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Nick Jans - The Last Night Breaking

Some of the harshest taboos were directed toward women, who were considered inferior from birth.  When a girl reached puberty, she was forced to live alone for a year in a hut built by her parents. Forbidden to look upon men, she had to hide her face even from her mother.  Beatrice Mouse remembers:

When traveling up the river to a camp where a girl was in isolation, it was difficult to stay away, especially if she happened to be your best friend. On one such occasion, I brought some seal oil and berries to my friend, who was in isolation, and she burst into tears.  What a pity it was when these girls were sometimes kept hungry.

Women were also shunned during their periods, and widows were declared carriers of contagion. The most stringent taboo of all, though, was directed at pregnant women. Even in the depths of winter, a woman in labour was expected to stagger into the woods and give birth alone; no one could help her without fear of contamination. Friends might build a fire for her and lay down a caribou hide, but that was all.

After she'd had her child, she crawled to a snow shelter that had already been prepared, where she would stay for ten days, and then move to yet another hut before she could return home. If her infant was a girl, it might be cast out and left to die.

Maniilaq attacked these dictums hardest of all. He said that women were more precious than men and deserved tender care rather than cruelty, that such barbarism would be unthinkable in the future.

And though these taboos oudated Maniilaq by a generation, they slowly faded out.