Eskimo Culture Research Articles

О жизненном пути и научной деятельности Т. С. Теина

The article presents the biographical data and the main research results of Tasyan S. Tein, archaeologist, researcher of the Laboratory of History, Archeology, and Ethnography, NEISRI. He described the main stages in the development of the ancient Eskimo culture of Northern Chukotka, reconstructed the economy and culture, researched the social structure, religious beliefs, and rituals of Eskimos. Excavations on Wrangel Island made a significant contribution to the study of the Paleo-Eskimo period. T. S. Tein obtained representative and valuable materials from the most ancient settlement of sea mammal hunters. He researched the religion and shamanism of the Asiatic Eskimos, and completed detailed descriptions of the Eskimo seasonal festivals.

Результаты рекогносцировочных работ на территории архипелага Медвежьи острова в Восточно-Сибирской Арктике в 2021 году

This article presents the data on archaeological prospects of Medvezhyi Islands — a remote Arctic archipelago located in the East Siberian Sea north of the mouth of the Kolyma River. Traces of presence of ancient people have been observed there since the 18th century by polar explorers and expeditions. Some evidence was obtained by the staff of the Soviet polar station on Chetyrekhstolbovoi Island and was published by N.A. Beregovaya and V.M. Raushenbach. In 1995, the archaeologists of the Prilenskaya Archaeological Expedition led by Y.A. Mochanov worked there. In the field season of 2021, the authors of this article surveyed the easternmost Chetyrekhstolbovoi island of the archipelago as a part of works by the integrated expedition to the Medvezhyi Islands Reserve. Remains of ancient Eskimo dwellings were documented and small collection of surface materials was obtained. In total, nine dwellings were identified, six of which were in two groups three dwellings each. Dwellings No. 1-6 and 8 were partially excavated at different times. A collection of surface materials included 72 pottery fragments, 18 stone tools or their fragments, two flakes, 52 items of wood, two items of bone, one leather object, 30 leather fragments, 43 bones, three animal jaws and one claw, as well as a human hair. Faunal remains indicate hunting marine mammals, polar bears, arctic foxes, reindeer, and use of dogs in economic activities. The territory of Medvezhyi Islands is promising for studying early Eskimo cultures of marine hunters, as well as earlier Stone Age cultures.

Distribution of the arctic variant of the CPT1A gene in indigenous populations of Siberia

Population screening of the Arctic variant, which has arisen due to the G > A mutation at locus rs80356779 in the CPT1A gene, has been performed for the first time among indigenous peoples of Siberia (Chukchi, Koryaks, Evens, Evenks, Yakuts, Buryats and Altaians) and East Asia (Koreans). It is assumed that CPT1A Arctic variant originated from Eskimo ancestors, probably as a result of adaptation to a high-fat diet and/or to the extremely cold environment. It is also known that the homozygous Arctic variant is associated with hypoketotic hypoglycemia attributable to CPT1A deficiency and high infant mortality and occurs at high frequency in American Eskimo. On the other hand, the association of CPT1A Arctic variant with increased levels of HDL-cholesterol and apolipoprotein A1 in blood plasma suggests that this mutation might have a cardioprotective role. In the present study, a high frequency of CPT1A Arctic variant has been found in coastal populations of Northeast Asia – in Koryaks (66 %), Chukchi (56 %) and Evens (30 %), and singularly (at a frequency of 1 %) in Evenks of Central Siberia. Five polymorphic loci relevant to the haplotypic structure of CPT1A gene (rs2278908, rs2278907, rs2924699, rs7112615 and rs2229738) were revealed by high-throughput DNA sequencing in addition to locus rs80356779 studied here. It was found that the Arctic variant haplotype has arisen only once on the basis of the haplotype, which is widespread in modern populations of Eurasia. We assume that the expansion of Eskimo culture of the sea mammal hunting as well as Eskimo assimilation by Chukchi and Koryaks have contributed to the spread of the CPT1A Arctic variant across the populations of indigenous peoples of Northeast Asia.

