Cultural Comparison of Native Netsilik and Chipewyan Tribes

Both living on tundra, the Netsilik and Chipewyan people shared two staple food sources in their diet; caribou and fish. They also shared the use of moss and berries during less plentiful times. Both groups, in desperate times, would result to cannibalism.

Women played an important role for food, clothing and shelter. In both Netsilik and Chipewyan societies the women prepared, transformed and cooked the food in which the men hunted. They were responsible for the process of scraping, sewing and softening caribou hides. Sewing was generally with bone needles.

Both cultures wore outfits made from caribou skins. Both relied on the use of snowshoes for most of the year made from wood or antlers, depending on solids available. Bags, containers and tents were made from caribou in both cultures. Come summer, both were living in tents using caribou skins.

When hunting caribou both communities shared a similar practice. They set up hunting operations at river crossings of the herds. Men hidden along the river's edge would wait with their canoe or kayak and launch to enclose them as they crossed, spearing trapped animals. The women and children in both groups were helpful during this hunt. They would stand on the banks and scare the caribou back into the water in an effort to get as many animals trapped as possible.

Both groups would stock up on meat during fall hunts to preserve for offseason meals. For most of the year, their prospective environments made preserving meat rather easy. Both groups dried meat, making food intake easier for travel and preservation.

The Netsilik and the Chipewyan also shared the use of using bone for hunting tools, specifically the fish hook. After carving the hook, both would attach it to caribou tendons or sinew. Both groups had to fish through ice at certain times of year, cutting a hole in the ice and dangling the hook waiting for a bite.

The Chipewyan did not hunt sea animals as the Netsilik did. Netsilik means "the people of the ringed seal" and when caribou migrated south, seals became the next best thing. Seals, unlike the caribou, do not migrate so by January when the sea had frozen over the Netsilik moved onto the ice to hunt. Seal skins were used largely as a resource for water resistant materials, clothing and shoes. Seals also provided oil for lamps, an invaluable possession in Netsilik culture.

While the Netsilik turned to seals, the Chipewyan turned to fishing. They were skilled in fishing and used tools to ensure catching to most fish possible to stock up for more trying times. They speared fish, used weirs that would trap them, and used gill nets set across rivers for mass fishing. In western Chipewyan bands fishing was more important than in the eastern bands.

A hunting technique developed by the Chipewyan that was not used by Netsilik was unattended hunting. The Chipewyan often used snares and deadfalls. This ability to hunt with unattended devices was less dangerous and time consuming, and burned less energy. The Netsilik would have to stand at seal holes for hours or days, while the Chipewyan would travel back to nets, snares and deadfalls to collect food with less effort.

The Chipewyan had a second style of hunting caribou that differed from the Netsilik. Women and children would hide in wooded areas funneling caribou from a wide space that got thinner, leading to eventual entrapment where men would spear and shoot them with arrows. When caribou were plentiful the Chipewyan were at times wasteful with the carcasses, taking only prized parts and leaving the rest. This was unlike the Netsilik who used all parts possible. A reason for this is attributed to the Chipewyan belief that the land owned them and that creation existed for them to eat.

They Netsilik considered sharing among the band an expectation. This was not the case with the Chipewyan that shared only within their household. Because of the use of unattended hunting devices, the Chipewyan had an advantage of requiring less people to hunt making small parties possible. The Netsilik, for example, needed a 15-man team to hunt seals, each expecting to get equal parts regardless of whose “hole” the seal was caught in.

The Netsilik, from the arctic, and the Chipewyan, from the subarctic, shared similar negative temperatures in the winter. They both adapted well to life in the snow. The weather for the Netsilik could reach -40 degrees while the Chipewyan could experience -60 degrees. Because of their harsh living environments, large animals and plants were limited.

Both cultures were nomadic and lived in small bands, identified by regional herds of caribou. The leaders of both groups were not born into their positions, they were voted into them. Leaders were defined by their skill in hunting - the most essential skill a man could have. The ability to identify good hunting areas and succeed in the hunt was how men proved themselves worthy of leading.

In both of their native environments caribou were their lifeline. They relied heavily on the movement of the herd, which was the main reason for their nomadic lifestyle. They preferred to hunt caribou in the fall when the herd was the healthiest and fattest, and had the most desirable fur. The caribou not only fed both groups during migration, but were the main source of clothing and contributed to a key resources for tools. Both cultures used caribou antlers and bones as a solid because much of their land lacked wood.

When comparing their two environments, the Netsilik got about 20 frost-free days a year in the arctic. Therefore their main source of a solid for building houses was snow, the igloo, as wood was sparse. The Chipewyan, on the other hand, got the benefit of short, hot summers up to 80 degrees. With more wood available, they used it to frame their dwellings wrapped in caribou skins.

Tools and weapons varied from the two cultures depending on what was available. For the Netsilik, their natural resource of soapstone was critical for making items such as cooking pots and lamps. The Chipewyan relied on their natural resource of copper for items like ice picks, arrows, spears, spoons, and axes. Comparatively, the Netsilik used the adz with stone blades and knives made with slate. The Netsilik used kayaks made from driftwood and antlers. The Chipewyan used skin-covered canoes.

There was a notable difference of the two cultures that impacted lifestyle surrounding the use of dogs.  The Chipewyan believed that their creator was half-dog. Because of this, they had supernatural associations with dogs and did not use them in society as the Netsilik did. The Netsilik relied heavily on dogs to help pull sleds, sniff out seal holes, corner polar bears and pull seal carcasses back to camps.

Sustaining life with a "survival of the fittest" mentality resulted in both groups having a history of infanticide, specifically of females. Women in both societies played the role of preparing meals, however they did not hunt the meals. Therefore, if resources were low and food was scarce families would make the decision to allow their infant girls to die. Although, the dangers of hunting left a higher mortality rate in males thus leaving well-balanced communities of men and women.