DCHP-3

amautik

< Inuktituk
DCHP-2 (Sep 2016)

Spelling variants:
amaut, amauti, almauti,

n. — especially Inuit

a parka traditionally worn by women with a large hood for carrying a baby (see Image 1).

Type: 1. Origin — The word is borrowed from Inuktituk into Canadian English. Amautik is most prevalent in Canada (see Chart 1). The advantage of the garment is that the child can be moved from back to front without being exposed. The hood is called amauti, the entire coat amautik or amauti. See packing parka. The late attestation of around 1980 in the Canadian press should be noted, which is remarkable for an item with a long Inuit history going back centuries (see Image 2 for a photo from about 1950).
See also COD-2, s.v. "amautik", which is marked "Cdn (North)", Gage-5, s.v. "amaut", which is marked "Cdn", and ITP Nelson, s.v. "amaut", which is marked as "Inuktitut".

Quotations

1980
On spring Saturdays, when the sun has returned and the mercury climbs to -15 or -10 you are sure to find students donning caribou-skin clothing -- women tucking babies into the amautik pouch -- loading up their qamutiks and setting off by snowmobile to practice traveling.
1986
And he sold an intricately beaded ceremonial coat, called an amautik, for $14,000.
1990
A woman carrying her baby on her back inside the amautik, the Inuit woman's traditional loose-fitting parka.
2002
It's very hard for a fashion-obsessed person like me to look at the embroidered amautik (a parka with a large hood that serves as a baby carrier) and not think greedily: [...].
2006
Sometimes only heads -- in amautik hoods -- are present, and sometimes the animals seem to be speaking to each other.
2014
It's not until we land and walk across the icy tarmac into the town's primary-yellow airport terminal that I finally spot an amauti. The traditional Inuit coat features an oversized fur-trimmed hood that not only keeps the wearer toasty when faced with the season's frigid wind but also functions as a baby carrier when a pocket is created in the back of the garment by cinching the waist with a length of rope.

References

  • Gage-5
  • ITP Nelson
  • COD-2

Images

Image 1: Woman with <i>amautik</i> and stroller, Cape Dorset, Nunavut. Source: Wikimedia Commons. Photo: Ansgar Walk. </i>

Image 1: Woman with amautik and stroller, Cape Dorset, Nunavut. Source: Wikimedia Commons. Photo: Ansgar Walk.

Image 2: Mother with baby in <i>amautik</i> (middle), 1949-50, Padlei region, Nunavut. Photo: Richard Harrington / Library and Archives Canada / PA-130005

Image 2: Mother with baby in amautik (middle), 1949-50, Padlei region, Nunavut. Photo: Richard Harrington / Library and Archives Canada / PA-130005

Chart 1: Internet Domain Search, 30 Oct. 2013

Chart 1: Internet Domain Search, 30 Oct. 2013