1
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 An interdisciplinary approach to documenting knowledge: plants & their uses in
22 southern Greenland
23 24 Simone S. Whitecloud and Lenore A. Grenoble 25 26 27 28 29 Simone S. Whitecloud 30 Ecology and Evolutionary Biology 31 Department of Biology 32 Dartmouth College 33 Hanover, NH 03755 USA 34 [email protected] 35 36 Lenore A. Grenoble 37 Department of Linguistics 38 University of Chicago 39 1130 East 59th Street 40 Chicago, IL 60637 USA 41 [email protected] 2
42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 An interdisciplinary approach to documenting knowledge: plants & their uses in
63 southern Greenland
64 65 66 67 68 69 3
69 70 Abstract 71
72 The native language of west Greenland, Kalaallisut, is robust with over 50,000 speakers
73 among approximately 56,000 inhabitants. However, many people in Nuuk, the capital and
74 largest city, believe traditional knowledge of plant uses has been lost due to extensive
75 Danish contact. Our findings indicate that in southern Greenland local knowledge of plant
76 uses is greater than believed, and that people use a vast number of resources to learn about
77 plants, including not only Inuit knowledge from elders, but also published European
78 sources and experimentation. We take an interdisciplinary approach to documenting this
79 knowledge: the biologist provides understanding of botanical identification, plant uses,
80 methods of collection, preparation, and storage, while the linguist provides access to the
81 linguistic identification of the plants, both in Greenland and in a pan-Inuit context, and
82 access to the historical documentation. This collaborative effort allows us to document the
83 revitalization of knowledge, passed down through oral tradition and borrowed from
84 Danish printed sources. Here we discuss our work collecting the knowledge (linguistic,
85 scientific and local) about plants in southern Greenland, and test the likelihood of this
86 knowledge reflecting the migration route of Inuit ancestors across the Arctic about 1100
87 years ago. Some plant names and uses have remained consistent across the migration
88 route, while others have been lost or changed over time.
89
90 Keywords: Greenland, Arctic, ethnobotany, linguistics, language, Inuit, local knowledge, plants
91
92 4
93
94 Аннотация:
95 Население Гренландии по данным на июль 2010 года составляет 57 600 человек. Коренное
96 население — гренландские инуиты -- составляют около 90 % целого. Остальные 10 % —
97 это в основном датчане и другие европейцы. Подавляющее большинство населения
98 владеет своим этническим языком, который по-русски называется гренландским или
99 эскимосским (Kalaallisut на местном языке, ISO 639-3 kal).
100 Часто предполагается, что сохранение традиционного образа жизни, включая и
101 традиционные знания, тесно связано с употреблением языка, и что потеря языка ведет к
102 потере культуры и знаний. В случае Гренландии ситуация выглядит по другому: язык
103 здесь сохранился хорошо, но традиционное знание лечебных и кулинарных растений
104 практически забыто из-за долгото контакта с датской культурой.
105 В настоящей статье мы предлагаем междисциплинарный подход к документированию
106 традционных знаний и их реконструкции. В основе нашего подхода лежит принцип
107 совместной работы биолога и лингвиста: биолог разбирается в биологической
108 классификации растений и изучает местные методы их собирания, подготовки и
109 сохранения, между тем как лингвист обеспечивает доступ к языковой номенклатуре и
110 классификации растений, и в синхронном, и в диахронном аспекте, как в Гренландии, так
111 и в более широком контексте инуитов. Наша совместная работа позволяет
112 документировать процессы восстановления этих так называемых традиционных знаний,
113 которые с одной стороны устно передаются из поколения в поколение, а с другой стороны
114 заимствуются из датских печатных источников. 5
115 Наша статья также выдвигает гипотезу, что названия растений отражают пути миграции
116 предков инуитов в Арктике около 1100 лет назад. Наши исследования доказывают, что
117 местные знания более устойчивы, чем предполагалось, и в настоящее время используют
118 большое количество источников, включая не только знания инуитских старейшин в
119 Гренландии, но также и европейские публикации о лекарственных и съедобных
120 растениях. Хотя многие названия таких растений изменились до неузнаваeмости или
121 совсем исчезли, некоторые из них не изменились в течение тысячелетий.
