Katajjaq, an Inuit voice
Have you ever heard of katajjaq? The throat singing game of Canada’s Inuit has enjoyed a revival in recent decades. Almost silenced by colonization and missionary work, katajjaq is breaking free, adapting, transforming, and resisting. To the point where it is becoming a powerful marker of Inuit identity. Here are some insights from a Swiss researcher who made katajjaq the subject of her thesis.
Four years ago, during a seminar on the human voice, Sara Valentina Rohr encountered the traditional Inuit throat singing game, the katajjaq. Fascinated and eager to learn more, the young Swiss woman set about researching Inuit culture in general and katajjaq in particular. But what attracted this Swiss ethnomusicologist to katajjaq? “The sound. There are usually no words but still, it can transport a lot of feelings”, explains Rohr to Polar Journal AG. “It is intense but also playful in a way. I think it makes you curious. If you hear it, you want to know what is it about.”
So what exactly is katajjaq? “It’s a throat singing game traditionally practiced by women. You have usually two people standing in front of each other. Then one person starts with a vocal rhythmic pattern, and the other person either tries to imitate that pattern or responds with another pattern. The first person that starts laughing, that loses their breath or that falls out of this rhythm loses the game. Another point is that the breathing is really important as they really sing on the breathing.”
Called katajjaq in Nunavut, it becomes katajjaniq in Nunavik. The singing techniques remain the same, and the name katajjaq has become generic for the traditional throat singing of Canada’s Inuit.
An ancient singing
Although the practice of katajjaq dates back thousands of years, it’s hard to say how and why it began. It’s thought that women began practising it to keep themselves occupied while the men were out hunting. Inspired by the sounds produced by nature, the women would engage in these vocal jousts. With the arrival of modern objects, Inuit women also began to imitate more domestic sounds. ”There is for example a song that’s called Boiling Seal Meat. Another song is called Saw, resembeling chainsaws where they incorporate the sounds they hear.”
“Other explanations state that katajjaq was used to put babies to sleep.”, explains Rohr. “Traditionally, women would carry their baby on their back in an amauti, a traditional Inuit parka. Through the vibrations – because your whole body vibrates when you’re throat singing – the baby would go to sleep.” Westerners have long attributed a shamanic dimension to katajjaq, but this remains speculative. “I know that some researchers have written that it was a shamanistic practice, but today we are not sure if it is really true or not.”
Similarly, katajjaq does not appear to be related to, or to have its origins in, throat singing as it may have been practiced in Asia, particularly in Mongolia. “There may be technical similarities, but they’re not the same. In Asia, throat singers use circular breathing to sustain multiple notes on a high pitch for a long time. In katajjaq, the singers use this mixture of very deep guttural sounds before jumping to high notes, and then they go back and forth”.
The first written evidence of throat songs came from Western explorers, who began to record katajjaq in their travel accounts. Ethnologists then reported their observations of the song during scientific expeditions. This was particularly the case with the Swiss anthropologist and ethnographer Jean Gabus. “He travelled to Arviat in 1938 and 1939. I think he was fascinated by Inuit life and wanted to know more about it. Because he was also a radio journalist, he made recordings,” says Rohr, referring to Gabus’s recordings now preserved at the Musée d’ethnographie de Neuchâtel in Switzerland. “We have 62 recordings of Inuit songs, and out of these 62 recordings, we have only two katajjaq recordings. I think the reason is that Gabus did not think it was music. He just recorded it as a kind of children’s game”.
A women’s throat song game, katajjaq could nevertheless be performed by young boys who, once they had grown up, turned to songs considered more masculine, such as drum songs and ayaya songs. But since the turn of the millennium, katajjaq has been undergoing a revival, and this revival is shaking up the codes of this throat song game.
In fact, since the early 2000s, we’ve been witnessing a revival of the genre, with artists performing solo or mixing throat singing techniques and elements with other musical styles, sometimes creating explosive mixes. Charlotte Qamaniq, for example, incorporates elements of electronic music, while Tanya Tagaq puts her voice to electro, rock and pop compositions. ”They use the same techniques and with those techniques they create another kind of singing style or katajjaq style. So it’s not really katajjaq. It’s more like another form of throat singing.”
