SOLVED. Adult Historical, Inuit (Aleut not Inuit how I initially thought), 13 year old girl whose tribe gets killed, wants to travel to her maternal grandpa, a chief, but ends up staying with an old man on his island. Spoilers ahead. [s]

[Lale]

I remember quite a bit so be prepared.
I was 12 when I read the book which would be around 2012/2013.
But I think the book was published way earlier, bc it was quite in bad shape. I will mention that I read it in German but I am pretty sure it was written by an English or American white man bc I remember a black and white photo of him at the back. The book was a distinctly blue. I think there was an Inuit? girl on it too. ( I am guessing here but the photo seemed to be old maybe from the 70s? maybe older). Also I think the offensive term for Inuit is used and never the word ,,Inuit".
I am also very sure the book should be from before 2002 bc we moved into our house then and the book was left by the previous owners.

Now the plot. Spoiler warning.

This girl just became a woman. (Just gotten her period) I remember her standing in line behind the women but before the girls.(It was a thing/tradition?)
Then there was a boy from her tribe who announced he wanted to marry her. ( I think the boy's name was something with the word "Robbe" which is seal in German, idk if it was a literal translation but I thought it was worth a mention)
Afterwards it was expected of the boy to give something to the family of the girl as proof he can provide for her. (The bride price was like 5 seals or sth.)
Now it gets a bit blurry but I think the girl was collecting something like berries or flowers and while she was doing that her whole tribe got killed (by a raid?). She cries and tries to bury some and eventually gets on a canoe?( a little boat). She wants to travel to her maternal grandfather who is I think a chief. But on the long way she gets starved and finally comes across an island with a little house which belongs to an old man who she ultimately calls grandpa. I think it was winter that's why she stayed with the old man so she can travel in the spring to her real grandfather. While she stays there the old man and the girl grow to care for each other deeply like grandpa and granddaughter.
After a while living there a young man arrives ( who with his people raided the girls village I think). The man wants to marry the girl but the girl doesn't want to bc he is "bad". The frail man and the girl can't overpower him and they worry if they don't agree the man will kill the man and take the girl anyway.
So they agree but condition him to pay a large brideprice to win time. But time eventually caught up to them and since the man was young and strong and skilled at hunting he provided the brideprice. Eventually they marry. The girl isn't willing but goes through with it. At the wedding night the old man is in another room crying while listening to her screams. After the man has done the deed the girl gets a knife which she had hidden beforehand and kills him.
Before spring arrives she realizes that she is pregnant.

Then we get to a different POV. It's that of a different man's. He is described as tall and slimmer ?lankier?less muscley? while the other was shorter and broad.
He has just buried his wife. He has a 3 year old daughter and a baby boy. He is traveling with what's left of his tribe. I remember one of them. She was a woman with a hawk like nose a nice laugh.
The leader wants to find new land for his tribe where they can settle down.(I don't remember what happened to the previous land and the rest of the tribe)
However the leader has another big worry. His son is dying of hunger bc his wife is dead and can't nurse him. (Apparently there was no other way to feed a baby there (no fruits and vegetables to mush)) One of his members was pregnant but still months away from birth. She tries to give him milk but it's like yellowy and not much.( They call it ghost milk) The boy weakens so much he can't even cry anymore. Not when he is cold nor when he is hungry.

While this happens the girl has given birth to a healthy baby boy. Afterwards they get a gift from nature (or from the gods) bc a whale has stranded on their island from which they extract whale oil for lamps and meat for the winter.

The tribe is on their boats starving when they finally find land. They are even more happy now bc they found a whale on the island but when they come nearer they find the whale was already claimed. Dissappointed but not discouraged the leader says to his people he will ask if they mind sharing a bit. He meets the girl and the old man and since they are only two people they thought they can't stop them even if they wanted to , so they share and are hospitable.
When the leader finds that the girl has a baby he asks her if she could try saving his son bc even if she did nurse him now it was unknown if he would survive now. But she nurses his son and he gets well. While they are sharing the whale they all are becoming friends. After a while they ask if they can stay on this island too. The grandpa allows and they start building homes.

