Researching Inuit Elements
Dec. 20th, 2017 03:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shantellAs my idea evolved, I decided to look into Inuit mythology for further inspiration. I've long been interested in folklore, mythology, and story-telling in general. It's a huge reason why I double-majored in English and Classics: for the stories! A few years ago, I wrote a play based upon Inuit mythology, and while researching for it, I realized a few the stories were strangely familiar. The more I read, the more I realized I'd known some of those tales since I was a small child. My father had told me some of them, but my recollection had grown fuzzy over the decades.
As I read through the stories and through folklorist's interpretations, I winnowed my stories down to four. Because of prior brainstorming, I wanted stories which dealt with interactions with the flesh. These four stories accomplish this. They also each incorporate women of strong magical ability.
I played with various ideas for a title, polling my peers online for suggestions. Some of the ideas were decent, but none quite clicked for me. And then I decided upon Skinfolk, since it ties in several elements:
Having the title interact with skin via embroidery is yet another tie-in.
After choosing the stories, I spoke with Inuk elder Tauni Sheldon. I pitched my book idea to her. We spoke at length about my intentions with the stories and about my understanding of the stories and the lessons they offered. She wasn't familiar with the story of Kiviuq and the spider woman, so I told her about the book I'd found the most information in: Kiviuq: An Inuit Hero and His Siberian Cousins by Kira Van Deusen.
She also gave me a crash course in Inuktitut syllabics. This is the syllabic guide she shared with me.
She also made me realize that although I love the Arjowiggins Inuit typeface, it is detrimental to use it within the book when paired with Inuktitut syllabics. When I shared an image of my name hand rendered in this typeface, she was confused by it. She was trying to read it in Inuktitut rather than English. To remove the confusion, I kept the typeface for just the title, where it is not contextually confusing.
![[Name in Arjowiggins Inuit]](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/1a/57/43/1a5743f9c18557992c82e6a14fb8e3ae.jpg "Name in Arjowiggins Inuit")
As I read through the stories and through folklorist's interpretations, I winnowed my stories down to four. Because of prior brainstorming, I wanted stories which dealt with interactions with the flesh. These four stories accomplish this. They also each incorporate women of strong magical ability.
I played with various ideas for a title, polling my peers online for suggestions. Some of the ideas were decent, but none quite clicked for me. And then I decided upon Skinfolk, since it ties in several elements:
- A play on words of "kinfolk," since the Inuit are my kin, and the characters within the stories (with one exception: the Spider Woman) are all kin to one another
- Skin is a tie-in to the theme of interactions with flesh
- The folk part references folklore, and these stories are part of Inuit folklore
Having the title interact with skin via embroidery is yet another tie-in.
After choosing the stories, I spoke with Inuk elder Tauni Sheldon. I pitched my book idea to her. We spoke at length about my intentions with the stories and about my understanding of the stories and the lessons they offered. She wasn't familiar with the story of Kiviuq and the spider woman, so I told her about the book I'd found the most information in: Kiviuq: An Inuit Hero and His Siberian Cousins by Kira Van Deusen.
She also gave me a crash course in Inuktitut syllabics. This is the syllabic guide she shared with me.
She also made me realize that although I love the Arjowiggins Inuit typeface, it is detrimental to use it within the book when paired with Inuktitut syllabics. When I shared an image of my name hand rendered in this typeface, she was confused by it. She was trying to read it in Inuktitut rather than English. To remove the confusion, I kept the typeface for just the title, where it is not contextually confusing.
