Indigenous Ways To The Present: Native Whaling In The Western Arctic (Anthropology of Pacific North America) - Softcover

Herbert Maschner (author)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0874808146 ISBN 13: 9780874808148

Publisher: University of Utah Press, 2004

Synopsis

The traditional pursuit of whales by Eskimo hunters, which continues to be practiced, is an activity in which humans interact directly with nature. To present-day urban dwellers, such association between people, animals, and the environment may seem exotic. But for the Inupiat and Yupik peoples these relationships are important, vital pursuits.

A co-publication project with the Canadian Circumpolar Institute Press of the University of Alberta, this volume traces regional native whaling practices for the past 2,000 years. Contributions center on three themes: variation in whaling practices, Yupik and Inupiat whaling traditions over time, and interactions with changing environmental conditions that include major climatic episodes as well as shorter perturbations. Emphasis is placed on the diversity of approaches to subsistence whaling. While the majority of contributions result from NSF-funded research, several other contributors are ethnographers and archaeologists who have carried out whale research in Alaska for many years. Also included are essays presenting Russian research along the western margin of the Bering Strait and the Bering and Chukchi seas.

"

About this title

Review:

"This is an important book and will have a long-term impact on the field. The papers by cultural anthropologists put whaling in the western Arctic in a social context."

"This is an important book and will have a long-term impact on the field. The papers by cultural anthropologists put whaling in the western Arctic in a social context." Herbert D. G. Maschner, series co-editor, Anthropology of Pacific North America
"

From the Back Cover:

The traditional pursuit of whales by Eskimo hunters remains an area in which humans articulate directly with natural processes. To present-day urban dwellers, such direct relations between people, wild animals, and the environment may seem exotic but they continue to be important pursuits for many I?upiat and Yupik peoples. This volume traces regional Native whaling practices from approximately 2,000 years to the present. Contributions center on three themes: variations in whaling, Yupik and I?upiat whaling traditions over time, and interactions with changing environmental conditions that include major climatic episodes as well as shorter fluctuations. Western Arctic Native whaling has never been a uniform practice. By calling attention to local, flexible adaptations, this volume distinguishes between common approaches and how societies lived in real time and space. Papers by: Allen P. McCartney and Roger K. Harritt; John C. Dixon; Roger K. Harritt; Owen K. Mason and Valerie Barber; Yvon Csonka; Lev G. Dinesman and Arkady B. Savinetsky; James M. Savelle and Allen P. McCartney; Howard W. Braham; Lyudmila S. Bogoslovskaya; John C. George, Stephen Braund, Harry Brower, Jr., Craig Nicolson, and Todd M. O'Hara; Barbara Bodenhorn; Carol Zane Jolles; Mary A. Larson; Susan W. Fair; Mark S. Cassell; and Herbert O. Anungazuk.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Utah Press
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0874808146
• ISBN 13: 9780874808148
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 442