chapter 3 · russian arctic were less directly affected, but in all regions, the war ended the...

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Arctic Human Development Report

“Rapid change” is a common expression indescribing contemporary societies of the Arctic,usually followed by mentions of cultural lossesand social ills caused by the inability to copewith extraordinary rates of transitions. Indeed,for the past few decades rapid change has beena major trend in the North, and it remains sotoday. Change does not necessarily lead to cul-tural extinction, however. By the beginning ofthe 21st century, the persistence of identities andthe re-creation of traditions show that indige-nous cultures can thrive in the modern world.

Under the recurring theme of change and per-sistence, this chapter discusses three majortrends in Arctic societies and cultures. The first isthe rapid change and its base in the recent colo-nization of the Arctic and paternalistic policies ofwelfare states. The second trend focuses on cul-tural expressions. Although there has been ameasurable decline in linguistic and religiousknowledge, in certain songs, dances and otherart forms, this is only part of the cultural reality ofthe Arctic. ”Culture gain” and ”culture creation”have been present as much as ”culture loss,” andmany aspects of Arctic worldviews have persisteddespite processes of change and replacement.The third trend focuses on social reproduction,kinship, and how traditional social relations havebeen transplanted into new settings with urban-ization. Together, these trends indicate that theresistance and resilience of Arctic cultures andsocieties are as impressive as the changes theyhave so far managed to successfully negotiate.

A socially and culturallydiverse Arctic“Arctic societies” and “Arctic cultures” are not aseasy to define as it would appear. Seven of theeight Arctic countries have the majority of theirterritory and citizens south of the Arctic. If we

use the widespread definition of societies asgroups of human beings that have the capacityto self-reproduce their collective existence, itbecomes almost impossible to speak of “Arcticsocieties.” No human collective in the Arctictoday is able reproduce itself without non-Arcticinput. Culture, often defined as sets of rules andvalues shared by a given society, fares not muchbetter in that respect, since all contemporaryArctic cultures are influenced by southern rulesand values.

Arctic societies thus refer to groups rangingfrom co-residents of a settlement to ethnicgroups and nations. Accordingly, Arctic culturesrefer to the shared rules and values of these verydiverse societies.

Finally, the notion of identity also has come toplay a major role in assessing social and cultur-al developments in the Arctic in recent years.Identity refers to the ways in which individualsand groups perceive and act upon the social andcultural traditions they inhabit.

Within the diversity of cultural and socialtraditions in the Arctic, one can distinguish twobroad types which correspond to two waves ofcolonization of the Arctic: One by the indige-nous peoples, who established themselves inthe Arctic millennia ago; The second by peo-ples from a European background, whose pres-ence in the Arctic is much more recent andwho remain closely connected to societiessouth of them.

Not all peoples residing in the Arctic today fitinto one of these two categories. There are alsopeoples of mixed cultural ancestries, but withdistinct identities and cultures, such as theMétis of Canada and the Kamchadals and other“old-settler” groups in Russia. And there arealso some relatively recent colonizers of otherthan European background, such as the Sakha(Yakuts).

45Chapter 3

Lead authors: Yvon Csonka, University of Greenland, Nuuk, Greenland, and Peter Schweitzer, University of Alaska Fairbanks, U.S.A.

Societies and Cultures:Change and Persistence

In addition, there is a third layer: recentimmigrants who were born and educated out-side the Arctic and who live by the cultural andsocial standards of their region of origin. Manyreturn south after a few years, while some stayand integrate into the surrounding societies. Insome areas of the Arctic, this recent immigra-tion has come to constitute the majority of thepopulation. This has been a particularly strikingfeature of the Russian Arctic throughout Soviettimes. Even more recently, the countries of ori-gin of these newcomers are becoming increas-ingly diverse.

Although this chapter will address all Arcticresidents, more attention will be devoted toindigenous societies and cultures than to laterimmigrants. There are two main reasons forthis. One is that, except in Europe, the literaturedescribing social and cultural processes in theArctic from a local perspective has focused onindigenous communities. Although morerecent settlers figure prominently in nationalstatistics, qualitative data about their communi-ties are rare. For groups of mixed culturalancestry, as well as for recent immigrants, data

are even less readily available. The other reasonis that rapid social and cultural change hasaffected small-scale indigenous societies muchmore heavily than other groups.

Rapid cultural and socialchange: traditions intransitionAlthough change has been and remains a con-stant in the Arctic, the nature and the rapidityof the changes vary widely over space and time.Social and cultural change started acceleratingaround World War II, more so in the Arctic thanin many other areas of the world. In its firstphase, state encroachment affected the autono-my of indigenous peoples. This was followed bysuccessful struggles to regain control over localaffairs but under wholly new circumstancesthat included not only traditions but alsomodernity and globalization. This sectionfocuses on how this encroachment has affectedArctic societies.

Change: a constant in the ArcticHuman colonization of the Arctic is compara-tively recent. It started at least fifteen millen-nia ago. Since then, marked fluctuations of theenvironment, some of which have been atleast as rapid as those predicted for currentglobal warming, have regularly forced humanpopulations to adapt. In such an environment,they had to perpetually fine-tune their adapta-tions, or risk dying out. There are many suchexamples in the archaeological and historicalrecord.

Other “internal” drivers for social and cultur-al change were technological innovations, suchas dog traction, whale-hunting gear and know-how, and intensive reindeer herding, as well ascontacts with other populations.

A major outside source of change was theincreased colonization of indigenous lands bypeople of a European cultural tradition. Thewave of colonization started before the end ofthe first millennium, and despite setbacks suchas the demise of the Norse in Greenlandaround the 15th century, it increased exponen-tially. In the 20th century, it included all regionsof the Arctic that were inhabited by indigenouspeoples. By the outbreak of World War II,nations centered outside the Arctic had estab-lished sovereignty over most of the Arctic.

