Prince Charles and his wife Camilla stirred up some controversy while visiting Canada last week, particularly at a stop in Iqaluit, Nunavut, on Thursday.
The pair was treated to a special throat-singing performance, known as katajjaq, by two Inuit women.
A traditional activity unique to the Inuit, throat-singing is considered a game or competition; two people (often women, who would participate in this game while men were out hunting) stand facing each other, taking turns inhaling, exhaling and singing. Whoever runs out of breath first “loses,” and often another person takes their place to continue the game.
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In some cases, one of the two people taking part will start to laugh if they can’t catch their breath or if they’re trying really hard to keep up with the other person. In the case of Charles and Camilla on Thursday, the laughter came all on its own.
As you can see in the above video, when the Inuit women start singing, the royal couple works to stifle their laughter. Charles, 68, and Camilla, 69, attempt to cover their mouths as they giggle throughout the performance.
While we can’t be 100 per cent certain what the pair was laughing about (there may have been some inside joke or something funny happening off-camera), it appears that they’re laughing about the performance.
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At the very least, Charles and Camilla didn’t follow the usual British protocol of “stiff upper lip.”
This was the 18th visit to Canada for Prince Charles, and the fourth for Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall.
(You can watch the performance and the royals’ reactions in the video, above.)
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