INUVIK, N.W.T. - Their steady murmur was the soundtrack to the recently completed hearings on a proposed Mackenzie Valley natural gas pipeline, as they are to virtually any important public event in the Northwest Territories.
The presence of -- and need for -- aboriginal translators belie the too-often-held view in mainstream Canada that all First Nations are similar.
"People are different, culturally,'' said Brian Chambers, manager of the pipeline hearings, who travelled with them to communities as widely separated as Fort Liard just over the British Columbia border to Sachs Harbour in the High Arctic.
Along with French, the hearings had to be simultaneously translated into four mutually incomprehensible languages -- Gwich'In, Inuvialuktun, South Slavey and North Slavey. And that's fewer than half of the aboriginal languages spoken in the territory.
That linguistic chasm is just one example of the overall cultural diversity revealed in Statistics Canada census data on native people, released Tuesday.
Of almost 1.2 million people who identified as aboriginal across Canada, 60 per cent described themselves as North American Indian or First Nation, just over 33 per cent as Metis (of mixed European-native descent), and about four per cent as Inuit. The remainder identified with more than one of those groups.
The Metis had the greatest population jump since 1996 -- 91 per cent -- largely thanks to a spike in aboriginal pride that led to steep reporting increases. That compared to a 29 per cent increase for First Nations, and 26 per cent for the Inuit.
There are 615 First Nations and 10 distinct language families. Among all aboriginal groups, there are nearly 60 languages spoken.
And while almost half of Canada's youthful native population is aged 24 or under, Nunavut is especially young. The median age for the Inuit of Nunavut was 20 in 2006, compared to 37 for non-aboriginal residents.
Other distinctions abound.
In fact, pre-contact North America was just as culturally diverse as modern-day Europe, says Peter Kulchyski, professor of native studies at the University of Manitoba.
"It's easily as complicated,'' he said. "To a certain extent, the level of differences on the cultural level are probably greater.''
Western cultures tend to have some common historical roots; aboriginal cultures arose independently of each other.
European languages such as French or English derive from Latin or another ancient tongue. Cree, however, is as different from Mohawk as English is from Japanese.
Regional variation adds to the tapestry. Students of Inuvialuktun, spoken by the Inuvialuit of the Mackenzie Delta and western Arctic, learn that words and pronunciations are sometimes quite different in Inuvik than in Tuktoyaktuk, less than 150 kilometres north.
That diversity carries through to cultural practices.
In traditional west coast aboriginal culture, one of the ways kinship ties are established and disputes are resolved is through potlatches, in which one person gives away wealth as gifts to other members of the band.
For the Inuit, such ties are established by names: a baby given the name of a deceased friend or relative is considered to assume some part of the namesake's identity.
Spiritual practices also differ -- although some have spread far beyond their originating First Nation.
"Sweatlodge culture spread through many different aboriginal cultures that might not have had such an attachment to those cultural forms,'' said Kulchyski.
Still, aboriginal cultures do have similarities. They tend to be egalitarian, Kulchyski said, and downplay the importance of private property.
Governments have too often ignored the real differences between First Nations to treat them all the same, he added.
"We assumed a unified identity and then imposed a unified colonial regime,'' he said. "You have right now, in some cases, a band election model that is very culturally inappropriate.''
That has led to problems, such as factions within bands and confusion as to who has real authority.
But that is starting to change as different aboriginal groups work out individual versions of self-government.
"People want a self-government arrangement that respects their particular culturally inflected decision-making form,'' he said.
"People are trying to draw on the particularities of their different cultures in order to form a modern decision-making process. In the colonial era, we tried to operate on the one-size-fits-all model.''
