| Group: | NunatuKavummiut (People of NunatuKavut) |
| Region1: | Labrador |
| Languages: | Newfoundland English |
| Religions: | Protestant, Evangelical Christianity, Animism. |
| Related: | Inuit, Euro-Canadians |
| People: | NunatuKavummiut |
| Language: | Inuttut |
The NunatuKavummiut, also called the "people of NunatuKavut", are an Indigenous people living in central to southern Labrador, and are of mixed Inuit and European heritage.
While some members of NunatuKavut communities has used the term métis, they are unrelated Métis people, particularly the Red River Colony of Western Canada.
Nunatuĸavut or NunatuKavut means "Our ancient land" in the traditional Inuttitut dialect of central and southern Labrador. The region claimed by the NunatuKavut Community Council encompasses southern Labrador, from the Grand River (Newfoundland name: Churchill River), South to Lodge Bay and West to the extent of the official border between Quebec and Labrador. However, their proposed land use area is much more extensive.[1]
The people are ancestors of Inuit who have continuously occupied and used the Southern shore of Lake Melville and the coastal regions of Labrador South of Groswater Bay for thousands of years, long before the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador made any real foray into the area in the early 20th century.[2]
According to widely accepted theory, the Inuit arrived in Labrador in the 15th century from Baffin Island. Archeological evidence shows they lived as far south as the Sandwich Bay area,[3] and other archeological and anthropological evidence suggests with some certainty that they lived year round as far South as the modern day Southern border between Labrador and Quebec, though occupation was likely much more extensive and consistent than that as most NunatuKavummiut lived a transhumant semi-nomadic way of life until the mid-1900s.[4]
The Inuit were in conflict with the Basque and French whalers beginning in the mid-1500s.
During the 19th century, some European men, settled, took Inuit wives, and permanently assimilated into the local culture. Although influenced in many ways by prolonged contact with seasonal workers and merchants, the culture and way of life has remained distinctly Inuit.[5]
The traditional territory of NunatuKavummiut people consists of a region of Southern shore of Lake Melville and Southern Labrador that encompasses communities from Mud Lake in Southeast Lake Melville to the modern border of Labrador and Quebec.[6]
While recent leadership of Nunatsiavut and Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami continue to make racist claims against the demonstrable indigeneity of NunatuKavummiut based on the intermixing of European men,[7] many Inuit in the southern parts of Nunatsiavut are also descended from fur traders that worked in the region in the last couple of hundred years.
Like all Indigenous Nations in Newfoundland and Labrador, including Nunatsiavut, Innu Nation, and the Conne River Mi'kmaq, NunatuKavut also has a large diaspora in many other parts of Newfoundland and Labrador and across the world.
NunatuKavummiut are today represented by the NunatuKavut Community Council which was formed in 2010 from its predecessor the Labrador Métis Nation (formerly Labrador Métis Association).[8] They are members of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples along with other non-Status Aboriginal groups.[9]
The people of NunatuKavut, claim NunatuKavut as their homeland, and are in process of launching an Aboriginal land claim with the Canadian courts. They are also active in the debates over the Lower Churchill hydroelectric project, and the dam at Muskrat Falls.[10]