Now for some reason the leader goes with the girl to her maternal grandfather. I remember her dancing around a fire (very stereotypical). The tribe of her grandfather was famous for whale hunting which is very hard. The leader and the girl agree to marry and the grandfather asks for a whale as brideprice which is very hard especially for someone who isn't trained to do it.
He managed to do it. They marry. And I think the last page was them about to do it (nothing explicit) but her warning him to be careful bc she's nervous by simply stating that her late husband was a bad man. He seemed to understand.

[Rainbowheart]

My first thought was the Julie of the Wolves series, but it seems a little too dark or adult to be that? I didn't read all the sequels, though.

Eskimo was not considered an offensive word a few decades ago, so that would have been the usual term for an author to use. Inuit did not become common way after my childhood, so if this book is '90s or before, that would fit the time frame.

[Capn]

There are so many...! :S

Here's a search on WorldCat for German + Eskimo + Fiction:

https://www.worldcat.org/search?q=kw%...

Agaguk has the title "Agaguk : Roman einer Eskimo-Ehe" in German

[Capn]

Peter Freuchen also comes up quite often

Farley Mowat and James A. Houston are two famous Canadian male authors (both white) who wrote on this subject as well

There's a lot to search through, if you're wanting to!
https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/...
https://www.goodreads.com/list/tag/inuit
It's a pity you can't search by date published. I think sticking to the search term "eskimo" will help, since no one used it much later than the 80s (or 90s, maybe - earlier in Canada).

[Rainbowheart]

Female author, but also bears some resemblance to Mother Earth Father Sky.

MC is Aleut, though, not Inuit.

[Capn]

Wild Like the Foxes the True Story of an Exkimo Girl - not sure about this one, but just in case

Ivalu, the Eskimo Wife - this one is allegedly about an eskimo woman who marries a white man. Not sure that fits.

[Lale]

bump

[Rainbowheart]

Lale, have you ruled out all the books mentioned so far?

[Lale]

Rainbowheart wrote: "Lale, have you ruled out all the books mentioned so far?"
yes I did.

[Stephanie]

Replacing my comment because I deleted it after realizing Rainbowheart already mentioned Mother Earth, Father Sky, and you said you'd ruled all the above books out, but I just checked it out on OpenLibrary to scan for keywords and it matches pretty much everything about the content, including a man she was going to marry named Seal Stalker, killing the abusive husband with a knife, a mention of yellow "spirit-milk" and nursing two babies, the whale (actually a carving of one) as a bride price and the ending.

[Capn]

One possible cover...

[Capn]

And another:

[Capn]

Another

"In a time before history, in a harsh and beautiful land near the top of the world, womanhood comes cruelly and suddenly to beautiful, young Chagak."

[Capn]

Lale - I can't remember if you said already, but paperback or hardback?

If none of these covers look familiar, could it be that it was a hardcover book that was missing it's paper dust jacket?

It seems all of these were translated by Charlotte Franke (another woman). https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlot... (no photo).

A very blue English edition:

[Capn]

Some other blue covers - could be they used the same cover art for the Deutsch aufgabe. :)

[Jessica]

As soon as I saw the description, I thought it was Mother Earth, Father Sky. I read it a couple of times in HS, because the culture fascinated me. There is also a sequel (possibly more), about their children.

[Lale]

Stephanie wrote: "Replacing my comment because I deleted it after realizing Rainbowheart already mentioned Mother Earth, Father Sky, and you said you'd ruled all the above books out, but I just checked it out on Ope..."

omg yes. I read the link provided by Rainbowheart but since the blurb didn't reveal much and the cover didn't match the one in my head and I somehow thought the author was male I just ruled it out, my bad. When I saw the cover in German I suddenly recognized it. I can't believe y'all found it. Thank you so much!!!

[Rainbowheart]

Awesome news, super glad that turned out to be the right one!