46 Arctic Human Development Report

Indigenous?As discussed in Chapter 1. Introduction, Arcticcountries have different words to designate thepeoples who were already established at thetime people of European tradition came. Thischapter uses the word indigenous as a com-mon term, defined as follows:

Indigenous peoples are those peoples whowere marginalized when the modern stateswere created and identify themselves asindigenous peoples. They are associated withspecific territories to which they trace their his-tories. They exhibit one or more of the follow-ing characteristics:

• they speak a language that is different fromthat of the dominant group(s),

• they are being discriminated in the politicalsystem,

• they are being discriminated within the legalsystem,

• their cultures diverge from that of theremaining society,

• they often diverge from the mainstreamsociety in their resource use by beinghunters and gatherers, nomads, pastoralists,or swidden farmers,

• they consider themselves and are consideredby others as different from the rest of thepopulation. (1).

Population concentration and loss ofautonomy, ca. 1940-1970

The World War II era can be considered a water-shed in the history of the Arctic, initiating socialand cultural change at an unprecedented rate.The point of departure for this acceleratedchange was neither a pristine indigenous life inisolation from the rest of the world, since such

conditions did not prevail anywhere by thattime, nor a long-standing period of stability orslow evolution. But for many peoples, it meant achange to totally new concepts and livinghabits. Before World War II, many Arctic soci-eties led a relatively autonomous way of lifebased mostly on hunting, herding, fishing, andgathering, where kinship represented the mainand almost sole focus of social organization.

47Societies and Cultures: Change and PersistenceChapter 3

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Arctic peoples subdivided according to language families

Chukotko-Kamchatkan fam.

Isolated languages (Ketic and Yukagir)

Uralic family

Indo-European family

Altaic family

Finno-Ugric branch

Samoyedic branch

Turkic branch

Tungusic branch

Germanic branchEskimo-Aleut family

Na-Dene family

Inuit group (of Eskimo br.)

Yupik group (of Eskimo br.)

Aleut branch

Athabaskan branch

Eyak branch

Tlingit branch

Areas show colours according to the original languages of the respective indigenous peoples, even if they do not speak their languages today.

Notes:

Overlapping populations are not shown. The map does not claim to show exact boundaries between the individual language groups.

Typical colonial populations, which are not traditional Arctic populations, are not shown (Danes in Greenland, Russians in the Russian Federation, non-native Americans in North America).

Arctic circleArctic boundary according to AMAPArctic boundary according to AHDR

compiled by: W.K. Dallmann, Norwegian Polar InstituteP. Schweitzer, University of Alaska Fairbanks

Saami

Saami

Nenets

NenetsNenets

Khanty

Khanty

Khanty

MansiKomi

Komi

Nenets

Selkups

Selkups

KetsKetsEnets

Nganasans

Dolgans

Dolgans

Evenks

Evenks

Evenks

Evenks

Evenks

Evenks

Aleuts

Aleuts

Aleuts

Koryaks

Koryaks

Chukchi

Chukchi

CentralAlaskanYupik

SiberianYupik

Sakha(Yakuts)

Sakha(Yakuts)

Sakha(Yakuts)

Kereks

Inuit (Iñupiat)

Finns

Finns

Karelians

Swedes

Swedes

Norwegians

Norwegians

Alutiiq

Alutiiq

Eyak

Tlingit

Tlingit

Gwich'in

KoyukonHän

Holikachuk

DegHit’an

Dena’ina

Ahtna Upper Kusko-kwim

Tanacross

Tanana

Inuit (Inuvialuit)

Inuit

Inuit

Inuit

Inuit

Icelanders

Faroese

Inuit (Kalaallit)

TutchoneTagish

Dogrib

Slavey

Kaska

Chipewyan

Yukagirs

Yukagirs

Evens

Evens

Evens

Evens

Evens

(95)

The war itself had consequences everywherein the Arctic. Greenland, as well as Iceland,were cut off from Denmark and had more con-tacts with North America, whereas the FaroeIslands were occupied by the British. Vast areasof the Saami homeland in Norway and Finlandwere burned by the retreating Germans. Laterthey were rebuilt according to new standards(2). The Skolt Saami left their homeland inRussia to settle in Finland (3) Alaska saw anincrease in military activity following theJapanese invasion in the Aleutians. TheCanadian Arctic and the Asian part of theRussian Arctic were less directly affected, but inall regions, the war ended the Arctic’s relativeisolation from centers further south.

The subsequent Cold War (1948-1988) per-petuated political interest and military pres-ence. In addition to the increased militaryactivity, there were several aspects ofencroaching modernity that drove this earlyphase of rapid transformation. One of themwas the rush to exploit the non-renewableresources of the North, generally with littleregard for environmental consequences orimpacts on indigenous societies. Anothermajor factor of change was the spread of wel-fare state policies. Directed at indigenous peo-ples, they came out as paternalistic attempts at“social engineering.” In several countries, thegoal was to assimilate the indigenous popula-tions as exemplified by the policies ofNorwegianization (4), Russification (5), andCanadianization (6). In the Soviet Arctic,planned social change was based on Marxist-Leninist ideology (5). As described in moredetail in Chapter 5. Political Systems, strugglesfor emancipation and local empowermentwere already emerging in some regions beforethe war, beginning with the islands of theAtlantic.

At ground level, changes were numerous andpervasive. The influx of immigrants from thesouth accelerated. In indigenous communities,they came to fill the newly opened positions asadministrators, teachers, health professionals,construction workers, etc. Most immigrantsconsidered themselves superior to locals, atleast implicitly. They enjoyed higher pay and abetter standard of living. The influx of immi-grants was especially strong in the RussianNorth, where the ratio of natives to incomerswas transposed, going from 10:1 to 1:10 in someregions. In Greenland, the Danish populationincreased nine-fold between 1950 and 1975,

when it amounted to almost 20% of the totalpopulation of the island (7).

