Julie of the Wolves

by

Jean Craighead George

Inuit/Inuk Term Analysis

The Inuit are a group of indigenous peoples of northern Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. Inuit means “people,” and the singular form of the word is Inuk. Today, the term is often used to refer to the collective Inuit and Yupik peoples, although it should be noted that the Inuit and Yupik are distinct groups of people who speak distinct languages.

Inuit/Inuk Quotes in Julie of the Wolves

The Julie of the Wolves quotes below are all either spoken by Inuit/Inuk or refer to Inuit/Inuk. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Humans vs. Nature  Theme Icon
).
Part 1: Amaroq, the wolf Quotes

With the passing of the lemmings, however, the grasses had grown high again and the hour of the caribou was upon the land. Healthy fat caribou cows gave birth to many calves. The caribou population increased, and this in turn increased the number of wolves who prey on the caribou.

Related Characters: Miyax Kapugen/Julie Edwards , Kapugen/Charlie Edwards
Page Number: 14
Explanation and Analysis:

Amaroq got to his feet, and as he slowly arose he seemed to fill the sky and blot out the sun. He was enormous. He could swallow her without even chewing. “But he won’t,” she reminded herself. “Wolves do not eat people. That’s gussak talk. Kapugen said wolves are gentle brothers.”

Related Characters: Miyax Kapugen/Julie Edwards (speaker), Kapugen/Charlie Edwards, Amaroq
Page Number: 15
Explanation and Analysis:

He must indeed be their leader for he was clearly the wealthy wolf; that is, wealthy as she had known the meaning of the word on Nunivak Island. There the old Eskimo hunters she had known in her childhood thought the riches of life were intelligence, fearlessness, and love. A man with these gifts was rich and was a great spirit who was admired in the same way that the gussaks admired a man with money and goods.

Related Characters: Miyax Kapugen/Julie Edwards , Amaroq
Page Number: 19
Explanation and Analysis:

“Change your ways when fear seizes,” he had said, “for it usually means you are doing something wrong.”

Related Characters: Kapugen/Charlie Edwards (speaker), Miyax Kapugen/Julie Edwards , Amaroq, Daniel
Page Number: 42
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2: Miyax, the girl Quotes

Later, Kapugen’s Aunt Martha told her that he had lost his mind the day her mother died. He had grabbed Miyax up and walked out of his fine house in Mekoryuk. He had left his important job as manager of the reindeer herd, and he had left all his possessions. “He walked you all the way to seal camp,” Martha told her. “And he never did anything good after that.”

Related Characters: Martha (speaker), Miyax Kapugen/Julie Edwards , Kapugen/Charlie Edwards, Amaroq, Miyax’s Mother
Page Number: 76
Explanation and Analysis:

To Miyax the years at seal camp were infinitely good. The scenes and events were beautiful color spots in her memory.

Related Characters: Miyax Kapugen/Julie Edwards , Kapugen/Charlie Edwards
Page Number: 76
Explanation and Analysis:

“Yes, you are Eskimo,” he had said. “And never forget it. We live as no other people can, for we truly understand the earth.”

Related Characters: Kapugen/Charlie Edwards (speaker), Miyax Kapugen/Julie Edwards
Page Number: 81
Explanation and Analysis:

Gradually Julie pushed Kapugen out of her heart and accepted the people of Mekoryuk. The many years in seal camp alone with Kapugen had been dear and wonderful, but she realized now that she had lived a strange life. The girls her age could speak and write English and they knew the names of presidents, astronauts, and radio and movie personalities who lived below the top of the world. Maybe the Europeans once thought the earth was flat, but the Eskimos always knew it was round. One only needed to look at the earth’s relatives, the sun and the moon, to know that.

Related Characters: Miyax Kapugen/Julie Edwards , Kapugen/Charlie Edwards
Page Number: 84-85
Explanation and Analysis:

“What a lovely i’noGo tied!” Julie said politely. “A what?” asked Judith. Julie repeated the Eskimo word for the house of the spirits. Judith snickered. “That’s a charm bracelet,” she said. Rose giggled and both laughed derisively. Julie felt the blood rush to her face as she met, for the first but not the last time, the new attitudes of the Americanized Eskimos. She had much to learn besides reading. That night she threw her i’noGo tied away.

