Product Description

The compelling and tragic story of the life of Minik, the New York Eskimo Minik, the lone survivor of six Inuit taken from their Greenland home to New York in 1897, lived a short, unhappy life. To famed Robert Peary, the Arctic explorer he was but a 'live specimen'. In New York the Eskimos were displayed to a paying public like freaks. Four of them, including Minik's father, soon died and Minik was set adrift. He found out his father's bones on display in the Natural History Museum. This makes morbidly fascinating reading. Much of the story is seen through Eskimo eyes. It's a gut-wrenching account of cultural imperialism and survival. Despite being cut off from his people, his language, and his sense of belonging, Minik never surrendered his hope of going home.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #904087 in Books
• Published on: 2001-06-11
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 296 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
At last returning to print, Give Me My Father's Body is the thought-provoking tale of Minik, a young Inuit boy brought to New York by Robert Peary around the turn of the 20th century. Told simply and interspersed with personal letters and newspaper clippings, the book examines Minik's life both as a cross-cultural meeting place and a deeply personal search for a place to call "home." Photographs throughout of Minik give a glimpse into the incredible differences between the multiple worlds he inhabited, and how impossible it must have been to live in these worlds successfully. The title derives from one of Minik's more harrowing experiences--finding his father's bones displayed in a natural-history museum as a "curiosity"--and his attempts to retrieve the bones for a more respectful burial. Author Kenn Harper, while including many facts and articles about Arctic exploration, refrains from sharing opinions about the various explorers or their methods, choosing to share this story--and his years of research--plainly. From the death of Minik's birth father to the financial ruin of his American foster family, the events of Minik's childhood seem like one disaster after another, and his adulthood--the successful return to Greenland, followed by disappointment and a subsequent return to New York--is an unhappy struggle to find some kind of personal fulfillment. Questions of racial and cultural differences make an inescapable larger framework for Minik's life, and the emotions brought forward in answering those questions make reading this book a powerful experience. --Jill Lightner

Review
"'A story that grabbed hold of me and wouldn't let go.' Kevin Spacey"

Customer Reviews

A poignant story of human disregard for other human beings
The author has written a poignant and easy to understand account of the physical and emotional joys and distresses experienced by a group of Inuit Eskimos, taken to live in USA at the turn of the last century.

The main focus of the book is upon the only survivng member of this Inuit group, who was never really able to fit into either the American or Eskimo cultures, following his experiences in New York. He seemed not to belong to either culture, forgetting his native traditions, yet not being able to adopt the seemingly insensitive and unnatural way of life of the West.

This book demonstrates the insensitivities of the Arctic explorer who was responsible for taking Minik and his group to America, and also demonstrates the insensitivities of the New Yorkers who treated these foreign visitors as mere objects with money-making potential.

The story of this book demonstrates an absolute disregard for another human being's sense of self and belonging, and serves as a reminder that this type of abuse still goes on around the world, even today, in the 21st century.

An emotional and heartfelt true story
This is a very well researched and written book about the life of Minik, an eight-year old Eskimo boy bought to New York in the early 1900's, and his lifelong quest to find out his true place and purpose in life. It tells of the death of his father in New York and the subsequent treatment of his father's remains by the very people would "stole" Minik from his homeland and the profound emotional effect this had on him. We follow Minik through his early adult years and his life in New York and subsequent return to Greenland and his fellow Eskimos. This book very much tells Minik's side of the story in great emotional detail and fact. There are not many books about Eskimos but this true story is so compelling and enlightening about their beliefs and way of life that it almost makes you want to find out first hand.

Interesting read of a boy who never fitted into a society
When I first saw the cover of the book, the expression on the face of Minik was one of sadness and bewilderness. A thought reinforced when reading the book.

The book talks primarily about the life of Minik, an Inuit eskimo who was taken to New York aged six. It is touching and highlights the insensitivity of society in the way that Minik and his family were treated. Particularly, Minik's discovery of his father's body in the Museum of Natural History.

It sad that Minik grew up without fitting into the New York society and subsequently the eskimo society upon his return years later.

The book is a good read and is well supported by interesting photography of the time