The Journey of Tanya Tagaq

From Throat Singer to Literary Luminary

    Tanya Tagaq takes a step off the stage to dip her toes into the waters of literary fiction. She had been an Inuk throat singer for more than 15 years before her first novel, Split Tooth, debuted in 2018. It is a daunting experience, as she describes it in an interview with Carla Gillis for Now magazine (1). An outsider to the literary world, she worries that her experimental novel will not be as well received as her experimental music had been.

    Primarily based around Tagaq's personal journals, Split Tooth is the story of an Inuk woman coming of age in the Canadian arctic of the 1970s. Described by her publisher, Penguin Random House, as magical realism, the experimental novel blends memoir with poetry, fiction, and Inuit folklore (2). The novel's summary on Tagaq's website describes Split Tooth as, "Haunting, brooding, exhilarating, and tender all at once. Tagaq moves effortlessly between fiction and memoir, myth and reality, poetry and prose, and conjures a world and a heroine readers will never forget" (3). The unnamed protagonist of the novel recollects various aspects of her adolescence, from growing up in the icy tundra, witnessing domestic violence, teen pregnancy, and experiencing various aspects of Inuit culture and religion. Interspersed between short chapters of prose are illustrations by artist Jamie Hernandez and poems that serve to further immerse the reader in Tagaq's world.

    Split Tooth has been recognized with multiple awards, acknowledging the work's unique perspective and importance to the voices of Indigenous people. In 2018 it was the winner of Alcuin Society Awards for Excellence in Book Design for Prose Fiction, as well as Apple Book's Best Canadian Audiobook Award. Tagaq reads Split Tooth herself, and you can listen to an excerpt of that audiobook here. Split Tooth was also the winner of the 2019 Indigenous Voices Award for Published Prose in English.

    "Tagaq demonstrates – in devastatingly casual asides – the destruction wreaked on her people by European violence: lives permanently damaged by residential schools, by alcoholism and drugs."

    A significant element to the novel is the narrator's relationship with nature, and how she is connected to the Land through her heritage. In her review of the novel for The Guardian, Erica Wagner remarks on this particularly powerful element of Tagaq's writing. She states, "This is a story deeply informed by an extraordinary landscape and the Inuit connection to that landscape, but it is also a story about how colonialism worked to brutally fracture that connection, and how it might be remade" (4). With this work, Tagaq aims to reconcile not only her personal history, but the history of her people and culture. The Indigenous Peoples Atlas of Canada provides an excellent overview of colonialism in Inuit territories. As outside sources began attempts to colonize the Inuit people, their connections with the land began to falter. From whalers to missionaries, many outside sources attempted to force change on Inuit culture. Tagaq's novel is a testament to the fractured Inuit connection with their land, and a symbol of their continued rebuilding.

    Another reviewer, Carleigh Baker of Quill & Quire, remarks on Tagaq's unique ability to shift seamlessly between her narrative, traditional stories, and grievous experiences for the narrator, indicating that each component correlates to the other. She describes, "This juxtaposition of the banal with the harrowing is one aspect of the theme of interconnectedness that runs throughout Split Tooth. In Tagaq's vision, life and death, tenderness and violence, everyday existence and the spectacular spirituality inherent in nature are one and the same" (5). All of this comes to fruition through the eyes of a young woman coming of age, an experience every reader can relate to in one way or another as we all attempt to grapple with our place in the world. A trailer for the novel can be found below.

    Tagaq was born and raised in Nunavut, the northernmost territory of Canada. She left home at the age of 15 to attend a residential school in Yellowknife, the only city in and capital of the northwestern territories of Canada (6). Tagaq is part of the last generation of Indigenous students to attend a residential school, a reminder that this history is still very young and those affected by it are still active members of our own society. Tagaq later went on to study at the Nova Scotia School of Art and Design, where she experienced feelings of loneliness and homesickness. In an attempt to connect with her distanced daughter, Tagaq's mother sent her tapes with recordings of traditional throat singers. Tagaq says that her own exposure to throat singing had been limited, because the practice had been outlawed for nearly a century by Christian missionaries, but it provided her with a sense of connection and sparked her now prosperous musical career (6). "'When I started,'" she tells Homa Khaleeli in an interview with The Guardian, "'it felt like I was flushing out all the pain. [...] It has taken me 40 years to have a true pride in who I am'" (7). 

"Centre stage, often in a demure ball gown, she twists and flails, sometimes the hunter, sometimes the hunted, raging and lurching and at times looking like she's giving birth or being exorcised. It's spellbinding, cathartic, largely improvised."

    Katajjaq, known in English as throat singing, is a distinct form uniquely found among the Inuit people. It was banned in the early 20th century by missionaries who had deemed the practice satanic, and was nearly extinct until a reclamation movement began in the 1980s. Traditional throat singing began as a pastime for Inuit women, a game of friendly vocal fire to keep them busy and warm while the men were out hunting. According to a BBC article on the practice's revival, "traditional throat singing involves two people, usually women, facing each other and using their throat, belly and diaphragm to expel sounds. The two participants go back and forth, matching their partner's rhythm until one goes silent or starts laughing" (8). Since then it has become a source of great pride and connection for many Inuit women.