In all parts of the Arctic, the populationbecame less scattered. This centralizationinvolved relocations of whole groups of peoples,some of which were imposed. Previouslynomadic peoples became sedentary, and“unprofitable” settlements were closed down.With a few exceptions (e.g. the Nenets reindeerherders of the Yamal Peninsula in Russia), cen-tralization of nomadic populations was achievedby 1970. In the centralization process, new com-munities were built where many functions werecontrolled by incomers. A trend of urbanizationwas also emerging with people concentrating ina smaller number of larger settlements andtowns.

In the Canadian Arctic, it remains a matter ofcontention whether the process of concentra-tion was imposed or corresponded to the wish-es of those involved. In many regions it entailedboth aspects to some degree, often in succes-sion (8). Although many individuals felt help-less and behaved passively in the midst of thesetransformations in and around their lives, localleadership developed, and these new leaderseventually took over responsibilities in thecommunity.

Partly as a consequence of the availabilityand the form of new housing, household sizeand composition tended to shift from theextended to the nuclear family (9). InGreenland for instance, the average householdsize decreased from 7.6 in 1901 to 5.3 in 1955and 2.6 in 2003 (10 -11). In some communities,there has been a development towards “matri-focal” families, revolving around a woman,rather than a couple, as head of household.Around 1975, 20% of all Asian Yuit (RussianEskimo) families were headed by women,while about a third of the males aged 25-45remained single (12).

Mandatory school education was introducedamong some indigenous peoples in the 1950s or1960s. For some children it meant attendingboarding schools away from their families,where they were inculcated with foreign lan-guages and cultures. In the process, many lostfluency in their mother tongue and were alien-ated from their families and communities.

Health care services were vastly improvedwith life in settled communities. As a result,mortality decreased while life expectancy andfertility increased, causing rapid populationgrowth. At the same time, traditional healers,


healing methods, and midwifery were margin-alized.

In some regions, wage employment and acash economy were introduced when peoplesettled into modern communities. This meantthat kinship ties ceased to be the exclusive focusfor economic cooperation. Moreover, unem-ployment also became a feature of life in settledcommunities, exacerbated by the rapid popula-tion growth. As it became increasingly possibleto make a livelihood from activities other thantraditional ones, the share of traditional activi-ties in the local economies decreased. The sym-bolic value of hunting, fishing, and herding hasbeen maintained or even increased (13), howev-er which is not surprising given that work andsubsistence activities are a central aspect ofidentity (14).

Transport and communications improved atan increased pace from the time of World WarII. Television has become available in mostArctic households in recent decades, with itsattendant exposure to new lifestyles and rolemodels.

Most of the social and cultural changes in thepost-war era were directed by governmentagencies. Many of them, such as the provisionof education, health care, and welfare, had eth-ical justifications. Even though some of thesechanges were for the better, the way they wereimposed led to a loss of control over local affairs,and over collective as well as individual des-tinies. In small northern settlements, local peo-

ple could not escape the impression that theywere watching helplessly while things werebeing done around them and “for” them. Asformer Greenland Home Rule Premier JonathanMotzfeldt has put it: “… things were adminis-tered by Danes, decisions were taken by Danes,and problems were solved by Danes. […] Thecommon Greenlander had a feeling of standingoutside, of being observer of an enormousdevelopment, which s/he did not have the nec-essary background to understand” (16).

Even a seemingly more benign intervention,such as the imposition of a Euro-American sys-tem for family names among the Canadian Inuitduring the 1960s and 1970s, introduced impor-tant departures in representations of selves andsocial relations (17-19). The feelings of estrange-ment caused by the loss of control over changesin turn contributed to the rise of social prob-lems, such as suicide, violence, law-breaking,and alcohol abuse.

The decades around the middle of the 20th

century were for many northern indigenouspeoples the period in their histories when theyhad the least autonomy, and, simultaneously,were undergoing the farthest-reaching changesthey had ever experienced. Some have evokedthe notion of a “lost” or “broken generation” todescribe the group of people who lived“between two worlds”, not really belonging toeither of the two, and who may have felt as lit-tle connected to their parents and grandparentsas to their own children.


Alexina Kublu tells of her experience of growingup in Igloolik and in Igluligaarjuk (ChesterfieldInlet), where she attended residential school from1962 to 1967. She is currently Senior Justice of thePeace in Nunavut and chair of the Akitsiraq LawSchool Society.

The first part of my childhood was spent close to myparents’ families. As my grandparents didn’t live atthe same place we were surrounded either by pater-nal aunts and uncles or maternal aunts and unclesand their cousins as well as all my cousins wherev-er we happened to be. As children there was a“blanket” treatment of us yet we were treated asindividuals. There were aunts and uncles to dole outaffection, others to discipline, others who werechildhood friends and others who ordered youaround to help out with chores and you felt proud tobe considered able to help.

The latter part of my childhood was spent in theresidential school in Igluligaarjuk. You all got to do

chores as they were assigned and not because some-one asked that you do it. You did not feel the pride ofaccomplishment but felt the wrath of failure to doso. The life you lived at home and the life at theschool were so alien to one another you lived themseparately and did not incorporate the lifestyle ofone with the lifestyle of the other.

From 1960 to 1987, the Inuit population of Igloolikgrew from 87 to 806, the White from 4 to 48, ten-fold increases. The percentage of extended house-holds decreased from 76% to 10%, to the profit ofnuclear households. Many jobs were created.Simultaneously, the importance of huntingdecreased. Alcohol and drug consumptionincreased, as well as criminality and cases of sui-cides (15).

Igloolik (2003 population: 1457) is home toIsuma Productions, which produced ZachariasKunuk’s internationally acclaimed movie“Atanarjuat, The Fast Runner” (2000).

Growing up with change in the Canadian Arctic

Regaining autonomy and reaffirmingcultures and identitiesIn all of the Arctic countries whose governmentswere willing to negotiate land claims and meas-ures of autonomy, indigenous peoples werequick to present coherent demands that reflect-ed their cultures and aspirations. This demon-strates that indigenous cultures and identitieshad not been entirely crushed. Even during the“dark years” of directed change, an elite wasable to emerge which was conversant with, if notat ease in, “both worlds.” These developmentstook place within the framework of nation statesand in contexts of increasing economic depend-ency and encroaching globalization.