122 ключевые слова: Грeнландия, Аркитка, этноботаника, языкознание, язык, инуит,
123 растения, местное знание, традиционные знания
124 6
124 Introduction
125 The Thule people followed bowhead whales along the receding sea ice margin east
126 from Alaska approximately 1100 years ago (Fitzhugh, 2002), peopling northern Canada
127 and Greenland. This migration is evidenced by the Inuit group of the Inuit-Yupik-Aleut
128 linguistic family, with Inuit varieties spoken from Alaska (e.g. Iñupiaq) across Canada (e.g.
129 Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun) to Greenland. Due to the circumpolar ranges of most arctic
130 species and the paucity of arctic flora (approximately 1500 vascular plant species; Walker,
131 1995), plants encountered along this route were mostly identical, making it possible that
132 both language concerning plants and knowledge of their uses was transported along the
133 migration route.
134 Presently, cultural knowledge that originally made this migration possible is still
135 strong along this migration route, but language vitality has declined dramatically in Alaska
136 and parts of Canada. Local language is relegated to certain key domains. In such
137 circumstances, its use is often associated with a traditional (usually subsistence) lifestyle,
138 traditional culture and knowledge. Unlike many other indigenous languages, Kalaallisut
139 (West Greenlandic), the official language of Greenland, enjoys a long-standing written
140 tradition and has a large number of written resources, not only reference grammars and
141 dictionaries, but there is a primary written literature in Kalaallisut. The population reads it
142 and speaks it fluently. However, after four hundred years of colonization by Denmark,
143 much traditional knowledge has been lost and Greenlanders are strongly invested in
144 modernization and attaining self-sufficiency. The recent transition to a Self-Rule
145 Government (in June 2009) provides greater autonomy for the former Danish colony and
146 the changing climate is exposing new mineral and gas reserves that could possibly make 7
147 Greenland financially independent from Denmark. While Danish presence has strongly
148 influenced many facets of Greenlandic culture, language remains strong and Greenlanders
149 still maintain a portion of their diet through traditional subsistence hunting, although
150 subsistence meats are also sold in grocery stores and specialty markets.
151 In traditional Inuit diets, meat was the primary source of nutrition, with plants
152 constituting only 5% of the diet of Inuit in the Bering Sea area (Weyer, 1932 in Porsild,
153 1953), often as sources of vitamin C during winter (Porsild, 1953). This, coupled with the
154 long Danish presence and access to produce and supplements, implied that traditional
155 knowledge of plants in Greenland was no longer necessary. Our first queries into plant uses
156 in the summer of 2009 supported this supposition: most responses were that Greenlanders
157 no longer use wild plants, that such practices were traditional and now Greenlanders are
158 modern. However, through connections with the Greenland Language Secretariat, the Inuit
159 Circumpolar Council, and KNAPK (the Hunters and Fishers Association), we were able to
160 identify a handful of people who maintained knowledge of plants.
161 Our research shows that there is knowledge of wild plants for consumption,
162 medicine, and other uses in southern Greenland, and that it is possible to infer knowledge
163 transmittance across the original migration route of the Thule people. Moreover, we find
164 that knowledge of the Kalaallisut common names of these plants is robust, underscoring
165 not only the vitality of the language but also of plant knowledge among practitioners. We
166 also discuss the influence of Danish presence and European herbalism on local knowledge.