Festivales y ceremonias de los esquimales de Alaska: fuentes históricas y etnográficas, 1814-1940

The main objective of this article is to shed light on the festive and ceremonial events of some of the Eskimo cultures of Alaska through a review of the ethnohistorical documents at our disposal. The study centers on the ancient societies of the Alutiiq, Yup’ik and a part of the Inupiat, communities that share a series of common features, and sees their festive and ceremonial activities as components of the strategies implemented to maintain control over social reproduction. This review of the historical and ethnographic sources identifies the authors and the studies that provide the most pertinent data on the subject.

A Preliminary Reevaluation of the Punuk-Thule Interface at Wales, Alaska

An ongoing archaeology project involving three sites at Wales and a site at nearby Tin City, focuses on the prehistoric acquisition of whaling techniques on the northwest Alaska mainland, and on relations between bearers of Birnirk, Punuk, and Thule cultures of late prehistoric times. Wales is located on the eastern shore of Bering Strait, and before the influenza pandemic of 1917-1918 it was home to 500 Inupiat residents. Preliminary results of the Wales Archaeology Project include a total of 18 new radiocarbon dates, of which five are the first to be obtained for the Beach Site (TEL-026). New dates for Kurigitavik Mound (TEL-079) and the Hillside Site (TEL-025) indicate the cultural deposits are approximately one-half the ages previously assigned by Henry Collins, and frequently used by other researchers. The new dates also indicate partial contemporaneity for the occupations of Kurigitavik and Hillside, and that Kurigitavik was abandoned at approximately the time when the Beach Site was initially settled. Other preliminary results suggest that Kurigitavik inhabitants possessed stronger connections to Asiatic Eskimo cultures than has been suggested previously.

The Dorset: An Enigma

There has been much discussion on the origin of the Dorset people and their demise. Using genetic, linguistic, archaeological, and ethnographic information, a scenario is presented suggesting that Proto-Dorset separated about 4500 B.P. from other speakers of the Arctic-Siberian Phylum to migrate to the eastern Canadian and Greenland Arctic. About 3500 B.P., they merged with other migrants to form the Pre-Dorset and, beginning around 2500 B.P., with some Proto-Algonquian people to form the Dorset. Further mixing took place with Proto-Siouan peoples about A.D. 700. Between about A.D. 1000 and 1400, population pressures from the Thule Eskimo, Algonquian, and Siouan groups forced the Dorset to migrate into isolated areas. Some, such as those who moved to eastern Greenland, the southern Hudson Bay region, and the Copper River Arctic, adopted Thule Eskimo culture and language. Others moved into the Aleutian Islands where they acquired Paleo-Aleut culture and genes but kept their own language to become the historic Aleut.

Mother–Child Interaction Among the Alaskan Eskimos

This is an exploration of the world of the Yup'ik Eskimos, who live on the Bering seacoast in rural Alaska. The Eskimos have an ancient culture that has survived the harshest of environments. Although geographically isolated, the Eskimos have become increasingly acculturated to the Western culture. The authors studied maternal-child interaction and quality of the home environment in two remote villages and report their experiences, the Yup'ik Eskimo culture, research findings, and implications for nursing practice.

Introduction

Ethnographers writing about their own cultures in Siberia have long been both fascinated by their spiritual roots and yet removed from those roots through formal Soviet education and informal socialization. The authors featured here are from the Sakha (Yakut), Tuvinian, and Eskimo cultures, and also represent different generations of scholarship. Nonetheless, they have in common a thirst for detail and a cultural insider's understanding of the reasoning behind many of the traditions they describe. Most of all, they are joined in a conception of themselves, representatives of diverse cultures, as struggling through unavoidable processes of change without total acculturation of Russian, Soviet, industrial, and "postmodern" ways. As part of their own processes of deeper cultural understanding, they have delved into the religious histories of their peoples, through interviews with elders or through systematic archival research.

Meaning in Mud: Yup'ik Eskimo Girls at Play

This study describes storyknifing as played by one group of girls in a Yup'ik Eskimo village. We describe the utensils, symbols, and stories used in this activity as well as the historical role storyknifing has played in traditional Eskimo culture. We found that despite the Westernization of the culture, storyknifing in this village continues to provide a forum for young girls to learn both cultural and cognitive knowledge.