With the hope of regaining some autonomycame the reaffirmation of identities, cultures,and sometimes also languages. As NikolaiVakhtin puts it about Soviet and post-SovietChukotka, “the horrible totalitarian mincingmachine in which the Chukotkan minoritiesfound themselves in the 1950s-1980s coulddecrease their ability to resist, could decrease thelinguistic and cultural differences between them,but was far from what is needed to wipe thosedifferences (and those people) out. As soon asthe leveling pressure went down, immediatelynew groups, new types of individual and groupidentities, even new languages, began toappear.” (20) Although it does make reference toroots in the past, cultural reaffirmation is not a“return to traditions” in the sense of a simplereactivation of previously existing customs. It isan active re-creation of culture and symbols,whose functions in current contexts differ fromthe ones they had a few decades earlier.

The context for this cultural reaffirmation isone in which most indigenous peoples havebeen living since at least the 1970s in settledcommunities, surrounded by most of the para-phernalia of modern life in the way of house-hold goods, communication technology, modesof transportation, but also community commit-tees, local schools, recreation, etc. Many of thechallenges they face are therefore new ones.Social unity has been harder to achieve in com-munities that bring together groups that had lit-tle to do with each other in earlier times.Societies have also become more complex andmore differentiated, and are segmented alongnew lines, such as lifestyle patterns, politicalparties, and religious denominations. Socialstratification has increased. Sharing networksare affected. And, as much as anywhere else,

gender roles are in the process of redefinition(see Chapter 11. Gender Issues).

As we discuss later in the chapter, someindigenous languages have disappeared, butothers are being revived, and others still are ashealthy as ever. Group identities have shifted,but their distinctness has been preserved (21).World views and spiritualities are reaffirmed.The arts are flourishing, often as vehicles asmuch for collective as for personal identity.

More and more indigenous persons live inurban centers outside the Arctic. More oftenthan not, they expand the borders of their homecommunities rather than getting “lost in thecrowd.” Less trivial than it seems, food tasteshave changed (22), which has an impact on thedegree of local renewable resources exploita-tion, on the dependence on imported foods, andon household activities and budgets.

How much change can cultures andsocieties take?Change is an aspect of all societies and cultures.It is more “normal” and in that sense “healthi-er” than stagnation. Traditions come, transformthemselves, and some eventually pass. Obsoleteelements of cultures are discarded and new onesemerge. One must question the tendency toconsider change as a threat to some immemori-al “tradition” in discussing indigenous societies,when it is called progress in western societies.

How the people affected by changes perceivethem (the so-called emic perspective) deter-mines how they react to them. Research so farhas focused too little on local perceptions ofchanges. One may strongly suspect that themost damaging aspect of change is the feelingof not being able to control it locally, neitherindividually, nor collectively as a society. Thismeans that attempts at “planned social change”from the outside are doomed to create as manyproblems as they solve, even if the planningrests on pertinent scientific knowledge.

The occurrence of massive changes in allaspects of life simultaneously with symptoms ofcultural and social distress (e.g. violence, suicide,alcoholism) has made many people suspect acausal association between the two: the symp-toms are seen as the consequence of the inabili-ty to cope with the changes. Little research hasbeen done so far, however, into what may beconsidered “overly” rapid transitions and theaccumulated effects of different types ofchanges. Therefore, we still lack convincingexplanations of why problems erupt when and


where they do, such as in the traditional and iso-lated communities rather than in larger centerswhere the pace of change is more rapid (23). Weare even less able to predict the outcomes ofchange. For example, local empowerment doesnot in and of itself reduce vulnerabilities. This isillustrated not only by the fact that suicide ratesare comparably high in Nunavut and inGreenland, although these two regions have fol-lowed quite different historical developmentsbut also by the fact that rates have continued toincrease ever after the introduction of self-gov-ernment (24-25). (This is further explored inChapter 9. Human Health and Well-being.)

Health specialists tend to explain the symp-toms in terms of response to “acculturativestress” (26), i.e. a view of indigenous culturesand identities as bound to erode into those ofthe mainstream. This does not fit the fact thatArctic indigenous cultures and societies haveproven to be resistant and resilient.

Towards a common Arctic culture andidentity?Recently, the spread of information and com-munication technology has given rise to newblends of traditions and elements of “world cul-ture,” in music and arts, clothing fashions, food,etc. This coexistence of traditions and moderni-ty is currently observed among many indige-nous peoples worldwide. It includes renewaland in some cases reinforcement of ethnic iden-tities, as well as an instrumentalization andcommoditization of cultures. This trend is prob-ably stronger in the Arctic than in poorer

regions of the world because of the generallyhigh incomes and good communications net-works.

These new blends illustrate Marshall Sahlins’sassertions, based on recent research in manyparts of the Third and Fourth Worlds, that peo-ples around the world see no oppositionbetween tradition and change, indigenous cul-ture and modernity, townsmen and tribesmen.Culture is not disappearing, he concludes: rather,it is modernity that becomes indigenized (27).

In the North, this process includes elementsof an emerging Arctic identity. The Arctic is gen-erally considered as a specific geographic andcultural area and within each of the countriesthat straddle the boundaries of the Arctic,“nordicity” (28) emerges as an element ofregional identity. In some cases, indigenouspeoples may downplay their local identity andemphasize a common indigenous background.For example, the Inuit Circumpolar Conferenceand the Saami Council have fostered, respec-tively, common Inuit and Saami identities. Insome regions, indigenous and non-indigenousidentities are converging. Increased cooperationacross the Arctic may foster the emergence of afeeling of community throughout the region.

