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Stone Carving
The Inuit have a long, upstanding tradition hidden within the art of their stone carving. The carvings of the Inuit have been displayed and imitated all around the world, serving to keep the art of the Inuit alive and to remind all who see it that the Aboriginal people are as fervent about their culture, their history and their lifestyle as they’ve ever been.Stone carving didn’t start out as an art form.
Rather, the Inuit used walrus tusks, soapstone (for which they are most known), granite, marble, Caribou antler and whale bone to create the tools they needed to survive and the religious carvings that served to ward off evil and share their history and their beliefs.
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As the Inuit were nomadic when their civilization first began it was essential that these figures be able to be packed up and moved easily. Once their people gave up this way of life in favor of settling down the size and scope of their artwork began to increase, creating the elaborate carvings that we see today.
The work of the Inuit people serves three purposes. They often focused their work upon the manifestation of the spirit world and the transformation of man to spirit. A deeply religious people, the tribes of the Inuit used their artwork to bring to lie the threads that connect the spirit world and the animal world (which were often believed to be one and the same) to the human world.
In the work of the Inuit viewers will see their religion, the gods they worshiped and the deep felt belief that inside every human is a soul that can be transformed.
Secondly, the stone carving of these arctic people brought to vivid life the tightly knit relationship within a family.
Many of their figurines represent a woman with child, much in the way that the Madonna and child are illustrated by the Catholic church. The people of the Inuit believed very strongly in the importance of family, continuing to maintain a close relationship even after the child had grown and begun a child of their own.
Finally, and in keeping with the belief that the human world and the spirit world are closely tied together, many pieces of Inuit soap carving represent the connections to be found between the various factions of their lives: mother and child, hunter and hunted. The manifestation of these connections allow those that are not closely acquainted with the Inuit way of life to look through their eyes and see the world as they see it-a place of peace and harmony, where one works with many for the good of all.
Despite the fact that aboriginals are sometimes assumed to be lacking in skill and culture,the exquisite, classic beauty of their stone carvings would suggest otherwise.
These exquisite pieces (and the skills needed to create them) were passed down from generation to generation, along with the beliefs and mores that have kept their civilization alive.
