RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Blessings and Horrors of the Interior: Ethno-Historical Studies of Inuit Perceptions Concerning the Inland Region of West Greenland
JF Arctic Anthropology
JO Arctic Anthropol
FD University of Wisconsin Press
SP 191
OP 201
DO 10.1353/arc.0.0027
VO 46
IS 1-2
A1 Bjarne Grønnow
YR 2009
UL http://aa.uwpress.org/content/46/1-2/191.abstract
AB The yearly cycle of the marine adapted historic Inuit in western Greenland included a stay in Nunap Timaa, the Inland (or interior), where they hunted on the high plains bordering the inland ice. Families traveled far to reach the “classical” hunting grounds, where they spent a few weeks in summer camps hunting caribou and fishing for char. Summer was a great time for feasting and socializing. At the same time, however, the inland region was considered extremely dangerous: it was haunted by qivittut [human outcasts] and a great variety of “non-empirical” creatures: ghosts, inland people, giants, animal monsters, etc. These inland beings are presented in a comprehensive database on legends and tales from nineteenth century western Greenland. Inuit had contradictory feelings about the Inland and the Greenland Ice Cap, which were perceived as a dangerous transitional zone between worlds, yet these landscapes held an important position in the view of the world of historic Inuit.