Inuit, Eskimo

During World War II, American soldiers stationed in tropical countries received primaquine (25) as antimalarial prophylaxis it turned out that only soldiers of African descent developed hemolysis from the administration of primaquine. The explanation came aitr(26) The affected soldiers had a genetic deficiency of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase this deficiency was frequent in Africans because it protected the carrier from malaria, but it was rare in countries without malaria. After discovery of the genetic deficiency of iso-niazid acetylation (5,27), other investigators found substantial interethnic differences in the frequency of this deficiency (28). The deficiency was rare in Eskimos (Inuit), relatively frequent in Europeans and Africans, and intermediate in East Asians. 

French explorers probably taught the Inuit Eskimos how to play dominoes. 

Today, controversies rage as to whether the Inuit really have richer vocabularies for snow than do English speakers. Many English snow-related words do indeed exist, like sleet, slush, blizzard, and others that are not as commonly spoken. Psychologist Steven Pinker calls the idea that the Inuit have more words for snow than English the Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax. ... 

Initially, of course, we heard about the Inuit Eskimos of Greenland and how they almost never developed heart disease even though they ate large amounts of fat in the form of fish and marine animals. At first glance, that appeared paradoxical. Then came the realization that the fat consumed was a kind of polyunsaturated fatty acid termed omega-3.Think about it if the fat in coldwater fish were saturated, those fish would be as stiff and hard as a stick of butter in the refrigerator. 

Ethnic Differences. Ethnic differences are basically genetic, with different proportions of "normal" and slow metabolizers observed in different populations. However, the influence of environmental factors such as nutrition and lifestyle cannot be excluded. An early example was the phenotyping of slow and fast acetylators of isoniazid. Slow acetyla-tors (primarily caused by decreased activity of the NAT2 enzyme) exhibited a pronounced ethnic difference, e.g., 60% slow acetylators in Europe, —50% in Africa, —15% in China and Japan, and 5% in Canadian Inuit (Eskimo s) (117). It is now recognized that ethnicity and polymorphism are involved in a number of phase I and phase II enzymes, including CYP, FMO, methyltransferases, sulfotransferases, glucuronyltransferases, and acetylation. 

There are examples of societies whose violence is based on social ties and others where violent warfare is seen as a stabilizing force on the community. Even apparently peaceful groups such as the Buid or Inuit Eskimos experience some levels of violence in their close communities. 

According to linguistic anthropologists, the claim that Eskimos have a hundred (or more) words for snow is a myth. The most snow words any scholar can come up with for an Inuit or Aleut language is two dozen, no more than the number of snow-related words in English—which include such terms as frost, haU, ice, slush, and sleet. ... 

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