167
168 Background: Kalaallisut 8
169 The social, political, and economic status of Kalaallisut differs significantly from
170 other Arctic Indigenous languages. The official variety is a codified language based on West
171 Greenlandic dialects. Standardization, including the creation of new lexical items, is the
172 purview of the Greenland Language Secretariat (Oqaasileriffik), which is a part of the
173 Greenland Government. As the official language, it is used in education, government, and all
174 domains of life. It is the majority language in Greenland. Although many speak Danish, the
175 colonizing language, fluently, it is a second language for the majority of the population;
176 88% claim Kalaallisut as their first language (Statistics Greenland 2010). Higher education,
177 however, continues to be in Danish, although since the institution of Self Government rule
178 in 2009, increased emphasis in the development of higher education materials in
179 Kalaallisut has become a priority. In addition, certain domains are inevitably dominated by
180 Danish. For example, television broadcasts are primarily in Danish, although KNR (the
181 Greenlandic Broadcasting Program, Kalaallit Nunaata Radioa, literally ‘Greenland Radio’)
182 broadcasts both television and radio programs in Kalaallisut. Such programming
183 constitutes from 12 to 18 percent of total programming, and reflects a strong commitment
184 of Nalakkersuisut (the Greenland Self-Government) to broadcasting in Kalaallisut.
185 Imported goods come primarily from Denmark in Danish packaging. English is infiltrating
186 Greenland as elsewhere, and is seen as the key global language. There have also been
187 increased efforts in establishing English as a third language for at least a segment of the
188 population. Still, Kalaallisut is the primary and preferred language for the overwhelming
189 majority.
190 In the context of Greenland, standardization means that although there are dialect
191 variants for some of the common names for plants, there are normative names as well. An 9
192 analogous situation is found with some common names in American English. For example,
193 dandelion has a number of regional variants (e.g. dandylion) but dandelion is the
194 standardized spelling. Commonly known plants in Greenland similarly have standardized
195 spellings approved by the Greenland Language Secretariat in both a field guide to the flora
196 and a dictionary. Again, this is one area where Kalaallisut differs from other Arctic
197 Indigenous languages, in terms of the legal authority of the Greenland Language
198 Secretariat.
199 Our fieldwork was conducted in two towns in southern Greenland, a different
200 dialect region than that of the West Greenlandic dialects on which the standard is based. At
201 times our consultants provided local (dialect) forms of the plant names. A full analysis of
202 dialect variation in these names is beyond the scope of the present paper.
203
204 Study Area and Communities
205 In the August of 2011 we interviewed residents of two communities in southern
206 Greenland. We spent 5 days in Qassiarsuk (61°09′00″N 45°31′00″W), a sheep farming
207 settlement of 60 people accessible only by boat, and 4 days in Nanortalik (60°08′24″N
208 045°13′54″W), a town of 1500 with a helipad (Fig. 1). All participants were informed about
209 the purpose of our study and gave verbal consent to be interviewed. We used a local
210 translator during interviews and to translate recordings of interviews conducted without a
211 translator. Participants were identified by asking locals if they knew about plants, and if
212 not, knew someone who did. All consultants except one were identified as knowledgeable
213 by multiple parties. Consultants were divided into two categories. The first includes
214 consultants with whom we conducted detailed semi-structured and open-ended 10
215 interviews. The remaining consultants were interviewed informally, or were documented
216 using particular plants in their daily lives. In Qassiarsuk we interviewed 3 women in detail,
217 and two women informally, and one woman was documented as using plants in a funeral
218 wreath. In Nanortalik we interviewed two women and jointly interviewed one married
219 couple. It is interesting to note that it was only the wife who was known within the
220 community as having plant knowledge, but husband and wife appeared to share in the
221 knowledge of uses and identification, and each had their own connections with certain
222 plants from childhood. All participants were adult, one was an elder and matriarch of her
223 settlement.
224
225 Methods
226 Detailed interviews consisted of two parts. Participants were shown pictures and/or
227 fresh or dried samples of plants and asked if they knew the plant and if there was a use for
228 it. Often consultants harvested fresh specimens in preparation for our interview. All
229 consultants showed us materials dried for personal use. For the second part of the
230 interview to document differences in dialects and elicit information about uses,
231 participants were recorded stating plant names while watching a slide show of 54 images
232 on an Apple iPad. Forty-four images were plants, 10 were seaweeds. (See Table 1 for a
233 complete list of these plants.) For plants we chose what we perceived to be the most
234 common species and those that are well known for plant uses either in the Arctic or in
235 Europe. The seaweeds were those we found while walking along the fjord in Qassiarsuk.
236 We did not collect voucher specimen due to the simplicity of the flora (495 vascular species 11
237 for the entire country (Rune, 2011)) and to avoid permit violations. Photographs came
238 from the current or previous trips to Greenland.
