​The Little-Known History of How the Canadian Government Made Inuit Wear ‘Eskimo Tags’

[LiberalArkie]

By Natasha MacDonald-Dupuis

"Well, my name's Jennifer Qupanuaq May... but apparently in the eyes of the government I'm still E8-2571," she says with irony.

The 33-year-old Inuk woman from Kuujuuaq, Quebec, is referring to her Eskimo Identification Number, a long-forgotten government program that ran for decades in the North—all the way until the 1980s in some areas.

Every Inuit was issued a number, the first letter and number indicating the region where they lived, the last four digits a personalized ID. The goal was to facilitate the administration of social and medical aid. The government thereafter addressed them as such, often dropping their names altogether in written correspondence. According to some accounts, children were asked to call out their disk number at school rather than a name.

When the program was introduced in the early 40s, Inuit still lived as nomads; they didn't carry wallets, didn't write, and only spoke Inuktitut. Because of this, the number had to be worn at all times on a small leather or copper disk around the neck. To many, they looked and felt like dog tags. The program was dropped in the 1970s (1980s in Quebec), after an Inuk member of the Northwest Territories legislative assembly decided he no longer wanted to be known as W3-554.

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http://www.vice.com/read/the-little-known-history-of-how-the-canadian-government-made-inuit-wear-eskimo-tags