Circumpolar synchronicity despiteshort-term offsetsWithin the overall trend of rapid social and cul-tural change, there is variation across the Arcticas to when these changes occurred. InFennoscandia, indigenous peoples’ contact withpeople of European origin started a millennium


In the past decade, Iceland has gone throughprofound structural changes, from an economydominated by primary production to a more serv-ice dominated economy where tourism is becom-ing a major factor. Almost every municipality andrural community has expectations towardsgrowth in tourism and tries to formulate a strat-egy either for the visualization of heritage in thearea in forms of museums or other recreationalresources, or of identifying special attributesembodied in the community or surrounding area.Elements of an earlier vivid and now decliningculture are turned into a commercial product fortourists and other amenity land users. This is notonly an economic change but to a high degreealso a change in mental and occupational focus,which impacts on the creation of rural identitiesand reshapes historical and cultural conscious-

ness. It is too early to predict whether this willturn out to become a long-term sustainablefoundation for the survival of small communitiesand rural areas.

Anna Karlsdóttir, University of Iceland.

Icelandic culture coping with a rapidly growing tourism industry

Tourism in Iceland

PHOT

O:SI

GRÍÐ

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.ÁSG

EIRS

DÓTT

IR

ago, whereas this happened only a century agoin remote areas of the Canadian Arctic.

Developments in the Soviet and post-SovietRussian Arctic have been quite distinct. Wide-scale changes started already a decade beforeWorld War II, with massive efforts to exploit non-renewable resources, importing immigrant popu-lations for that purpose. In addition, the stateimplemented ideologically driven experimentsaimed at transforming society, especially withregard to indigenous peoples. It was not until1990 that Russian indigenous peoples wereallowed to create their own independent nation-al organization: the Russian Association ofIndigenous Peoples of the North (RAIPON).Small indigenous peoples of the Russian Northare now better connected with developmentsabroad than they were in Soviet times, but theevolution of their situation still remains quite dis-tinct from other circumpolar regions. Except inresource rich regions, this situation is character-ized by dis-investment from the state, which pre-viously played a central economic role. This hascaused severe impoverishment and social andcultural disruptions. In addition, there has been amassive out-migration of recent immigrants (29-31). Ever since the collapse of the SovietUnion, the Russian state has cut subsidies to itsArctic provinces, which has been very effective ininducing newcomers to leave as in Chukotka.Without such economic (dis-)incentives theytend to stay: Norilsk is a case in point (32).Another significant area of contrast is that where-

as most parts of the Arctic were Christianizedbefore World War II, this process only began adecade ago in Northeastern Russia.

During the 20th century, differential access toself-government introduced further divergencesin social and cultural change across the Arctic.

Trend summaryIn spite of some differences in content and thetiming of changes across the Arctic, some trendsof the past few decades are amazingly similarand synchronous. Arctic cultures and societiesare rapidly being transformed. After World WarII, the rate of change accelerated and paternalis-tic welfare state policies were imposed. Suchplanned change gave rise to hitherto unknownsocial problems. Later, as the pressure to assim-ilate decreased, cultures and identities started toreaffirm themselves. This revival of traditionoccurs in new forms that accommodate moder-nity and incipient globalization.

Cultural trends: languages,religions, world views, and artThe rapid social changes that have taken placesince World War II, coming on top of the factthat many Arctic societies remained isolatedfrom other parts of the world for so long, havehad profound effects on cultural expressionssuch as languages, religions, world views, and


Population of Chukotka 1926–2003

Year

Po

pul

atio

n

19261931

19361946

19511956

19661970

19761979

19861989

19970

20,000

40,000

60,000

80,000

100,000

120,000

140,000

160,000

180,000

13,946 16,500 12,000 13,000 13,383 15,903 16,252985

35.300

18,300

35,000

88,000

126,561

148,031

Sources: censuses 1926, 1939, 1959,1970, 1979, 1989. 1997:estimates from the Chukotkaadministration 2003:Bogoyavlenskiy, this volume.

2003

18.500

19391959

non-indigenousindigenous

art. This section provides a survey and someexamples of the current situation across theArctic. A recurring theme is again the mergingof traditions and new influences.

Languages: losses and reversedlanguage shiftsThe circumpolar North today is dominated bylanguages that originated far south of the Arctic.Russian is currently the most wide-spread lan-guage, followed by English, Norwegian,Icelandic, Swedish, Finnish, and otherScandinavian languages. The gradual spread of

these languages, brought to pass by the EuroAmerican colonial expansion of the past millen-nium, peaked in the 20th century as a result ofmandatory schooling for all Arctic residents.Many of the over 40 indigenous languages,which had characterized the linguistic space ofthe Arctic for centuries or even millennia,became threatened by extinction or insignifi-cance after World War II. Icelandic and Faroese,which despite their southern roots can be saidto have developed into their present form insitu, are exceptions. Apart from their ambiguousstatus as being indigenous to the Arctic, howev-


Language Name/s Total Population

Number of Speakers

Language Retention (% of total population)