239 Informal interviews occurred throughout our trip. Any instance of plant use was
240 documented. These ranged from consultants identifying plants and uses while driving or
241 hiking, to observations of uses made during daily life, such as funeral wreath preparation
242 or dried household decorations.
243 Because we are interested in documenting each instance of plant knowledge, we
244 define use as knowledge of one consultant about one method of preparing and using a
245 plant. In an instance of preparations for different parts of the same species, each
246 preparation is counted as a separate use. Identical uses by different participants were
247 counted separately.
248
249 Results
250 Knowledge varies from merely knowing who is knowledgeable about plants within
251 the community to extensive knowledge about collection, preparation, storage and use of
252 plants. No one admitted to knowing about plants; those who were identified by others as
253 knowledgeable did not claim to be experts. Three consultants did admit to a great love for
254 and/or excitement about plants.
255 Over fifty taxa were acknowledged by the consultants (Table 2); of these, thirty-
256 eight vascular plants, bryophytes, fungi, lichens, and seaweeds were identified to species;
257 the remainder was identified to genus if possible. We documented 205 uses of plants,
258 divided into 7 categories: beverage, material culture, food, medicine, fuel, spice or
259 condiment, and ritual (Table 2). Beverages include mostly teas and three instances of 12
260 fermented drink. The material culture category includes funeral wreaths and decorative
261 bouquets of dried and fresh materials, including fabrication of Christmas trees from
262 Juniperus communis. Medicines are topical and internal. Fuel includes material for fire and
263 candlewicks. Spices are those plants used during cooking; condiments are those that are
264 added to food once cooked. Ritual describes uses connected with spiritual practices, in this
265 case to cleanse the home of bad energy or ghosts.
266 The majority of uses were as medicine (~27%), beverages (~22%), food (~20%),
267 and material culture (~13%). Food and beverage were the only two categories in which
268 every consultant for the semi-structured interviews had knowledge. Medicinal knowledge
269 was held by only three consultants, however other consultants used species with medicinal
270 properties in teas and did not mention medicinal properties. All material culture uses (27)
271 were decorative: dried flowers hung in the homes of several consultants; the exception was
272 one commercially produced perfume from Thymus praecox that was on display in the
273 Nanortalik museum. We are unsure if this product remains on the market. Food plants
274 were often raw berries or jellies made from fruits or flowers. Often plants were mentioned
275 as being edible, but were not necessarily consumed by the consultant. This was particularly
276 true for mushrooms and seaweeds.
277 Forty-three percent of species had only one known use, 35% had 2-5 uses; the
278 remaining species ranged from 6-21 uses, with Angelica archangelica having the greatest
279 number of uses.
280
281 Sources of knowledge 13
282 Knowledge varied in how it was acquired. Most consultants reported having gained
283 their knowledge as children from elders and also from books. One participant, who was not
284 recognized within the community as knowledgeable, reported that she invented new uses
285 for plants, often using them in teas. Consultant 5, whose knowledge came from interviews
286 she conducted at a nursing home, knew the highest number of uses (32%), and had the
287 largest number of medicinal uses for plants (35 of 42 reported). The married couple had
288 both books and knowledge handed down from relatives on both the husband’s and wife’s
289 side. They were second in the amount of uses they knew (23%), and were also the only
290 consultants with knowledge of ritual use of plants and the only consultants to report a
291 shaman family member. They were one of two consultants aware of contraindications of
292 plants, and the only consultants to know of several. Another consultant reported an
293 awareness of use of a plant (Rhodiola rosea) by her ancestors, but was unaware of how it
294 was used.
