The inuits and their relation with Canada.

The inuits and their relation with Canada.

The Inuits, commonly called “eskimos”, are a native tribe that lives in the north of Canada. To the contrary of what most people think, the term “eskimos” is a derogatory term, because in their language (Inuktitut) eskimo means “someone who eats raw flesh” so they preffer to be called “inuit”, that is the correct term to refer to them.

When somebody mention the inuits, it’s normal to imagine a quite short person bundled up in big coats, with dark hair and a tan skin. But this is not true at all, because there are a lot of inuits that are actually blonde, the image that inuits have to the world is not more than a stereotype .

Another interesting fact about the inuits, is that in their native country, they are very respected. The opposite happens in countries like United States or even here in Chile, where the native’s opinion is not very respected. To the contrary, in Canada is really important for their government. This can be seen when some enterprises wants to build on Inuit territory. In this case, the Inuits are who have the last word, because they are asked if they allow the enterprise to build and if they answer no, the enterprise must accept that resolution. But on the contrary, if the answer is yes, the enterprise can build but some of the profits must be given to the inuits.

Also, they live as the rest of the country and not in special territories like what happens with the native people in United States, what in my opinion, maybe is one of the many reasons of why Canada has the image of a friendly country, because to be friendly with the foreigners you must be friendly with your own people first.

Saint George

            On April 23 England celebrate their patron saint who is St. George, but it calls my attention because a mythical  history about this character and because he is not from England, in fact, he don’t even visit it in his life, but he influences a lot on this country.

            

           St. George was a roman soldier who fought on the crusaders, in there he made a reputation which go through countries and years. He was imprisonment by the emperor Diocletian who lead the roman’s persecution of Christians. Georges keeps their faith even when he was tortured, and this was an inspiration for the people.

            

          When crusaders arrive to England from foreign places they spread the stories about St. George, so he became too popular in the XIV and XV centuries that the England’s soldiers slowly start to wearing he’s symbols like the red cross in a white background and the red rose which are the national England symbols. Also the England flag is the red cross of St. Georges.

        But what really surprised me was that the most known history about St. George is this: There was a dragon living in the town of Silene on Libya and every day the people gave two sheep him for feeding, one day wasn’t any sheep for him so they decide to sacrifice a child of the town by a lottery and the princes was chosen, but when the dragon was ready to eat her St. George appears and hurt him, then he told to the people that he’ll kill the dragon if they turn into Christians so they accepted and he kill the dragon.

            St. George’s Day is not so popular nowadays, but it still a commemoration day and some people wants to give more importance to this day.

             

                                                                                                     

Canada, multiculturalism against melting pot.

Canada as we all know, is recognized around the world by his great quantity of cultures across his territory, taking as base that was colonized by two countries: France and England. The graceful thing is that this country so nice and friendly, neighboring country of the powerful U.S.A, it has a strong opposition towards the melting pot, American metaphor under which there are ruled all the immigrants who manage to be a part of the American culture. Canada is ruled rather by a concept called "Cultural Mosaic ", in which they consider and include the immigrant community that comes, in fact, there are given spaces of development in order that they could show to the people their traditions.

To realize this small but important detail, make a little research in Google, and you will find that many of them are national, but another part they will be of cultures that came and were included as the years went by. To clarify a bit my topic here I leave a species of menu with the most known events about Canada

- The winter carnival in Québec where parades are done by music, dances, giant sculptures of ice and snow sports events.

- The polar bear Swim in Vancouver, tradition where a persons' multitude they go to the cold nearest coasts and plunge to give beginning to his year.

- The stampede in Calgary, a celebration of about 10 days where rodeos and careers of coaches are done simulating or reminding the old west.

- The Canadians having the biggest second Chinese neighborhood of North America, they celebrate the new Chinese Year and The festival of the ship of the Dragon, where adorned ships similar to a Dragon compete in a career along False Creek.

The irish shamrock

Since long time ago the shamrock has been associated to Ireland as a symbol. People tend to do it without even knowing the reason of this, but what does this little green plant with three leafs has to do with Ireland? Well, my team mates and I found out about this.

Ireland is a country full of legends, myths and uncommon beliefs –Leprechauns, banshees, druids- and this is one of them. The story says that Saint Patrick, the man who brought Catholicism to Ireland, was trying to explain the belief of the Holy Trinity, but people found it too hard to understand. He had to think about an easy way to explain it, so he took a shamrock and told them that the Holy Trinity was just like that weed: Father, Son and Holy Spirit are the parts of that three-in-one person, same as the shamrock, in which each of its leafs is a different person, but at the end, there is just one shamrock.

People loved that interpretation; it was a totally new point of view, so the understood and started believe in what Saint Patrick told them.

This is an interesting thing to learn about Irish culture, because their religion’s still being very important to them and about the 85% remains as Catholics (In the republic of Ireland, do not get confused with Northern Ireland). Also, it explains the origins of Catholicism and the common belief about the relationship about Ireland and shamrocks.

As a “Fun fact”, the four leaf clover (the difference with the shamrock is mostly the quantity of leafs) is considered to be good luck, because the three leafs of the shamrock also represent hope, faith and love, and according to the belief, the forth one was given by God and it represents luck.

Kashtin 

Hi guys today I'm going to talk about one of latest things that have surprised me about Canada and its musical history.

When I was searching information about Canada for our group map specially music information, I found an amazing band called "Kashtin" , wich was very famous between the 80's and 90's.




They caught my attention very deeply because its main music genre was folk rock, which is one of my favorites music styles.

I did a little research about them and I found that they were one of the most famous bands in Canada and that they belong to a native group that is considered a part of the "First Nations" of this country, the Innu's.

Both Claude Mckenzie and Florent Vollant , the two members of this band ,where Innu natives who reached fame thanks to their musical talent. But the amazing fact here is that they sing their songs  in Innu-aimun language, their mother tongue .
The first thing that I have noticed is how apreciated they were and are now, although being natives.
I compared this situation to our national natives bands who are not even supported to do anything to improve in the music industry.

Kashtin reached huge stages in Europe and North America, and they were still reaching them a few years ago and wish is very remarkable.

I invite you guys to hear them and watch their videos, I also hope that you liked this little article related to Canada's music history , which has become one of my favorites countries to visit from now on.

P.S : Hear this song , one of my favorites
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fdnhf0XmQ0