Language Family Country/ies Spoken

Ahtna 500 80 16 Athabaskan branch of Na-Dene USAAleut 2,200 305 14 Aleut branch of Eskimo-Aleut Russia, USAAlutiiq 3,000 400 13 Yupik group of Eskimo branch of Eskimo-Aleut USACentral Alaskan Yupik 21,000 10,000 48 Yupik group of Eskimo branch of Eskimo-Aleut USAChipewyan 6,000 4,000 67 Athabaskan branch of Na-Dene CanadaChukchi 15,000 10,000 67 Chukotko-Kamchatkan RussiaDeg Hit’an (Ingalik) 275 40 15 Athabaskan branch of Na-Dene USADena’ina 900 75 8 Athabaskan branch of Na-Dene USADogrib 2,400 2,300 96 Athabaskan branch of Na-Dene CanadaDolgan 7,000 5,700 81 Turkic branch of Altaic RussiaEnets 200 50 25 Samoyedic branch of Uralic RussiaEven 17,000 7,500 44 Tungusic branch of Altaic RussiaEvenk 30,000 9,000 30 Tungusic branch of Altaic RussiaEyak 50 1 2 Eyak branch of Na-Dene USAFaroese 47,000 ? 100 Germanic branch of Indo-European Faroe Islands (Denmark)Finnish ca. 5,000,000 ? 100 Finno-Ugric branch of Uralic Finland, Sweden, NorwayGwich’in 3,000 700 23 Athabaskan branch of Na-Dene Canada, USAHän 300 15 5 Athabaskan branch of Na-Dene Canada, USAHolikachuk 200 12 6 Athabaskan branch of Na-Dene USAIcelandic 290,000 ? 100 Germanic branch of Indo-European IcelandInuit 90,000 74,500 83 Inuit group of Eskimo branch of Eskimo-Aleut Canada, Greenland (Denmark), USAKaska 900 400 44 Athabaskan branch of Na-Dene CanadaKarelian 131,000 62,500 48 Finno-Ugric branch of Uralic RussiaKerek 400 2 1 Chukotko-Kamchatkan RussiaKet 1,100 550 50 Ketic RussiaKhanty 21,000 12,000 57 Finno-Ugric branch of Uralic RussiaKomi 344,500 242,500 70 Finno-Ugric branch of Uralic RussiaKoryak 9,000 2,700 30 Chukotko-Kamchatkan RussiaKoyukon 2,300 300 13 Athabaskan branch of Na-Dene USAMansi 8,200 3,100 38 Finno-Ugric branch of Uralic RussiaNenets 35,000 28,500 81 Samoyedic branch of Uralic RussiaNganasan 1,300 500 38 Samoyedic branch of Uralic RussiaNorwegian ca. 4,500,000 ? 100 Germanic branch of Indo-European Norway, SwedenSaami group 57,200 26,100 46 Finno-Ugric branch of Uralic Finland, Norway, Sweden, RussiaSakha (Yakut) 382,000 358,500 94 Turkic branch of Altaic RussiaSelkup 3,600 1,570 44 Samoyedic branch of Uralic RussiaSiberian Yupik 2,400 1,370 57 Yupik group of Eskimo branch of Eskimo-Aleut Russia, USASlavey 5,200 3,900 75 Athabaskan branch of Na-Dene CanadaSwedish ca. 9,000,000 ? 100 Germanic branch of Indo-European Sweden, FinlandTagish 400 2 1 Athabaskan branch of Na-Dene CanadaTanacross 220 65 30 Athabaskan branch of Na-Dene USATlingit 11,000 575 5 Tlingit branch of Na-Dene USA, CanadaTutchone 2,500 400 16 Athabaskan branch of Na-Dene CanadaTanana 940 210 22 Athabaskan branch of Na-Dene USA, CanadaUpper Kuskokwim 160 40 25 Athabaskan branch of Na-Dene USAYukagir 900 70 8 Yukagir Russia

Source: Krauss 1997: 32-34; except for Dolgan, Karelian, Komi, and Sakha: All-Soviet Census for 1989. No language retention data available for Faroese, Finnish, Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish (population figures: Nordic Statistical Yearbook 2003). (95)

er, these languages are also characterized by aretention rate of almost 100%.

The state of indigenous languages through-out the circumpolar North varies significantly.Many are characterized by a dramatic loss ofspeakers, including many of the Saamidialects/languages, Yukagir, Aleut, and severalAthabaskan languages in Alaska and Canada.Other indigenous languages seem to be in rela-tively good shape. These include NorthernSaami, Tundra Nenets, Sakha, Chukchi, St.Lawrence Island Yupik, central and easternCanadian and Greenlandic Inuktitut (the east-ern variants of the Inuit language), Chipewyan,Dogrib, and Slavey. One obvious reason for thisdifference relates to demographic factors. It isnot surprising, for example, that the language ofthe Sakha, who number over 400,000 (althoughonly a small portion of them live in the Arctic),is in much better shape than the language of theYukaghir of whom there are only slightly morethan 1,000 people. A variety of other factors,

including government policies, ethnic prestige,and local leadership, have also played a role inlanguage retention.

Government policies throughout the circum-polar North were generally indifferent, some-times even hostile to the preservation of indige-nous languages well into the second half of the20th century. The situation in the Soviet Unionwas different and asynchronous with other partsof the Arctic. On the one hand, indigenous lan-guages of the North were actively supported backin the 1920s. On the other hand, local initiativesto battle language loss had little chance under theauthoritarian conditions of pre-perestroika poli-tics. Danish Government policies regarding theGreenlandic language though long based onpaternalistic attitudes represent probably thelongest history of language preservation, with theresult that the Inuit language – particularly asspoken in Greenland – is one of the more positiveexamples of Arctic language retention today. Thebox below describes this case in more detail.


Greenlandic is part of the Inuit language and ofthe Eskaleut linguistic stock. The Inuit language isspread from the eastern tip of Siberia and AleutianArchipelago through the whole Arctic coastline ofNorth America, the Labrador Peninsula, andGreenland. The basic grammatical structures, thephonological and cultural base are virtually thesame. Regionally different external influencesthrough European contact led to distinct educa-tional policies for each area. The Greenlandicexperience was “softer” than those of Inuit inother areas. Not only were the Dano-Norwegianpolicies of the 18th century “nicer,” but missionar-ies tried to reach the Inuit in their own language,and trade relations with outside merchantsbecame more influential.

Certain intellectual trends also influenced thepolicies of Denmark towards the Greenlanders.For example, between the 1840s and the 1860s,progressive administrators and young intellectualsfacilitated the development of Greenlandic litera-cy and educational materials. S. Kleinschmidtdeveloped a standard system of spelling for theGreenlandic Inuit language, issued a Greenlandicdictionary, and provided a full translation of theBible, while H. Rink published traditionalGreenlandic stories and tales. At the same time,the first Greenlandic periodical was published andthe principle of political self-government wasgradually introduced.

