New Book from the Danish Polar Center:
Settlements, kinship and hunting grounds in traditional Greenland
By Robert Petersen
For more information see:
http://www.dpc.dk/PolarPubs/MoG/MSAbstracts/MS27Abst.html
Settlements, kinship and hunting grounds in traditional Greenland.
By Robert Petersen, Prof. emer., The Greenland University
Meddelelser om Grønland, Man & Society 27, Copenhagen 2003. 324 p.
ISSN 0106-1062. ISBN 87-90369-58-0
Export price DKK 240 (app. USD 32) plus postage
Read more about the book on the Danish Polar Center website
http://www.dpc.dk/Publications/
To order this book visit our internet shop at: http://www.polarshop.dk
From the Abstract:
Settlements, kinship and hunting grounds in traditional Greenland is a
comparative study of the geographical mobility of hunters in the
Upernavik and Ammassalik districts.
The periods dealt with are c. 1860 to 1970 for the Upernavik district
and 1894 to 1970 for the Ammassalik district. On the basis of the
experiences of local hunters themselves, the study shows how kinship and
social organization are important factors for the description of
settlement patterns. When one compares the two districts, one finds that
the strategies chosen and the results of expansion differ. Social
organization, economic solidarity and traditional rights of use are
evaluated against the background of the incest prohibition and exchanges
of knowledge.
The size of the hunting area of one local community is estimated,
allowing for increases in population and the effect of bad hunting
years, two factors crucial to the expansion of the hunting areas. The
role of pioneers in the expansion process is described.
In the final chapters, the economy of hunting communities as part of
modern Greenlandic society is studied. The economic status of the
hunting communities as supplemented by wage income seems to be
equivalent to that of the true hunting society, but is controversial as
compared with similar present-day communities. The economic situation in
the 1990s is discussed for both areas.