295 One group of consultants had access to an unpublished manuscript in Danish. We
296 were given a copy in the summer of 2010 by an employee of the National Museum, who
297 informed us that it was compiled by a Danish woman in the 1980s whose wish it was that it
298 be disseminated to share her love of plants with the people of Greenland. The manuscript is
299 a scrapbook covering approximately 100 species of plants, seaweeds, mosses, and fungi,
300 with illustrations and text from the only Greenlandic/Danish field guide available at the
301 time, Nunatta naasui (Foersom et al., 1997), as well as personal notes, photographs,
302 recipes, and newspaper clippings. It also contains handwritten notes, many of which are
303 Greenlandic names different than those from the names published in Nunatta naasui, which
304 were approved by the language secretariat of Greenland. Unfortunately there are no notes 14
305 regarding from which dialects or regions the names come. One of our consultants is the
306 granddaughter of the author and had a copy given to her by the author, as well as a copy
307 Nunatta naasui with the author’s handwritten notes in the margins. While she was the
308 keeper of the manuscript within her community, she deferred to another consultant who
309 had memories of plant uses from childhood and whose interest in harvesting wild plants
310 had been rekindled after taking a class from Anna Sofie Hardenberg, culinary ambassador
311 to Greenland, and also a possessor of the unpublished manuscript.
312 Most of the text is in Danish; from this we gather that the uses are not traditional to
313 Greenland. One example supporting this hypothesis is Euphrasia frigida, a small herb
314 known commonly in Western herbal practices as ‘eyebright.’ While available as a
315 supplement or tincture online, no consultant recognized the dried specimen or
316 photographs of the plant. However, the consultant who interviewed elders did have notes
317 regarding uses for eye inflammation. It is possible that this was knowledge shared from
318 Europe that has now been nearly lost. Supporting this hypothesis is the etymology of the
319 Kalallisut name for the plant (see below). Other references (Jones, 1983, Ziegler et al.,
320 2009) on Inuit uses do not mention this plant.
321
322 Naming strategies
323 Kalaallisut is robustly spoken throughout Greenland, across all generations and is
324 the majority language for the population. Therefore it is not surprising that all consultants
325 were able to name and discuss plants in Kalaallisut. All Kalaallisut plant names in the field
326 guide Nunatta naasui (Foersom et al., 1997) were approved by the Greenland Language
327 Secretariat; therefore we consider this to be the authoritative resource for Greenlandic 15
328 plant names. Some plant names are given in Oqaatsit (Berthelsen et al., 2006) the
329 Kalaallisut-Danish dictionary, also approved by the Greenland Language Secretariat. There
330 are some differences in plant names between these two works, which we note here.
331 Consultants identified the majority of plants, with some differences in naming
332 strategies. Only one plant was not known to any of the speakers we interviewed: eye bright,
333 (Euphrasia frigida) which is used in Europe. Foersom et al. (1997:54) provide the
334 Kalaallisut name isiginnaq, but none of the speakers we met suggested either this name, or
335 the Danish Arktisk øjentrøst. The Kalaallisut name isiginnaq comes from the root isi ‘eye’
336 and the suffix –ginnaq ‘only’, ‘just’ or ‘pure’, as in ‘pure eye’, which reflects the European
337 use of this plant for curing eye ailments such as conjunctivitis and eye strain.
338 Of over 50 plants we asked consultants to identify during detailed interviews, only
339 12 were identified by all participants. Significantly, all have food and/or medicinal uses.
340 These twelve plants are:
341
Campanula rotundifolia tikiusaaq/tikiisaaq ‘bluebell’
Vaccinium uliginosum kigutaarnaq/-t ‘blueberry’
Empetrum nigrum paarnaq/-t ‘crowberry’
Betula nana avalaaqiaq ‘dwarf birch’
Vaccinium vitis-idaea kimmernaq/-t ‘lingonberry’, ‘cowberry’
Taraxacum sp. inneruulaq ‘dandelion’
Rhodiola rosea tullerunnaq ‘rose root’
Angelica archangelica kuanneq/-t ‘angelica’ 16
Thymus praecox tupaarnaq (1 timian) ‘thyme’
Rhodendron groenlandicum qajaasaq ‘Labrador tea’
Sorbus groenlandica napaartoq ‘Greenland mountain ash’ Eriophorum scheuchzeri* ukaliusaq ‘white cottongrass’
342 * 1 This is the only species given in Foersom et al. (1997:31). A new English-Danish field guide that includes 343 Kalallisut names lists several other species, none of which have Kalallisut names (Rune 2011). We are uncertain 344 if ukaliusaq would be used for these other species. 345 The names given here are provided in standardized Kalaallisut spelling (from Foersom et
346 al., 1997), ignoring some differences in pronunciation which we recorded in our fieldwork.