A new era started in the 1950s. Greenland wasincorporated into the Danish jurisdictional sphere

on Danish terms and Greenlandic was challengedby the massive influx of the Danish language andDanish educational practices. There were caseswhen Greenlandic parents encouraged their chil-dren to speak Danish even though they did notunderstand Danish themselves. This period lasteduntil Greenland Home Rule was introduced in1979. The new political situation fostered the sta-bilization of the Greenlandic Inuit language. TheHome Rule Government was in charge of educa-tion in Greenland and the Greenland Home RuleCharter made Greenlandic the main language,while providing for Danish language teaching andpermitting the official use of both languages. Inthe meantime, a new phonemic orthography (awriting system which tries to achieve a closeresemblance between spoken sound units andwritten symbols) had been introduced in 1973,which made it much easier to write inGreenlandic.

Poetry and music are now blossoming and liter-ature is being revitalized. The Greenland HomeRule Government established a GreenlandLanguage Committee, a Greenland Place NamesAuthority, and a Greenland Committee onPersonal Names. Those committees are responsi-ble for tracking language and naming trends andalso collaborate with similar authorities in neigh-boring and Arctic areas.

Carl-Christian Olsen (Puju), Greenland HomeRule Language Commission

Hopes and motivations for the Greenlandic Inuit language

Contact between indigenous and outside lan-guages in the Arctic has been going on for cen-turies (33). One result has been the developmentof a number of pidgin and contact languages(34), as well as of one “mixed language,” name-ly Copper Island Aleut (35). During the 20th cen-tury, however, language contact reached a newlevel of intensity, leading to one-sided languageshifts in favor of southern languages promotedby schools and government agencies (36). Somepeople became bilingual, but it should be point-ed out that most Arctic communities had beenbi- or even multilingual long before southernstates encroached onto their territories.

Within the general picture of language loss,there are fortunately also examples of reversedlanguage shift, where indigenous languages areregaining ground. This includes the Saami lan-guage, where the case study presented in the boxbelow illustrates how political, social, and cultur-al empowerment enables language revitaliza-tion. A similar development occurred in the 19th

century when political and romantic nationalismstimulated a revival of standardized and purifiedIcelandic (37) and Faroese (38). These examplesconfirm an earlier (39) observation that language

shift is not about languages but are a social,political and economic phenomenon.

An important question is how individualspeech communities deal with language shiftand loss. Does the apparent link of languageand identity lead to the disappearance of ethnicand other group identities as a result of lan-guage shift processes? Luckily, there are com-munities and groups, such as the Inuktitut


Saami is a Finno-Ugric language and belongs tothe Uralic family. Recent estimates indicate thatthere are about 38,000 Saami speakers. There aresomewhere between 50,000 – 100,000 Saami indi-viduals, and in many Saami regions, there are morepeople identifying themselves as Saami than thereare Saami speakers (40). This is particularly thecase in many coastal and fjord areas of Finnmarkand Troms, Norway. The Saami people have beensubjected to assimilation policies. For example,“Norwegianization” was an official policy of theNorwegian Government that lasted from the 1880suntil the 1970s, which led to a language shift fromSaami to Norwegian. However, during the 1970s, aSaami movement gradually managed to influenceminority policies in Norway, and reversing the lan-guage loss had high priority. The role of languagerevival in this culture-political process is well illus-trated by the following episode.

In one of the coastal Saami villages, where Saamiis spoken as the mother tongue mainly by thoseover 50, a son came to his mother, who was study-ing Saami at the university, and said: “Do I have togo to the university to learn Saami?” (41). Themother realized that this should not be the case,which became a turning point for providing Saamias a subject in schools in a region where it hadnever been offered before. The pupils expressed the

desire to learn, some of the parents brought the ini-tiative to the school authorities, and the communi-ty became the source for teaching materials. Therewas a shortage of local written material. At thesame time, there was a rich oral tradition in theregion held by the elders, and the schools devel-oped a program based on the local community, itshistory, and cultural traditions. The pupils producedtheir own textbooks on various themes for theirexcursions and fieldwork in the community. Theirwork resulted in a collection of traditional oralmaterial that would otherwise have been lost.Open community gatherings were held to discussthe various themes. The information gathered bythe pupils in their communities was brought backto the community and the informants, who got thechance to give feedback. Direct contact betweenschool and community was established (42).

The efforts of the Saami movement during the1970s and 1980s have borne fruit. The revitaliza-tion of the Saami culture and reversing of the lan-guage shift slowly evolved from the core Saamidistrict to regions were the Saami language fordecades seemed to have disappeared from thepublic spheres.

Gunn-Britt Retter, Arctic Council IndigenousPeoples’ Secretariat

Saami language shift

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF NELSON H.H.GRABURN

Camp leader Taiara, onright, visits his youngerbrother, MugualukPallayak in Salluit, north-ern Quebec, May, 1964.On the wall is an exampleof the syllabic writing sys-tem used by CanadianInuit. Loosely translated, itreads: “Anyone drinking isforbidden to enter thishouse when I am outhunting.”

speakers of Nunavik, where almost 100% of thepopulation continues to speak the language andwhere it fulfills a variety of crucial functions incontemporary life (43). On the other hand, formany Alaskan Iñupiat, indigenous language useis limited to individual words and phrases and aparticular intonation of Village English (44).Still, even in the Iñupiaq case, “language maycontinue to fulfill its [symbolic] functions evenin its absence” (45). Thus, while many Arcticindigenous languages may lose some of theircommunicative functions to English, Russian, orother wide-spread languages, individuals andgroups will continue to use language as symbol-ic markers of identity.

