How The Stereotypes In The Diary Of Abraham Ulrikah

View of the Inuit from the Outside “The Diary of Abraham Ulrikah: Text and Contest” by the University of Ottawa Press is a primary source book of Abraham Ulrikah’s diary that records his experience in the human zoos his family and himself stayed in, as well as providing letters and newspaper articles with perceptions of Europeans and missionaries. The firsthand and outside perspectives shine light on how Europeans viewed foreign humans, the stereotypes they give them and how the Inuit families were very molded around those stereotypes. News articles like to shroud the Inuit families in mystery, like a new exotic animal that has never been exhibited before. The writer wanted to draw in readers with sense of wonder and curiosity, of these humans
that were so unlike white Europeans. “But what are these curious, small and stunted human figures from the forbidding North presenting? Well undoubtedly the first thing they have to offer is that which intrigues us “middling sons of this earth” (daughters included, of course) the most- namely themselves.” . Like animals in a zoo, they have nothing but themselves to entertain the public with, their physical stature and features a selling point to peaking the curiosity of Europeans and to convince them to come see the mysterious people from the north. The ‘Eskimos’, as the Europeans refer to them as, have distinct characteristics and features that are different from other races of the world. One newspaper article, detailing about the new inhabitants of the zoological garden goes into great depth about those characteristics, mentioning their physique, skin colour, stature and facial features among other things which they compare with the earlier Eskimos they had from Greenland. All of them have a short, stocky physique and, even if they are not of the same dwarfish size as their namesakes from Greenland, they still do rarely reach the medium size. Because their clothes made of seal-furs they seem to be even stockier and plumper than they really are. In addition, when we imagine the head, growing quite thick, long and straggly black hair, the leathery yellow complexion, the slanted deep-set eyes and the big mouth we will get a picture bringing together ugliness, good nature, and comic aspects in the most pleasant way.
The Inuit’s ugliness is referred to numerous times in this very article as well, even with Abraham being Christian and the most intelligent of the Inuit brought over, his looks are still mentioned. When his looks are compared to the rest of the group he arrived with, he is said to be least ugly of them all. The scale to which his family and himself are measured on seems to be that of ugliness is the standard. “Abraham is 35 years old; he is the most intelligent of all of them, even if not at all the most beautiful or, to be more precise, the least ugly one of the group.” Paieng, the wife of Tigganick, is even mentioned to be the “complete model of female ugliness.” Further perpetuating how the Eskimos are lower than the Europeans in their looks. The strange clothing that the Inuit wear, especially their seal fur coats and dresses the women wear, viewed as very peculiar as cited by the Frankurter Nachrichen newspaper. “The latter, the comic aspects, especially, become obvious with the women because of their peculiar clothing.” Their fashion choice viewed as humorous, even when the weather gets colder and the women put on more layers of their seal-tailed dresses it is said to make them look funnier. “These women’s seal-tails appear even funnier when it is cold and a second, third, even forth layer of them is put on.” Their clothing of choice a humorous spectacle for the mass audience who came to see them. Abraham’s family, whom were the Christianized Inuits felt ashamed to be wearing what the newspaper calls the “national costume” and prefer to wear more European clothes.
“By the way, this whole “national costume” does, at least in the family converted to Christianity, disappear very quickly, and the women at the mission are even already ashamed of it and particularly like to follow European fashion and to wear wool skirts.” To fit into their stereotype, Abraham and his family had to be persuaded to wear what the Europeans considered more traditional clothing, such as their seal furs and dresses. “Only with much trouble could the members of Abraham’s family be persuaded to return to their forefathers’ custom during their stay in Europe.” However, despite listening to orders to wear their more traditional clothing, the family still sport their European clothing choices which can be seen peeking out of the seal furs the men wear. Sara, the four-year-old daughter, also preferring to wear her crocheted wool hood. “But this did not happen unconditionally either, because we can see European vests and shirts peeking out from under the seal furs the men wear, while four-year-old Sara protects her head with a crocheted wool hood, although even she already possesses beavertail and
hood.” The second family, consisting of Tigganick and his family, are deemed to be more interesting than the Christianized family, as they have yet to be tainted by the modern world and are closer to the more stereotypical nature of how Eskimos are thought to be.
“The family is more interesting than the one named first, in so far as culture has not smudged too much of their naturalness.” Tigganick’s family is said represent the natural survival instinct that guides the Eskimos’ lives, they only seek to hunt, have food to fill their stomachs and to fill their lamps with fish oil. They know no other purpose than to survive in their rough conditions. “The survival instinct controls their whole life, they do not know any other task than to supply their stomach with fat and their lamp with fish oil, as task which under the prevailing circumstances, certainly seems big enough to fill a whole human
life.” There also is the stereotype that the Inuit are a rapidly dying race. The population of the Inuit in Labrador is low, only 1100 populate the missionary stations in Herrnhuter and in the more remote areas, such as where Tigganick resided, there are only about 40 people. According to one of the articles in the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung-Berlin one could almost predict the exact year when all the Inuits in Labrador would be an extinct species. Since their population is so low in numbers the Europeans view the Eskimos as an endangered species that will eventually go extinct in the near future, in spite of the Inuit people thriving before European interference. The Europeans in the 1880’s had an expectation and set stereotypes of what an Eskimo was which Abraham and his companions were no exception to. Even with Abraham and his family being more civilized and educated, they were expected to step their stereotypical character and be fully immersed in it. The Inuit were synonymous for their homogeneous physical features, their ugliness a main feature about them, despite some of the members of the race being more educated, they are still viewed under the same low lens.