Paper short abstract:

Since first contact with the Western culture, my culture has resisted assimilation. We fought for our existence, whether it was against the extraction of whale oil or crude oil. I was born in a village of Whale Hunters. My name is Othniel Oomittuk Jr., I am a descendent of the Sovereign Arctic.

Paper long abstract:

I never imagined that what my father did as an environmental protection officer for the NSB in Barrow, Alaska, would have an impact in my life. He died at the age of 46 in 1983 from cancer. Here we are in 2021 and I am trying to protect the circumpolar arctic environment at the age of 58, fighting issues that involve climate change and the effects of colonialism in the Inuit cultures.

Hunger knows no law in the Arctic. We hunt to feed our people and from that hunt comes resources that feeds the souls of my ancestors’ beliefs since time immemorial, since before Tulunigraq harpooned the first whale that became Tikigaq, Point Hope, Alaska.

Since first contact with the Western culture the Tikigaqmiut have resisted assimilation. We’ve had to fight for our village existence, whether it was against the extraction of whale oil or crude oil. The Inupiaq language was shamed from my tongue through the teachings of the School District.

Alaska became a United States territory in 1867. In 1890 religion was introduced to Point Hope and caused the degeneration of Shamanism, which is a vessel for my culture as a whaling village. Effigies that made Inua possible were taboo in the eyes of “civilization” of the colonizers.

I am an artist. With my art I express the identity of a sovereign nation, who has not been given the chance to govern and own their own land in this modern era.