jewish art. They remain Christian art - made for, used by & believed in solely by Christians.

Eskimo art is made for, used by & believed in solely by Westerners - that is, until recently. Now it also serves to give identity to the Eskimo themselves. Having deprived the Eskimo of his heritage, even memory of this heritage, we offer him a substitute which he eagerly accepts, for no other is permitted. And so he takes his place on stage, side by side with the American Indian whose headdress comes from a mail-order catalogue, who learned his dances at Disneyland & picked up his philosophy from hippies. He knows no other identity, and when he is shown the real treasures of his culture, when he hears the old songs & reads the ancient words, he aggressively says, "It's a lie, a white man's lie. Don't tell me who I am or who my ancestors were. I know."