347 (Most notably, C. rotundifolia tikiusaq [tʃikiusa:q] was regularly given as tikiisaq [tʃikiːsaq],
348 a variant showing progressive assimilation of the vowel [u] to the preceding [i].) As
349 represented in Table 3, for some plants some speakers gave the citation form (in absolutive
350 case) in the singular, and some in the plural (e.g. Vaccinium uliginosum kigutaarnaq ABS-SG
351 vs. kigtarnaat ABS-PL), although all viewed the same photographs. The choice appears to be
352 dependent upon an individual decision to individualize one berry or plant, or to collectivize
353 the whole, although further research is needed. All speakers questioned identified each of
354 these plants, although one speaker gave the Danish, not the Kalaallisut, name for Thymus
355 praecox (timian). Another thyme species, Thymus vulgaris, the common culinary herb, is
356 sold in stores in Greenland as a spice from Denmark, which may account for why the
357 speaker more readily knew the Danish. This also corresponds to our general sense that
358 Greenlanders in the south have just recently begun to learn about their native plants; they
359 are more likely to purchase commercial, imported thyme than to pick it wild. This also
360 corresponds to information from Anne Sofie Hardenberg, who has made a concerted effort
361 to raise public awareness of the availability and value of native plants. See, for example, an 17
362 online interview with Hardenberg (n.d.) in which she declares: “Our meat is the best in the
363 world, and the herbs too.”
364 Other plants for which speakers provided the Danish name are: Rhododendrum
365 lapponicum, Plantago maritima, Rhodiola rosea and two different seaweeds, Ascophyllum
366 nodosum and Fucus vesiculosus. One person provided the Danish alperose for
367 Rhododendrum lapponicum as opposed to the Kalaallisut oqaasaq. No Kalaallisut name is
368 provided for Achillea millefolium in Foersom et al. (1997), although one consultant gave the
369 Kalaallisut inneruulaq (Taraxacum). The lack of a common name is arguably due to the
370 introduction of the plant by the Norse about 1000 years ago (Schofield et al. 2012),
371 although this is more than ample time for a term to develop in the spoken language. It was
372 also possibly introduced by Danes due to its important role in European folk medicine (the
373 generic name refers to its use by Achilles on the battlefield). Interestingly, we documented
374 several medicinal uses from the consultant who interviewed nursing home residents, so
375 the plant was known for its uses among elders but only by the Danish name røllike.
376 The use of Danish names is striking, given that all consultants speak Kalaallisut as
377 their preferred language, and interviews were conducted either entirely in Kalaallisut (with
378 an interpreter) or in a mixture of English and Kalaallisut. We (the authors) do not speak
379 Danish and thus did not use the language in elicitation or conversation. In assessing our
380 consultants’ knowledge of plants and their uses, we are also interested in determining the
381 source(s) of their knowledge. The language they use to name the plants is directly relevant.
382 Unlike other Arctic Indigenous communities that are characterized by language shift,
383 Greenlanders know their ancestral language. If they learned about plants from their elders,
384 it is highly likely that they acquired the knowledge through Kalaallisut. Only a few of our 18
385 consultants acquired knowledge from elders, however. Others were self-taught (sometimes
386 through trial-and-error); others learned from published sources, particularly in Danish;
387 others from one another, i.e., across the same generation. Many combined a variety of
388 sources of knowledge to educate themselves. They are primarily interested in knowing
389 how to use plants, and less concerned with “traditional” or “ancestral” methods than with
390 simply knowing what the plants can provide. (See also Grenoble and Whitecloud
391 (forthcoming) for more detailed discussion on sources of knowledge and ideologies about
392 local knowledge.) Thus, when speakers provide a name in Danish, it suggests that either
393 they encounter the plant in a Danish-dominant context (as in the case of thyme) or that
394 they acquired the information via Danish sources. Several of our consultants had Danish
395 guidebooks, both field guides and texts with uses of plants, in their homes and consulted
396 them while answering our questions.
