The Moravian Beginnings of Canadian Inuit Literature

McGill University Library and the Cultural Studies Program in the McGill University English Department, are showcasing an exhibition tracing the beginnings of literacy and written literature for the Inuit living in Nunatsiavut (Labrador) and, to a lesser extent, in Nunavik. Moravian missionaries (a small German Protestant community) transcribed biblical texts into a written form of Inuttitut and were the first in Canada to write and publish Inuttitut using Latin characters. In the early 19th century, an Anglican missionary in Northern Quebec (now Nunavik) transcribed parts of these same Moravian biblical translations into syllabic orthography. Even more importantly, the Moravian missionaries produced text books for the Inuit, allowing them to become literate very early in Canadian history, from the end of the 18th century. The Nunatsiavut Inuit were probably more literate than most other people in Canada at that time. It is a fascinating and largely unknown aspect of our history and of literary history. The Labrador Inuit were the first Inuit to have written in their own language and thus constitute the beginnings of Inuit written literature in Canada.

Items displayed in this exhibition have been selected from McGill Library's Rare Books and Special Collections including The Lawrence Lande Collection of Canadiana, The Lande Eskimo Collection and The Lande Arkin Collection, and supplemented by the collections of McGill Library’s Humanities & Social Sciences Library and Education Library and Curriculum Resources Centre. This exhibition is an International Polar Year project and is part of the Entendre et communiquer les voix du Nunavik/ Hearing and sharing the voices of Nunavik, a joint Université du Québec à Montréal and McGill University initiative funded by the Canadian program of the International Polar Year (IPY), 2008-9. This exhibition is also supported by a McGill University-SSHRC Institutional grant. It was made possible in part thanks to the AVATAQ Cultural Institute. This exhibition was prepared by Sharon Rankin, Professor Marianne Stenbaek, Lindsay Terry and Jennifer Campbell.

Photo of three Inuit children courtesy of Unity Archives, Herrnhut, Saxony, Germany. Moravian Archives Herrnhut, LBS 1957.