Related Characters: Miyax Kapugen/Julie Edwards (speaker), Judith (speaker), Kapugen/Charlie Edwards, Martha, Rose
Related Symbols: I’noGo Tied
Page Number: 85-86
Explanation and Analysis:

As the months passed, the letters from Amy became the most important thing in Julie’s life and the house in San Francisco grew more real than the house in Barrow. She knew each flower on the hill where Amy’s house stood, each brick in the wall around the garden, and each tall blowing tree. She also knew the curls in the wrought-iron gate, and how many steps led up to the big front door; she could almost see the black-and-white tile on the floor of the foyer. If she closed her eyes she could imagine the arched doorway, the Persian rug on the living-room floor, the yellow chairs and the huge window that looked over the bay. Radios, lamps, coffee tables—all these she could see. And if she shut her eyes tight, she could feel Amy’s hand in her hand and hear Amy’s big feet tap the sidewalk. The second floor was always fun to dream about. At the top of the winding stairs four doors opened upon rooms lit with sunshine. And one was the pink room, the one that would be hers when she got to San Francisco.

Related Characters: Miyax Kapugen/Julie Edwards , Amy Pollock, Daniel
Related Symbols: The Pink Room
Page Number: 97-98
Explanation and Analysis:

“Julie is gone,” she said. “I am Miyax now.”

Related Characters: Miyax Kapugen/Julie Edwards (speaker), Kapugen/Charlie Edwards, Amy Pollock, Tornait , Daniel, Naka
Page Number: 104
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3: Kapugen, the Hunter Quotes

And she liked the simplicity of that world. It was easy to understand. Out here she understood how she fitted into the scheme of the moon and stars and the constant rise and fall of life on the earth. Even the snow was part of her, she melted it and drank it.

Related Characters: Miyax Kapugen/Julie Edwards , Kapugen/Charlie Edwards, Daniel
Page Number: 130
Explanation and Analysis:

The gussaks were paid to shoot them. A man who brought in the left ear of a wolf to the warden was rewarded with a bounty of fifty dollars. The bounty was evil to the old men at seal camp, for it encouraged killing for money, rather than need. Kapugen considered the bounty the gussaks’ way of deciding that the amaroqs could not live on this earth anymore. “And no men have that right,” he would say. “When the wolves are gone there will be too many caribou grazing the grass and the lemmings will starve. Without the lemmings the foxes and birds and weasels will die. Their passing will end smaller lives upon which even man depends, whether he knows it or not, and the top of the world will pass into silence.”

Related Characters: Kapugen/Charlie Edwards (speaker), Miyax Kapugen/Julie Edwards , Amaroq
Page Number: 133-134
Explanation and Analysis:

When she thought of San Francisco, she thought about the airplane and the fire and blood and the flashes and death. When she took out her needle and sewed, she thought about peace and Amaroq.

Related Characters: Miyax Kapugen/Julie Edwards , Amaroq, Amy Pollock, Daniel
Page Number: 152
Explanation and Analysis:

She would be very useful to him and they would live as they were meant to live—with the cold and the birds and the beasts.

Related Characters: Kapugen/Charlie Edwards (speaker), Miyax Kapugen/Julie Edwards
Page Number: 162
Explanation and Analysis:

“Come in. I’ve never seen such a bird.”

Related Characters: Kapugen/Charlie Edwards (speaker), Miyax Kapugen/Julie Edwards , Tornait
Page Number: 166
Explanation and Analysis:

Kapugen, after all, was dead to her.

Related Characters: Miyax Kapugen/Julie Edwards , Kapugen/Charlie Edwards
Page Number: 169
Explanation and Analysis:

Julie pointed her boots toward Kapugen.

Related Characters: Miyax Kapugen/Julie Edwards , Kapugen/Charlie Edwards, Amaroq, Tornait , Daniel
Page Number: 170
Explanation and Analysis:
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Inuit/Inuk Term Timeline in Julie of the Wolves

