It is sad to say that Eskimo culture, including their musical customs, is currently in a very unfortunate state. But ever since the introduction of the ultra dominant culture of the Westerners, the homogenization of Eskimo people into American culture and the eradication of their own has been an inescapable trend. It is a depressing reality now to see that much of Native Alaskan culture is somewhat made up, that in compensation for the culture that has been lost, many Native Alaskans- Eskimos being no exception- have done their best to imitate the vague memories they have from years before when their culture was a full reality. Thus, much of the music we have to work with is completely inauthentic: people hitting the skins of their drums, singing chants like what they hear on TV. Due to the lack of written records of their music (as discussed in Style Attributes) there are very little unblemished sources from which to draw conclusions, and thus very little is known in concrete about the musical customs of the Eskimo People.
Here is what is known.
Although the Eskimo concept of physical property is a bit more ambiguous than the quantitative absolutism of Western civilization, they do have a discreet sense of ownership of music. Songs performed by a tribe are considered property of their composer or importer, and recognition of him* is highly important. These songs are considered something close to material, and are often taught to others in exchange for gifts. In the beginning of a song, the owner must sing an introduction- usually consisting of vocables*- before his dance-song, as a part of his recognition. In fact, composers are said to have been considered as valuable to villages as hunters were.
Men, in Eskimo culture, had leading roles in the singing, composing, and teaching of the ritual music.
Performances of songs usually follows specific rules. When performing for the public, multiple stanzas are heard, except in the cases of the song being neutral syllables or having a single stanza, in which case the song is heard twice. If there are several stanzas, the song is usually sung first with neutral syllables, afterwards with each stanza.
Intoning is usually practiced, in which the lead singer (always a man) sings several pitches in order to find the correct key for the song about to be sung. Again, since the exact starting note is indefinite, the starting pitch will vary between performances. Since there were no pitched instruments, there was nothing to compare pitches with to assure the same starting pitch each time.