    Tagaq has found a unique way to popularize the traditions of her culture while also bringing awareness to the issues her community still faces today. She is an outspoken activist and has used her platform to bring awareness to issues such as Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Indigenous land rights. In 2014, as she accepted the Polaris Prize for best album, Tagaq gave a captivating performance while the names of 1200 missing and murdered indigenous women scrolled on a screen behind her (9). Tagaq's full acceptance performance for the 2014 Polaris Prize can be seen below, which also gives a snapshot into what throat singing sounds like. The scrolling screen can be seen at various points to the left of Tagaq as she performs.

    This performance was largely overshadowed by controversial statements Tagaq had made that year regarding seal-hunting restrictions. In 2014, amidst online debates surrounding the ethics of seal-hunting Tagaq posted a now infamous picture of her daughter with a seal her family had hunted as part of an Indigenous activist trend called the "sealfie." While many felt this was unethical, Tagaq explains it like this: "that picture is like the photo with all the family around the turkey at Thanksgiving" (7). This comparison reminds us that being unexposed to a tradition does not equate to it being more or less valuable than any other cultural tradition.

    Seal-hunting is crucial not only to Inuit culture, but to their economy as well. The international seal-hunting ban in the 1970s had detrimental effects on Inuit communities, despite the Inuit exemption it included, because pelts were no longer considered a desirable commodity (7). Tagaq explains, "our only sustainable natural resource was taken from us. The suicide rate spiked because all of a sudden... people can't feed their families and sell the pelt to provide rent, clothing and all the things we need in this new monetary culture" (7). Regardless of where you fall on the politics of seal-hunting, it is important to listen to the voices of the people whose lives are most affected by initiatives like the seal-hunting ban.

"It's very important for people to understand how and why we got to the place we're at."

     Learning about Tagaq's life and work has been fascinating for me. I initially took interest in Split Tooth because of its description as magical realism and incorporation of Tagaq's personal journals. From there I became engrossed in her world and all that she stands for. My research has taken me on a journey through Inuit culture and history, and I feel I have only scratched the surface yet still learned so much. There has been a systematic disregard for Indigenous cultures throughout history, but I admire Tagaq for how she continuously uses her platform as a resource for awareness and a vehicle for change.

Works Cited

1. Gillis, Carla. "Tanya Tagaq steps out onto an unfamiliar stage." Now, 12 September 2018, https://nowtoronto.com/culture/tanya-tagaq-split-tooth/. Accessed 26 February 2024.

2. "Split Tooth by Tanya Tagaq." Penguin Random House Canada, https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/534654/split-tooth-by-tanya-tagaq/9780143198055. Accessed 26 February 2024.

3. "Split Tooth." Penguin Random House Canada, https://www.tanyatagaq.com/split-tooth. Accessed 26 February 2024.

4. Wagner, Erica. "Split Tooth by Tanya Tagaq review - coming of age in the High Arctic." The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/oct/12/split-tooth-by-tanya-tagaq-review-coming-of-age-in-the-high-arctic. Accessed 28 February 2024.

5. Baker, Carleigh. "Split Tooth." Quill & Quire, Viking Canada, November 2018, https://quillandquire.com/review/split-tooth/. Accessed 28 February 2024.

6. Carter, Sue. "Tanya Tagaq's first book 'breathes new life into old memories.'" Toronto Star, 21 September 2018, https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/tanya-tagaq-s-first-book-breathes-new-life-into-old-memories/article_14c4ba80-3c1d-5c85-b324-17dc8f49c5e6.html. Accessed 1 March 2024.

7. Khaleeli, Homa."Tanya Tagaq: the polar punk who makes Björk sound tame." The Guardian, 17 May 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/may/17/tanya-tagaq-interview-animism. Accessed 15 March 2024.

8. Balsam, Joel. "A revival of Indigenous throat singing." BBC, 15 April 2021,

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20210414-a-revival-of-indigenous-throat-singing. Accessed 15 March 2021.

9. Kozinn, Allan. "Tanya Tagaq Wins Canada's Polaris Prize." ArtsBeat, The New York Times, 23 September 2014, https://archive.nytimes.com/artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/23/tanya-tagaq-wins-canadas-polaris-prize/. Accessed 15 March 2021.

10. 2015. Edlis Neeson Theater, Chicago. MCAChicago,

https://mcachicago.org/Calendar/2015/09/Tanya-Tagaq-Nanook-Of-The-North. Accessed 17 March 2024.

11. Tagaq, Tanya. Split Tooth. 2018. Amazon, https://www.amazon.com/Split-Tooth-Tanya-Tagaq/dp/0670070092. Accessed 17 March 2024.