{"title":"The Legend of Qajuuttaq: Exploring the Potential of Inuit Oral History in South Greenland","authors":"M. Sørensen, P. Knudsen","doi":"10.3368/aa.56.2.63","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3368/aa.56.2.63","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, we explore the Inuit legend of the Inuk Qajuuttaq, employing an ethnohistorical, anthropological, and archaeological approach. Qajuuttaq’s legend takes place in South Greenland in the area of Narsaq around AD 1800. Our research concerns what the local population of the Narsaq area knows about Qajuuttaq and his history in 2018. Six people with knowledge about Qajuuttaq were interviewed. We document and analyze four sites connected to Qajuuttaq using archaeological methods. We conclude that important fragmentary knowledge about Qajuuttaq’s life and history exists today but that modern Inuit emphasize a very different meaning and morality about Qajuuttaq, compared to when the legend was written down in 1867. Our main point is that Inuit family legends are very important entries into Inuit history and prehistory, especially if the legends are analyzed in relation to the landscapes where they took place.","PeriodicalId":45997,"journal":{"name":"Arctic Anthropology","volume":"56 1","pages":"63 - 83"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2019-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.3368/aa.56.2.63","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43502300","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“They Taste like Tuurngait”: Wolves and How Nunavut Elders See Them","authors":"Frédéric Laugrand","doi":"10.3368/aa.56.2.52","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3368/aa.56.2.52","url":null,"abstract":"Among the Inuit of the eastern Arctic, where hunting remains one of the foundations of society, humans have long cohabited with the wolf (amaruq). It holds a special place among animals known to the Inuit and is closely associated with the bear, the dog, and especially the wolverine. The wolf no longer arouses fear. It is merely distrusted, due to its characteristics. It is perceived as a large predator that competes directly with humans, and it is still strongly associated with the world of spirits, who can take on its form to attack humans. Thus, although the wolf no longer occupies an important place in shamanism, it still harbors spirits that humans prefer to avoid meeting. Inuit elders preserve many stories about wolves.","PeriodicalId":45997,"journal":{"name":"Arctic Anthropology","volume":"56 1","pages":"52 - 62"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2019-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.3368/aa.56.2.52","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49571277","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Paleoenvironmental Analyses from Nunalleq, Alaska Illustrate a Novel Means to Date Pre-Inuit and Inuit Archaeology","authors":"P. Ledger, Véronique Forbes","doi":"10.3368/aa.56.2.39","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3368/aa.56.2.39","url":null,"abstract":"Arctic archaeology suffers from a series of unfortunate conjunctures that make accurate and reliable dating of the prehistory of circumpolar North America problematic. Through the late-prehistoric Yup’ik site of Nunalleq, this paper explores a novel approach to dating archaeological sites in the circumpolar north. Presenting data from a peat sequence associated with the archaeological site, we examine if a combination of paleoenvironmental analyses (new insect, plant macrofossil and macroscopic charcoal data, and previously published palynological data), radiocarbon dating, and Bayesian modeling can generate high-resolution chronologies for archaeological sites. The results indicate that archaeological events are resolvable in the paleoenvironmental record and that the timing of such events illustrates a striking concordance with those derived from archaeological data. This paper highlights and recommends how paleoenvironmental analyses can be deployed towards improving the chronologies of Inuit and pre-Inuit archaeology.","PeriodicalId":45997,"journal":{"name":"Arctic Anthropology","volume":"56 1","pages":"39 - 51"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2019-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.3368/aa.56.2.39","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45588160","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Chris Cannon, Wilson Justin, Paul Herbert, C. Hubbard, Charlie Neyelle