Literacy acts and cultural artifacts: On extensions of English modals

This paper describes several distinctive strategies of qualification reflected in the compositions of Eskimo students writing in English. The authors contend that such strategies, particularly those which extend the range of English modals, pertain to obligatory pragmatic perspectives of Eskimo culture.

Exhibition of Alaskan Indian and Eskimo Cultures Coincides with AAA Meeting in Philadelphia

Exhibition of Alaskan Indian and Eskimo Cultures Coincides with AAA Meeting in Philadelphia

Profile: Knud Rasmussen, 1879–1933

Knud Johan Victor Rasmussen, who died just over 50 years ago on 21 December 1933, is known both for his Arctic exploration and for his interest in Eskimos, especially Greenlanders and their way of life.His parents, Sofie Louise Susanne Fleischer (1842–1917) and Christian Vilhelm Rasmussen (1846–1918), married in 1875 in the small West Greenland town of Ilulissat (Jacobshavn), where Christian was a missionary and head of the local teachers' training college. Sofie's family had settled in Greenland more than a hundred years earlier, and several of her kin gained high positions in the administrative service. Knud, who was born on 7 June 1879, was the first of three children. His Eskimo heritage came from his great-grandmother, who was a native of West Greenland, and an early taste of Eskimo culture passed to him from his maternal grandmother, Iteraluk (1816–99). Knud's Eskimo name was Kunnnguaq. As a boy in Greenland he grew up with his own sled and dog team, learning to drive well. Though he attended school in Denmark from the age of 12, he remembered his Eskimo training; travels with dog sleds were to become an important feature of his expeditions in later years.

Archeology of the Arctic: Thule Eskimo Culture . An Anthropological Retrospective. Proceedings of a symposium, Ottawa, May 1977. Allen P. McCartney, Ed. Archaeological Survey of Canada, National Museum of Man, Ottawa, 1979. xxii, 586 pp., illus. Paper. Archaeological Survey of Canada Paper No. 88.

Archeology of the Arctic: <i>Thule Eskimo Culture</i> . An Anthropological Retrospective. Proceedings of a symposium, Ottawa, May 1977. Allen P. McCartney, Ed. Archaeological Survey of Canada, National Museum of Man, Ottawa, 1979. xxii, 586 pp., illus. Paper. Archaeological Survey of Canada Paper No. 88.

