Traditional games test endurance, agility and strength
Dawn Ostrem
Northern News Services
Iqaluit (Feb 12/01) - What does it take to win a face-pulling contest?
"A lot of pain and endurance," said Abe Tagalik, a traditional games enthusiast from Iqaluit.
One of the more traditional of the Inuit traditional games, face-pulling consists of sitting beside your opponent with your arm outstretched.
You hook your middle finger in their mouth and your opponent does the same to you, Tagalik explained.
Then both players pull.
"If he is trying to rip out a lip, you do the same," Tagalik instructed. "It goes until one guy gives up."
Some games require strength, others agility and flexibility.
Some are symbolic of on-the-land activity as Rocky Jaworenko, recreation director for Pond Inlet, suggested of the four-man carry.
"I think the four-man carry should come back (to the Baffin Inuit Games)," he said. "It symbolizes carrying caribou."
The four-man carry is a contest of strength as four men hang off the back, front and sides of another as he lugs them as far as he can.
"We did it with three elders," Jaworenko explained about a previous event.
"They have to wrap their arms in a way that doesn't strangle you."
He wants re-introduce some of the more traditional games to the Baffin Inuit Games.
He also wants Pond Inlet to hold them in 2001 and in the spirit of "being politically correct," women and men could compete against each other.
Maybe not a bad idea for testy brothers and sisters with events like the face-pull and shoulder-punch, essentially punching one another in the shoulder until one gives in.
"I think they had one once where you actually punched a guy in the side of the head," Tagalik said.
But Jaworenko said he believes girls can handle peeling the skin off their fingers just as well as guys in the knuckle-hop. That's a contest where you hop as far as you can on just your toes and knuckles.
He said women deserve just as much recognition in the games as men do and the games deserve more recognition in general.
"I've seen it gradually decrease because all the rewards are in other sports," he said.
"I would say a lot of these games take a lot of athleticism."
The face-pull on the other hand?
"I don't think they actually settled disputes with it or anything," Tagalik said.
"It was probably just to pass the time."