{"title":"Northern Dene Constellations as Worldview Projections with Case Studies from the Ahtna, Gwich’in, and Sahtúot’ı̨nę","authors":"Chris Cannon, Wilson Justin, Paul Herbert, C. Hubbard, Charlie Neyelle","doi":"10.3368/aa.56.2.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3368/aa.56.2.1","url":null,"abstract":"The sky is routinely overlooked in Northern Dene ethnology as a meaningful domain of linguistic and cultural knowledge. However, a decade of comparative ethnological research in Alaska and Canada has shown that Dene stellar knowledge is largely tied to sacred and covert knowledge systems. In this paper, we describe an Ahtna, Gwich’in, and Sahtúot’ı̨nę constellation identified as the incarnated spirit of an ancient Traveler-Transformer figure who circled the world in Distant Time. Although this Traveler is widely known in mythology, his enigmatic transformation to the sky embodies a specialized domain of knowledge rooted in the traditional beliefs and practices of medicine people. This “Traveler” constellation is not only a world custodian and arche-type of an idealized medicine person, but it is also a teacher, ally, gamekeeper, and the embodiment of the world. We identify variations of this constellation throughout the Northern Dene region.","PeriodicalId":45997,"journal":{"name":"Arctic Anthropology","volume":"56 1","pages":"1 - 26"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2019-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.3368/aa.56.2.1","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46790602","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Art of Hunting: Coordinating Subsistence Laws with Alaska Native Harvesting Practices","authors":"Amber Lincoln","doi":"10.3368/aa.56.2.27","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3368/aa.56.2.27","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, I explore the socioeconomic relationships between Alaska Native harvesting practices, the laws that regulate those practices, and Alaska Native art. In the 21st century, indigenous residents of northwestern Alaska incorporate harvesting activities into their travels between small rural communities, regional centers, and larger Alaskan cities. These harvests efficiently coordinate their nutritional and cultural needs but require significant financial investments. State and federal “subsistence” laws were intended to regulate and protect Alaska Native hunting and fishing ways of life but hinder them in two ways. Subsistence laws prohibit financial gains from harvested foods and restrict hunting and fishing to specific locations. I argue that in the face of these regulatory challenges, Alaska Natives, in part, make and sell art as a way to ameliorate the disparities between subsistence laws and harvesting practices.","PeriodicalId":45997,"journal":{"name":"Arctic Anthropology","volume":"56 1","pages":"27 - 38"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2019-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.3368/aa.56.2.27","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43735673","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Finnish Planning and Housing Models Molding Skolt Culture in the 20th Century","authors":"A. Soikkeli","doi":"10.3368/aa.56.2.84","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3368/aa.56.2.84","url":null,"abstract":"Housing architecture can be regarded as both a product of culture and a medium that can influence change in a society. The relationship between identity and identification can be a source of conflict between architects, planners, and designers and those who must live with the designs. The Skolt Sámi have traditionally lived in the borderland area between Finland, Russia, and Norway. Some Skolt villages were remote from the interests of authorities until the early 20th century. They had retained their seminomadic way of life in which they changed dwelling places according to the yearly cycle. In this article, I focus on how Finnish housing ideology finally influenced Skolts’ life and culture in Suenjel Village (after resettling, called Sevettijärvi).","PeriodicalId":45997,"journal":{"name":"Arctic Anthropology","volume":"56 1","pages":"84 - 99"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2019-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.3368/aa.56.2.84","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48899957","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Marine Shielings in Medieval Norse Greenland","authors":"C. Madsen","doi":"10.3368/aa.56.1.119","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3368/aa.56.1.119","url":null,"abstract":"The Norse that settled Greenland between ca. AD 985 and 1450 were sedentary agropastoralists that combined farming with hunting and organized after a North Atlantic socioeconomic model. Research of the last 40 years has emphasized the great and increasing importance of marine resources for both the Greenland Norse local subsistence economy and long-distance trade. However, the archaeological sites and features associated with the marine economy have not been systematically investigated. This study reviews documentary records and archaeological site evidence of medieval Norse marine-resource use in Greenland on local to regional scales. Contextualizing this evidence within a locally adjusted, Arctic version of a general North Atlantic settlement and land-use model, and applying a formalized interpretational framework, the study implies the existence of at least four types of seasonally occupied, specialized satellite sites related to marine-resource use—sites that tentatively may be labeled “marine shielings.” Marine shielings likely served to improve the expediency and safety of Norse marine-resource use on both Greenland’s west and east coasts, where marine hunting appears to have been a frequent, specialized, and cooperative activity.","PeriodicalId":45997,"journal":{"name":"Arctic