A Whaler and Trader in the Arctic by Arthur James Allen

Reviews 177 had been published, indeed, for more than three decades after his death, London criticism had little stature above the carp and cavil, bark and snap school of thought. It has only been in recent times, from the 1950’s to the present, that important critical work has been published — a steady trickle to this day— on London’s works. It is now, after all, 63 years since London died, and Ray Ownbey’s “Essays in Criticism” is the first book of its kind. It is an auspicious beginning. DALE L. WALKER, The University of Texas at El Paso A Whaler and Trader in the Arctic. By Arthur James Allen. (Anchorage: Alaska Northwest, 1978. 213 pages, $5.95.) What Jim Allen’s autobiography, “A Whaler and Trader in the Arctic” achieves is to let the reader experience the Arctic, a region that remains distant and incomprehensible to most. Allen’s gift of writing clearly and simply creates an understandable Arctic. Jim Allen was born in San Francisco in 1875. His father, an Irish immigrant who worked as a marine engineer, tried to discourage young Jim from being a mariner, but Allen was restless with school and academics and at fifteen got a job in the engine room of a steamship. With that he began his life-long involvement with the ocean. At age nineteen both of Allen’s parents died within two months of each other. He deeply loved his mother in particular, and describes him­ self as going “plumb to hell for awhile.” One year later he was offered a job on the whaler “Jeanie” and left California for three years in the Arctic. At that time the bowhead whale had been eliminated in all but its Arctic range and whaling companies from both New England and the West Coast reached into the treacherous Arctic Ocean in the mid-1800s with expectation of large profit. In whaling terms the bowhead and related whale species are called “right” whales because they have baleen, the fibrous sieving teeth for plankton, thick blubber and a docile nature. Because of the ravenous market for baleen (used in making women’s corsets) a single bowhead could bring $10,000. To make these expensive and long voyages to the Arctic profitable, the whalers would spend several continuous years in the Arctic. In 1910 the market abruptly dropped out of sight for bowheads when spring steel was used in corsets as a substitute for baleen. By this time, the bowhead, a principal Eskimo food, was dangerously near extinction. 178 Western American Literature Instead of returning to the “outside” (a term still used in the Arctic today) Allen, in the autumn of 1897, became involved with a now famous Arctic event. His ship and two others became locked in the young ocean ice and all three crews were forced to abandon ship and walk sixty miles to Barrow. Shelter and supplies were minimal in the Eskimo village and living conditions proved to be incredibly grim. Nevertheless for Allen it was a beautiful winter, for he greatly increased his knowledge of how to live and survive in the Arctic by going on several outings with Eskimo friends. One excellent chapter concentrates on the Eskimo culture. Read this slowly, for in this chapter one sees this culture is built upon pragmatism. Archeologists now believe that it may be the oldest continuously intact culture in the world, dating back 8,000 years. It occurred to me as I read this chapter that the extreme selective forces of the Arctic have undoubtedly played a strong role in shaping these hardy, inventive and intelligent people. A Whaler and Trader in the Arctic is not a refined literary work, but Allen’s clear style builds a powerful and realistic picture of the Arctic. Like the cold rough beauty of the alpine regions, the Arctic has its enchant­ ment, and in Allen’s book the immense and incredible Arctic gets due recognition. JOHN CRAIGHEAD GEORGE, Fairbanks, Alaska Two In The Far North. By Margaret E. Murie. Illustrated by Olaus J. Murie. (Anchorage: Alaska Northwest Publishing Company, 1978. 385 pages, $6.95.) In this new edition of what the publishers deservedly call “a northern...

Paleoeskimo Occupations of the Labrador Coast

Paleoeskimo archaeology has a peculiar history in that it is best known by its more distinctive regional and chronological variants. Thus, we have had rather full reports from such edge-areas as Greenland (Knuth 1952; Larsen and Meldgaard 1958), Southampton Island (Collins 1956a, 1956b, 1957), and Newfoundland (Wintemberg 1939, 1940; Harp 1964). More recent fieldwork at Igloolik (Meldgaard 1960b, 1962), and full publication from northwestern Quebec (Taylor 1968a) and Lake Harbor (Maxwell 1973) have begun to close the information gap for the geographic core area of the Central Arctic. However, the continuing research by Taylor, McGhee, and Müller-Beck in the peripheral regions of Coronation Gulf, Banks, and Victoria Islands, by Nash and Harp in southern Hudson Bay, by McGhee on Devon Island, and by Tuck, Plumet, Fitzhugh and Linnemae in Labrador-Ungava and Newfoundland has made it even more necessary to tie these regions to developments in the demographically more stable central regions. A large number of questions, such as relationships with a fluctuating environment, population shifts, and regional interrelationships, hinge on more complete information for the Dorset core area.One area that until recently remained completely unknown was the Labrador coast (Taylor 1964a). This 800-mile stretch of coastline carries a strip of tundra environment south from Hudson Strait to Newfoundland, and its rich marine resources, including a large seasonal harp seal population, provided a suitable habitat for early Eskimo culture, as well as the only feasible migration route from the northern regions into Subarctic Newfoundland.

