Far and Away: Reporting from the Brink of Change

Although these terms are now used primarily historically, they still evoke some of the conflicts of Inuit life. In Uummannaq, according to René Birger Christiansen, head of public health for Greenland, a spate of complaints recently came from people who believed they had water under their skin. The French explorer Jean Malaurie wrote in the 1950s, “There is an often dramatic contradiction between the Eskimo’s basically individualistic temperament and his conscious belief that solitude is synonymous with unhappiness. Abandoned by his fellowmen, he is overcome by the depression that always lies in wait for him. Is the communal life too much to bear? A network of obligations link one person to another and make a voluntary prisoner of the Eskimo.”

The women elders of Ilimanaq had each borne her pain in silence for a long time. Johansen said, “At first, I tried to tell other women how I felt, but they just ignored me. They did not want to talk about bad things. And they did not know how to have such a conversation; they had never heard anyone talk about her problems. Until my brother died, I was proud also not to be a cloud in the sky for other people. But after this shock of his suicide, I had to talk. People did not like it. In our way, it is rude to say to someone, even a friend, ‘I am sorry for your troubles.’ ” She described her husband as a “man of silence” with whom she negotiated a way to weep while he listened, without either of them having to use the words that were so alien to him.

These three women were drawn to one another’s difficulties, and after many years they spoke to one another about shared feelings of anguish. Joelson had gone to the hospital in Ilulissat for training in midwifery and had learned there about talking therapies. She found comfort in her conversation with these other two women, and she proposed an idea to them. It was a new idea for that society. In church one Sunday, Lange announced that they had formed a group and wanted to invite anyone who wished to talk about problems to come and see them, individually or together. She proposed that they use the consulting room at Joelson’s place and promised that such meetings would remain confidential. She said, “None of us needs to be alone.”

In the following year, all the women of the village, one at a time, each unaware of how many others had taken up the proposition, came to see them. Women who had never told their husbands or their children what was in their hearts wept in the midwife’s delivery room. And so this new tradition began, of openness. A few men came, though their ideal of toughness kept many away, at least at the beginning. I spent long hours in the houses of each of these three women. Amelia Lange said it had been a great insight for her to see how people were “released” after talking to her. Karen Johansen invited me in with her family, gave me a bowl of fresh whale soup, which she had said was often the best answer to one’s problems, and told me that for her, the real cure for sadness was to hear of the sadness of others. “I am not doing this only for the people who speak to me,” she said, “but also for myself.” In their homes, the people of Ilimanaq do not talk about one another. But they go to their three elders and draw strength from them. “I know that I have prevented many suicides,” Johansen said.

Confidentiality was of the utmost importance; a small settlement has too many hierarchies that cannot be disrupted without making problems far greater than the problem of silence. “I see the people outside who have told me their problems, and I never bring up those problems or ask in a different way about someone’s health,” Joelson said. “Only if, when I say politely, ‘How are you?’ they begin to cry, then I will bring them back with me to the house.”