Anthropology","volume":"56 1","pages":"119 - 159"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.3368/aa.56.1.119","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48636982","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Late Dorset Deposits at Iita: Site Formation and Site Destruction in Northwestern Greenland","authors":"John Darwent, G. Lemoine, C. Darwent, Hans Lange","doi":"10.3368/aa.56.1.96","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3368/aa.56.1.96","url":null,"abstract":"The site of Iita (Etah) could, in many ways, serve as a poster child for climate-change-driven destruction of arctic coastal sites. Sitting on an alluvial fan at the base of a steep-sloped kame deposit on the north shore of Foulke Fjord in northwestern Greenland, the site has rich historical and late prehistoric occupations visible on its surface. However, more uniquely for the high Arctic, 1,000 years of continuous human use are locked in stratigraphically sequenced buried soils, starting with the Late Dorset, followed by the Thule-Inughuit, and topped by debris from Euroamerican expeditions. It is clear that the draw of this particular location for all these groups, directly or directly, is the results of a large, nearby dovekie colony. Unfortunately, active erosion is now undercutting these deposits, which are falling into the fjord. Based on historical photos, this destruction has accelerated since the 1940s. Here, we detail the formation of the site’s unique stratified deposits, the artifacts recovered from excavations in 2012 and 2016, and an evaluation of the remaining deposits at the site.","PeriodicalId":45997,"journal":{"name":"Arctic Anthropology","volume":"56 1","pages":"118 - 96"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.3368/aa.56.1.96","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46524070","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Christopher B. Wolff, D. Holly, John C. Erwin, T. Nomokonova, Lindsay Swinarton
{"title":"The Stock Cove Site: A Large Dorset Seal-Hunting Encampment on the Coast of Southeastern Newfoundland","authors":"Christopher B. Wolff, D. Holly, John C. Erwin, T. Nomokonova, Lindsay Swinarton","doi":"10.3368/aa.56.1.77","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3368/aa.56.1.77","url":null,"abstract":"The Stock Cove site (CkAl-3) is a large, deeply stratified, multicomponent site located in southeastern Newfoundland. The richest strata at the site, which have yielded thousands of artifacts and multiple overlapping house features, provide evidence of a substantial Dorset presence. Earlier researchers proposed that the Stock Cove site additionally contained the Province’s only Dorset longhouse, which this paper disputes. The high frequency of sea-mammal hunting implements and identified faunal remains, as well as the site’s location, all suggest that coastal and marine resources figured prominently in the Dorset’s food economy at Stock Cove. Faunal remains further suggest that the biogeography of the region when the Dorset were living at the site, particularly the distribution of migratory harp seals, may have differed significantly from historical distributions. The recovery of harp seal remains on the site has broad implications for understanding Dorset colonization and abandonment of the island, as well as the appropriateness of using historical biogeographic data to interpret prehistoric economies.","PeriodicalId":45997,"journal":{"name":"Arctic Anthropology","volume":"56 1","pages":"77 - 95"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.3368/aa.56.1.77","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43506124","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Foxes and Humans at the Late Holocene Uyak Site, Kodiak, Alaska","authors":"C. West, Reuven Yeshurun","doi":"10.3368/aa.56.1.39","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3368/aa.56.1.39","url":null,"abstract":"The red fox (Vulpes vulpes) is a generalist, omnivorous predator that is often drawn to human environments, exploiting anthropogenic refuse. Foxes may have had little or significant economic importance for prehistoric human foragers, depending on the environmental, economic, and cultural context. Here we investigate human-fox interaction at the Late Holocene Uyak site (KOD-145) on Kodiak Island, Alaska. We apply zooarchaeological, taphonomic, and stable isotope analyses to the fox remains and find that complete animals were processed for meat and pelts and then discarded. Stable isotope results support foxes as omnivores eating in both the terrestrial and marine environments, and a comparison of archaeological and modern foxes show more dietary variability in ancient foxes. Together, these data suggest that the Uyak foxes were drawn to the village as a stable source of food subsidies, eating discarded marine and terrestrial resources, and consequently were embedded in human subsistence as sources of meat and raw materials.","PeriodicalId":45997,"journal":{"name":"Arctic Anthropology","volume":" ","pages":"39 - 51"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.3368/aa.56.1.39","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46108427","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}