Apostle to the Inuit: The Journals and Ethnographic Notes of Edmund James Peck - The Baffin Years, 1894-1905

Apostle to the Inuit presents the journals and ethnographical notes of Reverend Edmund James Peck, an Anglican missionary who opened the first mission among the Inuit of Baffin Island in 1894 and became known to the Inuit as ‘Uqammaq,’ the one who talks well. His colleagues knew him as ‘Apostle among the Eskimo.’ Peck’s diaries of the period focus on his missionary work and the adoption of Christianity by the Inuit. He conducted extensive research on Inuit oral traditions and this book presents several detailed verbatim accounts of shamanic traditions and practises. Apostle to the Inuit demonstrates how a Christian missionary who was bitterly opposed to shamanism, became a devoted researcher of this complex tradition. Editors Frederic Laugrand, Jarich Oosten, and Francois Trudel highlight the relationships between Europeans and Inuit and present a selection of fascinating drawings made by the Inuit. The book offers important new data on the history of the missions among the Inuit as well as on the history of Inuit religion and the anthropological study of Inuit oral traditions.