My bit on Inuit naming was forwarded by someone to Valerie Alia. My comments
were based upon her book but I probably used considerable "poetic" licence
and creative memory. I reviewed her book some time ago for the Canadian Journal
of Native Studies.
If anyone is interested in her work the details of it are
given in the paragraph below reproduced with her permission.
Dear Ken Hanly,
Your piece on names was forwarded to me by a colleague. I'm especially
interested in your comments, because I have been working on this subject
since the early 1980s, and have published several articles and a book on
it. Also, I did a 2-part documentary for CBC "Ideas" last year, which you
may have missed, "Nunavut: Where Names Never Die." It's been rebroadcast
once, and will probably be rebroadcast again one of these days
(especially if people request it). The transcript is available from CBC.
If you're interested in the book: Valerie Alia, NAMES, NUMBERS AND
NORTHERN POLICY: INUIT, PROJECT SURNAME, AND THE POLITICS OF IDENTITY,
Halifax: Fernwood, 1994. I also did a short critique of some errors in
work on the disk numbers, in an article last year for Canadian Woman
STudies journal (special issue on Women of the North).
Valerie Alia
Distinguished PRofessor of Canadian Culture
Center for Canadian-American Studies
Western Washington University
Bellingham, WA 98225-9110
USA
phone: 360-650-7509
fax: 360-650-3995
e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (ignore the Henson puppet names that
appear with this message...our cutesy internal thing...)
Cheers, Ken Hanly
