[.ca] Give Me My Father's Body (ISBN 1861972873)

From Amazon.co.uk:
At last returning to print, Give Me My Father's Body is the thought-provoking tale of Minik, a young Inuit boy brought to New York by Robert Peary around the turn of the 20th century. Told simply and interspersed with personal letters and newspaper clippings, the book examines Minik's life both as a cross-cultural meeting place and a deeply personal search for a place to call "home." Photographs throughout of Minik give a glimpse into the incredible differences between the multiple worlds he inhabited, and how impossible it must have been to live in these worlds successfully. The title derives from one of Minik's more harrowing experiences--finding his father's bones displayed in a natural-history museum as a "curiosity"--and his attempts to retrieve the bones for a more respectful burial. Author Kenn Harper, while including many facts and articles about Arctic exploration, refrains from sharing opinions about the various explorers or their methods, choosing to share this story--and his years of research--plainly. From the death of Minik's birth father to the financial ruin of his American foster family, the events of Minik's childhood seem like one disaster after another, and his adulthood--the successful return to Greenland, followed by disappointment and a subsequent return to New York--is an unhappy struggle to find some kind of personal fulfillment. Questions of racial and cultural differences make an inescapable larger framework for Minik's life, and the emotions brought forward in answering those questions make reading this book a powerful experience. --Jill Lightner

Slight annoyances didn't ruin the book:
Kenn Harper's Give Me My Father's Body is undeniably and superbly researched; easily the book's crowning achievement. Occasionally though, I was annoyed with the "what if" scenarios. At least twice in the book Harper says what would have happened if things had gone another way. In one instance, the book describes Minik's plan to return to the Greenland and to lead a group of Inuit to the North Pole. He hoped to attain international honour for his people. Harper made the declaration that even had Minik tried, there was no way that he would have been successful. He further added that Minik's desire to prove the superiority of his race was an ethnocentric idea no doubt learned from the white people of New York, that the Greenland Inuit would balk at such ideas and that, with nothing to gain but glory for their people, they would surely refuse to help Minik. Even if Harper's learned ethnocentrism theory is correct, Harper has no way of ever knowing what Minik could have accomplished had he tried. If Minik had learned such ideas from white people, who's to say the Greenland Inuit wouldn't in turn learn such ideas from Minik? The point is, no one knows what would have happened and it is futile to guess (even for the well-informed). Also, the edition of the book that I have, has included discussion questions at the end for readers groups. These are very laughable. To paraphrase a typical question, "Kenn Harper lives among the people that he writes about and is therefore the greatest historian and writer to ever write about Northern peoples. Discuss how his portrayal of Eskimos is the most accurate description ever to be put on paper." But despite the embarrassing readers club guide at the end and the occasional subjective statement from Harper, the book is eye-opening about the victims of science and was a pleasurable read.

Intriguing...... sad:
Kenn Harper has managed to bring together an amazing story through detailed research. Minik, the Polar Eskimo child, was brought to the US by Robert Peary and essentially placed on display. The story of his disconnected life is full of pathos and sorrow. Yet Harper weaves the story with life. Peary's behaviors were simply egotistic and reprehensible. He treated the Eskimos as his property. He placed their lives in harms' way by bringing them to a culture and location that assaulted their senses and immune systems. Minik was the price paid for that deed. I did get bogged down in names from time to time, especially as Harper recounted the financial misdealings of Wallace, who had taken responsibility for Minik. But overall, the story is entertaining and enlightening. It speaks to the ethnocentrism of Peary's generation and to the isolation of the Polar Eskimos. It took me a long time to read and absorb this book but it was rewarding in the end... to see and feel a culture so far away.

If we only knew then what we know now.:
I purchased this book for an Anthropology course in the Spring of 2001 and was just appalled at what I read. The singlemindedness of Robert Peary was reprehensible. The arrogance with which he treated the Inuit he came into contact with and the devasting effect on one little boy! There was no thought of the consequences to the actions of one (person) and many suffered from it. I recommend this book to anyone who doubts just how far we have come in terms of tolerance, compassion, and understanding of other cultures. It was an amazing tale!

I've read much better:
Storyline is very intriguing, but the writing is a bit droll. It is also longer than necessary.

A Sad, Short Life:
Kenn Harper's biography of Minik Peary Wallace was a fascinating look at not just the sad life of a young Eskimo brought to this country as a "specimen" but also provided a unique perspective of the society which allowed it to happen. They may have been referred to as the "good old days," but in the day and age when circuses toured the country with freaks, the "acquisition" of 'primitive' people by institutions such as New York's Museum of Natural History was only marginally more respectable. (In my humble opinion.) Minik, who was just seven years old when brought to New York City from his native Greenland along with his father and four others, quickly fell ill, but unlike all but one of the others --lived. The other survivor returned to Greenland within the year, but Minik remained behind to be raised by the Museum's Supervisor of Buildings as an adopted son. That the museum arranged a "burial" of Minik's father, but in reality kept the bones for display, was just one of many deceptions Minik was saddled with over the years. As a word of warning. Don't expect to sail through a reading of this book. The names alone* will slow you down. Not that that's a bad thing: Think of it like driving on cobblestones. You're forced to go slowly, but you get to enjoy the view. Photographs interspersed throughout the text helped to bring things a little more to "life." * Names such as Aleqasinnguaq, Nukappiannguaq, Qisunnaguaq, Atangana, Angutilluarsuk, and Taliilannguaq to name a few. They don't really roll off the tounge!