Overall Rating: ⭐⭐⭐★★
Grimness Rating: ☠☠☠☠
When I started this reading project I quickly realised that I have a big gap in my knowledge when it comes to literature about the Arctic, whether written by native peoples or not. In fact, even when I read books from Canada or Russia, this topic was not touched at all. Additionally, Inuit people living across Canada, Russia, Alaska, and Greenland may have more in common among themselves than with the mainland countries they are in.
As with many societies with strong oral tradition and lack of written documents, myths and fairy tales form the most accessible way to view their history and understand what experiences formed the people that we see today.
Inclusion of this book may be controversial for a couple of reasons. Eskimo as a word has fallen out of popularity, after becoming a derogatory term. Having said that, it was widely in use up until the 90s. This book was first published in 1921 when the term was not derogatory.
Secondly, Knud was originally Danish even though for many years he lived in Greenland villages, speaking the local language. Greenland and Denmark have a controversial history like many places that have a minority indigenous culture and colonial powers. However, he did collect a large and varied collection of oral history, by interviewing and listening to many people.
One thing that struck me while reading is how nearly every story is about food and not much else. People in the tales are either hunting seals and birds or starving and calling on spirits to provide some food. The easiest way for a man to get a wife is to be a good hunter; if he is not the wife will run away. There are man-eating cannibalistic tribes and lone people that might catch the protagonist who wandered to unknown places. Finally, a creepy golem-like creature called tupilak that can be created from animal parts to be alive for the purpose of killing an enemy. How does tupilak kill a person you ask? By eating them of course! This more than anything goes to illustrate the hardships of life in the Arctic.
The reason I am lowering the rating for this book, is because of editing of these stories (or lack of). From a Western Europe perspective, some of the stories seem to lack a point. They go for a while creating tension and setting up the scene, and then end abruptly with the narrator saying "...and this is all I know about [character name]". Or the protagonists are having a tough time running from killers/bears/magical creatures, just to remember mid-tale that they have magical powers! Well why didn't they use them before? I am quite torn about apparent lack of structured storytelling that we are so used to when reading. Should the author have edited the stories and asked questions to clarify the plot? But on the other hand, recording the stories truthfully and accurately as they are told brings even greater value in itself.
Whatever your thoughts are, the book gives a rare glimpse into the life in Greenland a hundred years ago.
Finally, the illustrations included in the original book are a treat! All made by local Inuits from Greenland and help to describe mythical creatures from the stories that would be hard to imagine otherwise.
This book is old enough to be in the public domain. Online versions exist in Project Guttenberg and other public domain sites, audiobooks are recorded by LibriVox volunteers and overall it is a very accessible read.
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