Between mix and tradition
Other artists even manage to create something new by blending genres. Such is the case of Nelson Tagoona, who has integrated hip-hop beat boxing into his practice of traditional Inuit singing. A revolution in the world of katajjaq. “ So far, I think the throat boxing is probably the biggest change. Tagoona invented throat boxing out of mixing throat singing and beat boxing. That’s a really interesting development.”
And that’s not the only change Nelson Tagoona represents. He is one of the few male singers in a decidedly female discipline. “I would say that, in the last maybe 20 years, there are increasingly more men that are starting to practice it and learn it. But it’s still predominantly women.”
While some listeners are fans of artists who shake up the traditional codes of katajjaq, another part of the audience prefers the traditional form. And while the mix of genres might suggest that this more traditionalist camp includes the most grey-haired listeners, this is not the case. In fact, young people seem to be more into traditional katajjaq. Two camps that don’t always agree on the most popular contemporary artists, such as Tanya Tagaq. “I know not everyone likes what Tanya Tagaq does or how other throat singers mix it with music forms. Some find it beautiful or interesting. But there are also people who really want to keep it traditional. They think that what these artists are doing is something that can be called throat singing, but is not really katajjaq. Maybe there is a bit of a conflict there, but generally it depends on who you are talking to”, says Rohr.
The young people’s defense of a traditional style could be explained by the ongoing process of Inuit re-appropriation of their culture. A culture that was largely destroyed by colonization, which did not spare katajjaq. “At the beginning of the 20th century, missionaries began to Christianize the Inuit. They considered anything that was a little different, or that could be understood as shamanistic practice, to be evil and devilish. They would forbid practices because they were not considered appropriate for Christian life. And Inuit children had to go to residential schools where they went through a process of assimilation. They were forbidden to speak their language and practice their culture. And because katajjaq was an important part of their culture, they were also forbidden to practice or perform it. That’s when a gap or a break occurred.”
The practice of katajjaq today is necessarily militant: “Because of colonization and the missionaries, the Inuit were forbidden to practice katajjaq. They lost a lot of songs and techniques. There was like a break in generations where they could not learn it.”
And this is perhaps the common ground between supporters of traditional katajjaq and fans of more eclectic katajjaq. “These two camps always mention what happened and how important it is to revitalize the practice. It can also be political, especially when the artists perform in public.”
An identity trait
The background is the possible use of katajjaq to rediscover and assert an Inuit identity. It is a hypothesis that Sara Valentina Rohr wants to explore in her research. “This is part of my research topic. At this point I’m not sure if there’s a connection, but I think there might be, because from what I’ve seen in Canada or in Montreal, katajjaq is performed for cultural events or museum exhibitions. Singers give interviews, they make social media videos talking about what it is,” the researcher points out, emphasizing the very strong identity aspect of katajjaq. “Katajjaq is typically Inuit or traditionally Inuit, so non-Inuit cannot really learn it. That would be appropriation. This is Inuit trying to show their Inuit identity and make us aware of it. I think katajjaq can be a space for Inuit sovereignty, or where they can exercise sovereignty. That’s one focus of my thesis, and that’s what I’m going to try to look at over the next three years.”
Katajjaq has become a strong identity marker for Canada’s Inuit, and any form of appropriation is widely denounced and condemned. “If you’re not Inuit and you practice katajjaq in your living room, you maybe don’t risk much. On the other hand, if you practice it in public, I think you would get a lot of backlash.”
In the future, Sara Valentina Rohr plans to travel to Canada to meet with throat singers. “My goal is to ask them what is important to them, or are there certain perspectives they would like non-Inuit audiences, researchers or musicians who work with throat singers to understand.” And maybe have them listen to the recordings of Jean Gabus, the Swiss anthropologist who walked around Arviat with his microphone in the 1930s.
But getting to Nunavut takes as much bureaucracy as it does money. In addition to the research she is currently doing in Switzerland, the young scientist is also working to find the means to fund her research in Nunavut. ”It’s quite expensive to go to the Arctic, so I’m also trying now to raise some funds.”
At the end of the day, it’s a chance to learn more about katajjaq and its importance in expressing Inuit identity and reclaiming a culture and history that was almost wiped out by colonization. Or when a singing that was once a game becomes a real voice.
Mirjana Binggeli, Polar Journal AG
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