397
398 Language and uses across the Arctic
399 A preliminary investigation of the literature comparing plant names and uses across the
400 North American Arctic along the migration route of the Thule are inconclusive. Certain
401 plant names and uses vary among Inuit from Alaska to Greenland, while others are
402 consistent. A comparison of uses beyond those of the Inuit (e.g. compared with Yup’ik) also
403 yields differences from Greenlandic uses (e.g. Oswalt (1957), Andrews (1989) Griffin
404 (2001)) but is beyond the scope of this paper. In southern Greenland we recorded that
405 Eriophorum species were used decoratively or as an abortive, while in Nunavut, Canada an
406 elder describes many uses for Eriophorum species such as umbilical stump care and lamp
407 wicks (Ziegler et al., 2009). Bandringa and Inuvialuit elders (2010) of northwest Canada 19
408 recorded use of Eriophorum seed heads in amulets for promoting longevity, tinder and
409 lamp wicks , and the leaves in mattresses or woven mats and as absorptive rags or diaper
410 linings. Alaskan Inuit were documented as eating the underground stems, either by
411 collecting them or harvesting them from caches made by tundra mice (Heller 1953;
412 Anderson et al., 1977; Jones 1983). We did not document harvesting from animal caches in
413 Greenland, which may have to do with the availability of plants: Hedysarum alpinum is
414 commonly gathered from caches but does not grow in Greenland. However, Eriophorum
415 species are abundant across the Arctic, including in Greenland. It is possible that such
416 cache-harvesting began after the Thule migration, which is supported by differences in
417 language. The Iñupiaq word for H. alpinum is masru, but it is called nivi when taken from a
418 mouse cache, while nivi in Kalaallisut means ‘girl’.
419 Greenlanders are not opposed to using plants gathered by other animals. We did
420 document several households that used birch catkins (Betula sp.) collected in the crop
421 contents of Ptarmigan (Lagopus mutus) as a spice for lamb and caribou. The crops were
422 tied closed with bows and hung as decorations in kitchens and living rooms. One consultant
423 recalled that adults relished the fermented stomach contents of caribou (Rangifer
424 tarandus), at times mixed with the raw liver. She did not think this was a practice that was
425 continued today. Binford (1978) documented the Nunamiut of Alaska also eating caribou
426 stomach contents.
427 Some of the most commonly used plants vary in name across the Arctic. Consider
428 the common names for Labrador tea (Rhododendron groenlandicum) and closely related R.
429 tomentosum:
430 20
431 Rhododendron groenlandicum
432 Greenland Kalaallisut qajaasaq (Foersom et al. 1997)
433 Canada Inuvialuktun nittiirnat (Bandringa and Inuvialut Elders 2010)
434 Canada Inuktitut qijuktaaqpait (Ziegler et al. 2009)
435 Alaska Iñupiaq tilaaqqiuq (Anderson et al. 1977)
436
437
438 Rhododendron tomentosum
439 Greenland Kalaallisut qajaasaaraq (Foersom et al. 1997: 76)
440 Alaska Iñupiaq tilaaqqiuq (Anderson et al. 1977:285; Jones 1983)
441 Canada Inuvialuktun nittiirnat Bandringa and Inuvialut Elders 2010)
442 Canada Inuktitut qijuktaaqpait (Ziegler et al. 2009: 16, 78)
443
444 Kalaallisut qajaasaq is a word derived from the noun qajaq ‘kayak’ and a suffix –usaq ‘like,
445 resembles’, so that the name literally translates to ‘like a kayak’, a reference to the shape of
446 the leaf. The Kalaallisut name for R. tomentosum is further derived from this name: the
447 suffix –araq ‘small, little’ is added, to literally mean something like ‘like a little kayak’. This
448 corresponds to real-world differences: qajaasaq refers to the large-leafed species, and
449 qajaasaaraq to the smaller- or narrow-leafed species. The same name for both species is
450 used in Iñupiaq, Inuvialuktun, and Inuktitut, respectively.
