A prominent awards show for Indigenous music in Canada has been plunged into turmoil after a group of Inuit performers accused a Cree folk singer of cultural appropriation.

Several well-known Inuit singers have cut ties with the Indigenous Music awards (IMA), an annual show due to held in Winnipeg on 17 May, over the nomination of Connie LeGrande, who they accuse of improperly using Inuit throat singing.

In recent years, Canada has started to grapple with the issue of cultural appropriation as Indigenous people publicly challenge white artists for the use of Indigenous iconography and stories in their own work.

The current row, however, centres on an Indigenous artist, and raises questions over cultural borrowings between separate aboriginal groups.

“This is new ground – this is not ground we’ve walked on before,” said Kelly Fraser, an Inuk singer who has withdrawn from the award show in protest, along with throat singer Tanya Tagaq and the duo Piqsiq.

LeGrande, a singer from Alberta who performs under the name Cikwes, was nominated for best folk album for her album Isko, but Inuit performers said that the work uses a specific throat-singing style with deep cultural and historical ties to the Arctic. Nearly two months of talks between between the artists failed to produce an acceptable outcome, said Fraser.

LeGrande’s biography on the IMA website describes her singing as a “style of throat singing and chanting [which] celebrates the Matriarch, with a raw powerful and sexual presence”.

LeGrande did not respond to a request for comment, but has previously dismissed claim she is appropriating another culture, telling the Edmonton Star: “What I do is not Inuit throat singing. I went on and put my own expression and my own sounds because I don’t know their sounds.”

Much of the Inuit artists’ frustration centres on what they say is LeGrande’s failure to acknowledge the history and importance of throat singing in Inuit culture.

Throat singing, or katajjaq, was originally as a traditional game played between two women or girls. Guttural vocalizations are volleyed between the partners until one person breaks the rhythm and laughs – an exchange requiring intense concentration and focus.

Other times, it was used to help put small children to sleep.

“In every sound, there’s a history and a story to it,” said Fraser. “Some songs are about the river. Some sounds are half words – or whole words – in Inuktitut.”

Tanya Tagaq and Jeffrey Zeigler perform at the Pathway to Paris Concert for Climate Action at Carnegie Hall in New York, New York on 5 November 2017. Photograph: Kevin Kane/Getty Images for UNDP

But for generations, the practice was discouraged by colonial governments in the Arctic and prohibited by Christian priests, who saw it as demonic and sexualized. It wasn’t until the 1980s that throat singing began to experience a revitalization.

“When we’re talking about artistic practice, we’re not just talking about individual expression – we’re talking about survival,” said Daniel Heath Justice, a Cherokee professor of First Nations and Indigenous studies and English at the University of British Columbia. “We’re talking about continuity in spite of traumatic, sustained and systemic multi-generational assaults on every aspect of our beings – including our artistic practice.”

Fraser concurred, saying: “When I throat sing, I feel very proud. I think of my ancestors and how they’re probably in the room, listening. And the fact that I’m still doing it, it’s a miracle.”

Tagaq, an award-winning performer who has helped bring throat singing to a wider audience, has been a prominent voice in the current debate: “If you like Inuit throat singing please hire Inuit throat singers. The sounds come from the land (nuna) of the far north and have been sung for thousands of years,” she tweeted.

Respect for different traditions shouldn’t be an impediment to cultural exchanges, said Justice. “That’s how cultures stay vibrant. But there’s a huge difference between sharing and stealing.”

A week after the dispute first erupted into public, the Indigenous Music awards announced that it would add Inuit representation to its board and would develop a policy on cultural appropriation for all entrants.

But the organization stopped short of fully addressing the concerns of Inuit performers. “We have been taught that our gifts from the Creator should be honoured and that we do not ‘own’ what is gifted to us, but that it is our responsibility to share those gifts,” the organization said in a statement.

The organization’s statement – which wrongly suggested Inuit share the same beliefs as Indigenous communities in the south of the country – did little to quell frustrations.

“It’s unfortunate that basic questions of respect have now been weaponized against [the Inuit performers],” said Justice. “Boundaries aren’t walls. Boundaries are good manners. And gifts don’t have to be stolen.”