The Eskimo Drum Dance

The drum dance which combines the booming beat of a large tambourine drum with poetic song and dance is perhaps the most pleasurable and intense expression of Eskimo culture. This art is particularly refined among the Copper Eskimos around Coronation Gulf. ... Drum dancing used to take place mainly in winter, when the Copper Eskimos congregated for breathing-hole sealing, or whenever visitors from afar were met. A large snowhouse used to be made, performance outdoors being tabu, though not today .... Decorative festive dress was worn including at times a striped dancing cap surmounted by a loon's beak. Up to about fifty persons might crowd inside, the men forming an inner circle and the rest along the walls. If necessary, the yard-wide drum head of thin dehaired caribou skin is moistened to tighten it to give the desired rumbling resonance. The rim is a thin wood strip two to three inches wide with a handle attached to it. Large and quite heavy, the drum takes strength and practice to be wielded in one hand. Women can lower it for ease. Beating is done on the rim from below with a heavy foot-long stick, the men striking on opposite points of the hoop in alternation while women beat closer to the handle. To begin, the performer sounds a few beats as if testing the instrument, waves it up and down or taps lightly and rapidly on the skin from below. Starting the song, he beats the rim and lets the drum swivel to meet the stick. The audience joins in the singing, commonly led by the performer's spouse, freeing him to concentrate on drumming and dancing and to be transported into an exalted joyous state. With knees slightly bent the dancer moves around the small inner circle, shifting from foot to foot, sometimes hopping lightly. The music is basically in 2/4 time, and the simplest drumming is two equal beats per measure, the tempo ranging from about fifty to eighty measures per minute. A common variation is to beat strongly on the left side of the drum then stop the swing back almost soundlessly on the right. For more complexity this single beat measure may be alternated with the regular double one. Sometimes the heavy beating is suspended while the singing continues unabated. Also "rolls" might be inserted by lightly tapping the skin at four beats per measure. Occasionally the dancer whoops for joy. Carried away, he might continue for over an hour, passing from song to song with scarcely a pause. ... Copper Eskimos call a song pisik if the performer drums and alan if he only dances with abandon while the drumming is done by another or not at all .... Almost everyone has his own song, often simply new words to old tunes. Song alteration by substitution, addition, or combination of words is common, and a dance song usually strings two unrelated compositions together to last ten or fifteen minutes. A good part of the singing is done with burden syllables, e.g., ya-iya iya iya aiya iya iya ai yaa, meaningless but carrying the melody and rhythm. Short sections of words fit in for interesting verse structures. Metaphor abounds .... Most songs are about hunting, fishing, travel, or drum dancing itself, usually glorifying achievements or striking experiences. Other major subjects are shamanizing and social failings in shaman's and derision songs. Another kind, songs of the departed, are more sentimental and philosophic. Then there are non-dance songs of magical incantations for good weather, hunting success, and for invoking spirits. Drum dancing is an important focus for social life. It, together with the shamanistic seance which often accompanies it, is one of the few group activities which are not directly economic in consequence. Not only does it intensify interaction and sentiment within the local group, it helps establish relations with strangers. ... the drum dance should be first considered in its essence as the prime aesthetic manifestation of Eskimo life.

A prehistoric population change in the Bering Strait region

The Birnirk culture is important in Inupiak Eskimo prehistory because the Thule and Western Thule cultures and all recent prehistoric Eskimo cultures derive from it. Its appearance on the American side of Bering Strait has puzzled archaeologists because it is linked to the cultures of the Asian side of the strait and is not lineally related to the cultures, Norton and Ipiutak, that it replaced in Alaska. Recent excavations at Cape Nome, Alaska, have shed light on the nature of this replacement. I carried out these excavations during 1969–71 under the auspices of the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania and under the supervision of Professor Froelich Rainey. The University Museum and the Explorers Club gave financial assistance.

New Evidence concerning Polar Eskimo Isolation

Evidence provided by a nineteenth century collection of Polar Eskimo material culture suggests the possibility of contact over a longer continuous period of time with Eskimos of northeastern Canada and southwest Greenland than has previously been noted.

Annotated Bibliography: Eskimo Music

The following bibliography includes items on the music and musical traditions of the Eskimos of Greenland, the Canadian Arctic, and Alaska. Only works dealing exclusively or extensively with music-traditions and customs, melodic or textual transcriptions and analysis-are cited. To locate material on aspects of Eskimo culture which are not directly related to music, I refer the reader to these bibliographies:

Ertebøllekulturens harpuner

Ertebøllekulturens harpuner