451 The lack of a name for Rhododendron groenlandicum in Iñupiaq is hardly surprising,
452 given that it grows only east of the Hudson Bay. Note, however, each language uses a totally 21
453 different strategy for naming the narrow-leafed species, and none of these three names are
454 cognate.
455 Other findings imply that some plant knowledge was carried along the Thule
456 migration, although with ambiguity. The Kalaallisut name for Angelica archangelica, is
457 kuanneq, which is reconstructed by Fortescue et al. (2010) as deriving from the Old Norse
458 Norse hrǫnn, pl havannir ‘angelica’. This etymology can be questioned, because what
459 appears to be the pan-Inuit cognate term is used to refer to seaweed elsewhere in Inuit
460 territory, as in Eastern Canadian Inuit kuanniq ‘type of edible seaweed’ (Fortescue et al.,
461 2010) or Inuktitut kuanniq ‘ seaweed’ (Dorais, 1977). Schneider (1985:149) distinguishes
462 two different Inuktitut words: kuaniq ‘angelica’ and kuanniq ‘kelp-type of edible seaweed’.
463 The issue here is that the Norse did not travel to these regions of Canada and there is no
464 motivation for positing contact between them and the Eastern Canadian Inuit. This makes
465 the Old Norse source of the name questionable. Furthermore, despite hypotheses (see
466 Seidenfaden, 1933) that the Old Norse brought many plants with them to Greenland, few
467 cases appear to be accurate. Porsild (1953:57) argues that the only two sure cases are
468 Stellaria media (p. 52) and Anthoxanthum odoratum (p. 88). Of course, there is no a priori
469 reason to assume that the Old Norse brought the name with the plant, but by the same
470 token, there is no strong evidence that the name comes from them. In fact, the Inuit
471 migrations spread eastward, from Alaska and Canada to Greenland, so if Schneider (1985)
472 is correct, then it is most plausible that the Inuit brought the word with them to Greenland.
473
474
475 Conclusions 22
476 Consistency of plant uses across the North American Arctic requires greater study,
477 which should occur on two fronts, historic and contemporary. Published sources
478 documenting historic uses and names will allow comparison of knowledge across the Thule
479 migration route. Contemporary interviews of knowledge keepers from across the Arctic
480 measure how much knowledge remains, and how this knowledge differs across the Arctic.
481 Missing information from interviews does not necessarily indicate a lack of use, but could
482 be merely a loss of knowledge that could be validated by historic records where they exist.
483 Documenting contemporary knowledge will in turn fill the holes in the historic record, as is
484 the case in southern Greenland, where plant knowledge persists among a small but
485 dedicated group of practitioners. An important part of Inuit cultural heritage, it is also seen
486 as instrumental in making local, available resources usable for modern life, which is of
487 particular interest as Greenlanders strive to attain independence from Denmark. Interest in
488 plant use is expanding and developing into a more modern practice including a culinary
489 ambassador for Greenlandic cuisine. In south Greenland, knowledge is acquired from
490 outside sources, particularly Danish, but has also been maintained and evolved along
491 traditional lines. Interest in resourcefulness and self-sufficiency will only serve to promote
492 the maintenance of plant knowledge.
493
494 Acknowledgements
495 This work was funded by the National Science Foundation, IGERT 0801490 and
496 BCS-105649, the Institute of Arctic Studies at Dartmouth College and the Humanities
497 Division of the University of Chicago. We are grateful for their support. We would like to
498 thank the many people in Greenland who worked with us on this project.
499 23
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565 26
565 566 Figure 1. Map of southern Greenland showing the locations of study areas.