Call Me Angakkuq: Captain George Comer and the Inuit of Qatiktalik

• Published in: Études Inuit Studies
• Main Author: Driscoll Engelstad, Bernadette
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Centre interuniversitaire d’études et de recherches autochtones (CIÉRA) 2018
• Subjects: Inuit social history; Arctic whaling; Hudson Bay; facial casts; Nunavut; Histoire sociale des Inuit; chasse à la baleine dans l’Arctique; baie d’Hudson; moulages faciaux; archeo; museo; Arctic; Baleine; Cape Fullerton; Hudson; la Baleine; Études/Inuit/Studies; inuit
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.7202/1064496ar; http://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1064496ar

Through many years of dedicated fieldwork in the Canadian Arctic, Captain George Comer laid a solid foundation for the future of museum anthropology. With the support of Franz Boas, Captain Comer—a New England whaling master with little formal schooling—assembled an extensive collection of Inuit ethnographic and archaeological artifacts, photographs, sound recordings, and natural history specimens for the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, as well as major museums in Berlin, Ottawa, and Philadelphia. This article examines a remarkable segment of that collection, the production of Inuit facial casts—portraits of over two hundred men, women, and children—created by Comer at Qatiktalik (Cape Fullerton), a whaling site on the west coast of Hudson Bay. In tandem with photographs taken by Comer, Geraldine Moodie, and others at the time, these facial casts comprise a vital chapter of Inuit social history, preserving the memory of individuals and families who lived, worked, and traded at Qatiktalik. Accompanied by detailed biographical documentation prepared by Captain Comer, this extraordinary collection acknowledges the significance of personhood, a key concept in modern anthropological theory, and provides meaningful insight into the early social, cultural, and political history of Nunavut in the Canadian Arctic. Après de nombreuses années sur le terrain dans l’Arctique canadien, le capitaine George Comer a jeté des bases solides pour l’avenir de l’anthropologie muséale. Avec le soutien de Franz Boas, le capitaine Comer – un maître baleinier de la Nouvelle-Angleterre peu scolarisé – a rassemblé une vaste collection d’artefacts ethnographiques et archéologiques inuit, de photographies, d’enregistrements sonores et de spécimens d’histoire naturelle pour le compte du musée américain d’histoire naturelle de New York, ainsi que pour les grands musées de Berlin, Ottawa et Philadelphie. Cet article examine une section remarquable de cette collection, la production de moulages faciaux inuit – portraits de ...