The timeline below shows where the term Inuit/Inuk appears in Julie of the Wolves. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Part 1: Amaroq, the wolf
Humans vs. Nature  Theme Icon
Memory and Disillusionment  Theme Icon
Community and Survival  Theme Icon
...for food. She knows it’s possible to communicate with the animals, since her father, an Inuk hunter, once had a wolf pack lead him to a freshly killed caribou. But Miyax’s... (full context)
Humans vs. Nature  Theme Icon
Community and Survival  Theme Icon
Tradition vs. Assimilation  Theme Icon
Miyax is a classically beautiful Inuk girl: she has a small, round face, a flat nose, black eyes, and a lean... (full context)
Humans vs. Nature  Theme Icon
Community and Survival  Theme Icon
Tradition vs. Assimilation  Theme Icon
Miyax built her first sod house, the traditional summer home of the old Inuit people, when she first arrived at camp. The shelter is imperfect but cozy: she windproofed... (full context)
Humans vs. Nature  Theme Icon
Memory and Disillusionment  Theme Icon
Community and Survival  Theme Icon
Tradition vs. Assimilation  Theme Icon
...a bone. Miyax laughs when she realizes they’re playing something similar to tug-o-war, a game Inuit children play with leather ropes. Amaroq looks at Silver and then at the gray wolf,... (full context)
Humans vs. Nature  Theme Icon
Tradition vs. Assimilation  Theme Icon
...it in her whale bladder bag to protect it from moisture. This is an old Inuit tradition she was taught in childhood, since damp clothing can be deadly in the Arctic.... (full context)
Humans vs. Nature  Theme Icon
Community and Survival  Theme Icon
Tradition vs. Assimilation  Theme Icon
...watching Miyax curiously as she scoops the meat into the pot. Miyax tells Kapu that Inuit have “joking partners” to laugh with and “serious partners” to work with, and that she... (full context)
Part 2: Miyax, the girl
Humans vs. Nature  Theme Icon
Memory and Disillusionment  Theme Icon
Community and Survival  Theme Icon
Tradition vs. Assimilation  Theme Icon
...come to Nash Harbor to hunt and fish, which occupies much of Kapugen’s time. The Inuit families from Mekoryuk speak mostly English and call Kapugen by the name Charlie Edwards, and... (full context)
Humans vs. Nature  Theme Icon
Memory and Disillusionment  Theme Icon
Community and Survival  Theme Icon
Tradition vs. Assimilation  Theme Icon
...and fierce blizzards. The people who stay at the camp during the winter are mostly Inuit people. Kapugen spends the winter evenings singing and dancing with the old men. Their songs... (full context)
Humans vs. Nature  Theme Icon
Tradition vs. Assimilation  Theme Icon
...that summer, cleaning and greeting visitors from the continental U.S. who come to see “real” Inuits. (full context)
Tradition vs. Assimilation  Theme Icon
...12 years old and writes about her life in San Francisco. She says the few Inuit words her father has taught her are “pretty words that sound like bells,” though she... (full context)
Tradition vs. Assimilation  Theme Icon
...Amy will attend next year. Mekoryuk doesn’t have a high school, and only the wealthy Inuit families can afford to send their children to the mainland for school. Amy wonders if... (full context)
Humans vs. Nature  Theme Icon
Community and Survival  Theme Icon
Tradition vs. Assimilation  Theme Icon
...sky is emerged in an explosion of colorful light of the “burning red” sunrise. The Inuit people lift their arms toward the sky to praise the sun, and everyone else follows... (full context)
Part 3: Kapugen, the Hunter
Humans vs. Nature  Theme Icon
Community and Survival  Theme Icon
Tradition vs. Assimilation  Theme Icon
...chance at survival. Miyax scans the ground carefully. She thinks that the old the old Inuit people at the seal camp had been “wise” for not relying on “man-made gadgets.” (full context)
Humans vs. Nature  Theme Icon
Community and Survival  Theme Icon
Tradition vs. Assimilation  Theme Icon
...feels content. Miyax realizes what she really wants to do is to live like an Inuit. (full context)
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Community and Survival  Theme Icon
Tradition vs. Assimilation  Theme Icon
...the crunch of footsteps running across ice. She peers outside her house and sees an Inuit hunter. “Ayi!” she calls out, and the hunter returns her call. The hunter pulls up... (full context)
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Memory and Disillusionment  Theme Icon
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Tradition vs. Assimilation  Theme Icon
...and the past. After dinner, Miyax’s guests tell her all about Kangik, which is an Inuit village that now has an airport, mission, and a generator. Atik is proud of his... (full context)
Memory and Disillusionment  Theme Icon
...Atik’s grandfather, too, died, Atik was adopted and taught to hunt by Kapugen, the greatest Inuit hunter there ever was. (full context)
Humans vs. Nature  Theme Icon
Memory and Disillusionment  Theme Icon
Community and Survival  Theme Icon
Tradition vs. Assimilation  Theme Icon
...hears sled-dogs barking and is pleased to find that the town is really an “old-fashioned” Inuit village.  Miyax spots two houses near the wilderness and decides the one with the wooden... (full context)
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Memory and Disillusionment  Theme Icon
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Miyax retrieves her things and heads back to her icehouse. She knows she is an Inuk girl, so she must live like one. She plans for the future: she’ll build a... (full context)
Humans vs. Nature  Theme Icon
Memory and Disillusionment  Theme Icon
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...to Amaroq’s spirit about the disappearing animals, and the end of the hour of the Inuit. When she is finished singing, Julie “point[s] her boots toward Kapugen.” (full context)