Inuksuit: Silent Messengers of the Arctic [Hardcover]

Norman Hallendy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 2000

The mysterious stone figures known as inuksuit can be found throughout the circumpolar world. Built from whatever stones are at hand, each one is unique. Inuksuit are among the oldest and most important objects placed by humans upon the vast Arctic landscape and have become a familiar symbol of the Inuit and of their homeland.

In Norman Hallendy's 40 years of travel throughout the Arctic, he has developed lasting friendships with a number of Inuit elders. Through them, he learned that inuksuit are a nuanced, complex, and vital form of communication. Some are navigational or directional aids, while others offer hunting information or indicate caches of food or supplies. Some were practical helpers that assisted in hunting caribou or luring geese. Other similar stone structures were objects of veneration, indicating places of power or the abode of spirits.

Although most inuksuit appear singly, sometimes they are arranged in sequences spanning great distances or are grouped to mark a specific place. Others define the ghostly geography of the spiritual landscape.

Hallendy's 52 dramatic color photographs of many different kinds of inuksuit and objects of veneration capture not only a sense of wonder and power but reveal a hauntingly beautiful landscape that few of us will ever see.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Anyone who has been to Canada lately may have seen them on T-shirts and cap visors: the obviously human-made rock constructions called inuksuit by their creators. In word and picture, Hallendy puts them into their context, the vast open land of the arctic, where they mark places both mundane and sacred, good fishing sites and doors to the otherworld. He introduces the various categories of them, from elementary directional "deconfusers" to windows framing significant places. But he offers more than a taxonomy of arctic stones and a collection of stirring and evocative photographs of them in situ. He furnishes a doorway to the spiritual and cultural realities of the builders of the inuksuit, whose name means simply "the people." These Inuit have been Hallendy's teachers for almost 40 years, and he has been their respectful, curious student. His descriptions of their land and his renderings of their teachings are simply and starkly poetic. In one of the most moving passages, one of Hallendy's teachers, Osuitok, offers some spiritual grist: "Our minds move from thought to thought, hardly stopping to turn one over to see what the underside looks like." To the Inuit, their standing stones are a way of focusing and "deconfusing" the mind, so that the underside of the world may become tangible. Patricia Monaghan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Hardcover: 127 pages
• Publisher: Univ of Washington Pr; First Edition edition (August 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0295979836
• ISBN-13: 978-0295979830
• Product Dimensions: 10.6 x 9.6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #928,798 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Travels in the spiritual landscape of the Inuit, November 1, 2000

By 

Lynne D. Fitzhugh (Washington, DC United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Inuksuit: Silent Messengers of the Arctic (Hardcover)

Don't be misled into thinking this is a coffee-table book because it has so many stunning photographs! This is one of the most illuminating voyages into the spiritual landscape of the Inuit that I have ever come across. Through his friendships with Inuit elders born before their people had any sustained contact with Europeans, Mr. Hallendy obtained information about the uses and meanings of inuksuit rarely if ever shared with whites and nearly forgotten even by the elders of today. His extraordinary and inevitably personal interpretation of the words and phrases they used to "explain" these monuments evoke reflection on some of the larger and more universal aspects of religion and art--because another thing evident in this book is that these megaliths are an as yet under-appreciated form of three-dimensional Inuit art. They are sculpture at its most powerful, and Mr. Hallendy's photographs not only provide us with a chance to see these virtually inaccessible masterpieces, but fully capture the spiritual power emanating from them.