Examining the Kikkik Case: A Story of Inuit Exile and Justice
Exploring the Kikkik case of 1958 through various perspectives including trial transcripts, literary accounts, sculptures, and films. Unveil the challenges of translation, defense strategies, and the primitive Eskimo society influencing the legal proceedings. Delve into the profound complexities of justice, colonization, and understanding in the Far North.
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Presentation Transcript
1956 1922
But then, in 1958
Four ways to tell the story 1. The Trial Transcript for R v. Kikkik (1958) 2. Farley Mowat s popular literary account in The Desperate People 3. Inuit Sculptures by Peggy Ekagina in the Sissons/Morrow collection 4. The films Kikkik (2000) and Kikkik E-1-472 (2003) (supplemented by excellent academic work in Marcus, Relocating Eden :The Image and Politics of Inuit Exile in the Canadian Arctic (1995) and Tester and Kulchyski, Tammarniit (Mistakes): Inuit Relocation in the Eastern Arctic, 1939- 63) (1994)
Version 1: THE TRIAL Kikkik is charged with Murder, Criminal Negligence, Abandonment
John (Jack) Sissons (1892-1969) Judge of the Far North
The Lawyers Sterling Lyon ((1927-2010) John Parker
Interrogating the transcripts Kikkik saccount of the experience (her confession ) Given to police after 2 days in custody; rigorous questioning and preliminary inquiries with no counsel; translation in the statement General Challenges of Translation Replacing jurors; Replacing translators Defence Strategies for x-examining witnesses Focus on food shortages, and evidence of starvation; Ootek characterized as witch doctor and wife swapper Judge s address to the jury
The charge to the jury: The privy council of Great Britain knows the common law and has been for centuries the final court of appeal for British colonies, and has a wide experience with, and knowledge and understanding of colonies and native peoples. I think we should follow the Privy Council thinking and approach. It is by far the best there is. According to the Privy Council the application of common law principles is somewhat controlled by the evolution of society. In this present case we have a very primitive Eskimo society, which has not changed very much and is still very insecure and unsettled, with no policeman within one hundred and fifty miles. Justice demands that we revert in our thinking to an earlier age and try to understand Kikkik and her life and her land and her society.
Version 2: POPULAR LITERARY ACCOUNT Farley Mowat Environmentalist and writer
The year-old boy Igyaka, lay rigidly inert, and did not hear the wind. His small body was shrunken into a macabre travesty of human form by the long hunger which, two days earlier, had given him over to the frost to kill. Beside him on the sleeping ledge of hard-packed snow his two sisters lay. There was Kalak who had been born deaf and dumb out of a starvation winter ten years earlier and there was little Kooyak who was seven years of age. They lay in each other s arms under the single remaining deerskin robe and they were naked except for cotton shifts grown black and ragged through the months. There were no more robes to lay across their bloated bellies and their pipestem limbs, and none to hide the frozen horror of the boy who lay beside them for the other robes which the family had possessed when winter cam had long ago been eaten, as had the children s clothes; for all of these had of necessity been sacrificed to hunger (Mowat, 1959, 252-253)
Version 3: INUIT SCULTPURE
Peggy Ekaginas carvings in the Sissons/Morrow Collection
Version 4: CINEMATIC ACCOUNTS Kikkik (2001); Kikkik E1-472 (2003)