Religions and world views: merger oftraditions and ChristianityAt the beginning of the 21st century, the vastmajority of all Arctic residents are affiliated withsome form of Christianity. Various Protestantchurches dominate in northern Fennoscandia,Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Greenland, Alaska,and parts of northern Canada, while theRussian Orthodox Church is prevalent in the

Arctic regions of the Russian Federation and inaddition has limited presence in Alaska andparts of Finland. Finally, the Roman CatholicChurch is particularly strong in parts of Canadaand Alaska. There is considerable variation as towhen Christianity reached different parts of theArctic. While it happened almost 1,000 yearsago in northernmost Europe, the inhabitants ofthe Chukchi Peninsula in the Russian Far Easthad little first-hand experience with Christianitybefore the 1990s. Generally speaking, the 18th

and 19th centuries were the major periods ofreligious conversion in the Arctic.

There have been various attempts to explainthe rapid conversion of Arctic peoples toChristianity (46). Most authors agree that a com-bination of several factors is responsible. In somecases, such as the Lule Saami, (47) religiouschange was forced, but in many other casesindigenous agency was much more pronounced(48-49). The adoption of Christianity rarely, ifever, resulted in the simple replacement of onereligious system by another. Instead, old andnew beliefs were reintegrated within a new sys-tem that was both Christian and local (50). In


Russian Orthodoxy has been a prominent part ofAleut life since approximately the 1790s, when thefirst missionaries arrived and established churchesin most Aleut communities. While some research-es have highlighted the devastating effects of thefirst fifty years of Russian-Aleut contact (1741 –1790s) and the role that the church played inimposing new social forms, religious institutions,and material culture, others have pointed to thesimilarities between the Aleut pre-contact religionand Orthodoxy as the reason for the acceptance ofthe new religion.

The Russian Orthodox Church triggered unde-niable accomplishments in education and literacyby supporting elements of traditional Aleut cultureand by preserving their language. This enabled apeaceful intertwining of both cultures. For themajority of contemporary American Aleuts, theRussian Orthodox Church is woven into the fabricof their lives. They are devoted followers andbelieve it was embraced by their ancestors overtwo hundred years ago. Many communities care-fully maintain graceful church buildings that arenot only places of worship but also symbols ofAleut culture.

The Commander Island Aleuts traveled a differ-ent historical path. Their islands were resettled fromthe islands of Atka and Attu in the westernAleutians in the 1820s. These islands were not

included in Russia’s sale of Alaska to the UnitesStates in 1867, and the people were separated fromtheir original communities. After the RussianRevolution of 1917, they were converted to atheismby the Bolsheviks. When the Orthodox Churchbegan regaining influence in the changing post-Soviet society in 1990s, the Aleuts of Russia camefull circle. The Russian Orthodox Church is not theonly religion on the Commander Islands today andthe impact of religion on the social lives of theAleuts is still limited. An Orthodox parish wasformed in the village of Nikolskoye in 2000 and anapartment converted into a “church.” Occasionally,priests from nearby Petropavlovsk come to performweddings, baptisms, and other functions.

An Aleut Elder, Vera Timoshenko, recollectshow her mother told stories about the closely knitcommunity of Nikolskoye and the role of theOrthodox Church in teaching people how to behumane and compassionate, industrious, andobeying. Vera wishes Nikolskoye would build areal church to revive the Orthodoxy that used tobe a spiritual foundation of the CommanderIsland residents. She believes that the rebirth ofthe church may solve some of the social problems,such as alcoholism, and may teach people to treateach other with kindness and respect (52).

Victoria Gofman, Executive Director, Aleut International Association

Aleuts and the Russian Orthodox Church

some cases, a religious tradition that was initial-ly introduced through colonial expansion, notonly became part of, but even reinforced the cul-tural identity of an indigenous people (51). Oneexample of this can be found in the AleutianIslands, as illustrated in the box on page 56.

Pre-Christian religious beliefs in the Arcticshowed an abundance of local and regionalvariation. Nevertheless, two broad categories ofbelief systems – shamanism and animism –were characteristic of most of them (53).Shamanism, which is often perceived as thestereotypical “Arctic religion” by outsiders, wasnever a unified system of beliefs but a variety oflocalized practices with a limited number ofcommon elements (54). Central was the figureof the shaman, sometimes male, sometimesfemale. Until recently, most Arctic communitieshad religious functionaries who were able tocommunicate with and “control” spirits. Theseshamans were engaged in healing and otheractivities aimed at improving communal andindividual well-being. In the small-scale soci-eties, these functionaries held extremely impor-tant social positions, which sometimes led to anabuse of power.

Animism is the belief that all natural phe-nomena, including human beings, animals, andplants, but also rocks, lakes, mountains, weath-

er, and so on, share the soul or spirit that ener-gizes them. This notion is at the core of mostArctic belief systems (55), which means thathumans are not the only ones capable of inde-pendent action. An innocuous-looking pond,for example, is just as capable of rising up to killan unsuspecting person as is a human enemy.Another fundamental principle of Arctic reli-gious life is the concept of humans beingendowed with multiple souls. The notion that atleast one soul must be “free” to leave thehuman body is basic to the shaman’s ability tocommunicate with the spirits.

Since the killing and consumption of animalsprovide the basic sustenance of circumpolarcommunities, ritual care-taking of animal soulsis of utmost importance. Throughout the North,rituals in which animal souls are “returned” totheir spirit masters are widespread, thus ensur-ing the spiritual cycle of life. While most animalsof prey receive some form of ritual attention,there is significant variation in the elaboration ofthese ceremonies. One animal particularlyrevered throughout the North is the bear (56).Religious beliefs and practices in the Arctic havealways been tied to the land and other aspectsof the visible and invisible landscape and“sacred sites” are of particular importance formany Arctic residents (see box below).


Sacred sites are frequently located in regionswhere nature preservation has a high importancefor the indigenous peoples: on highly efficienthunting grounds, in regions with rich biodiversity,along migration routes, in areas populated withrare species, as well as in areas with unique land-scapes. The Program on Conservation of ArcticFlora and Fauna (CAFF) recently supported a pro-posal by the Russian Association of IndigenousPeoples of the North (RAIPON) to implement apilot project in Russia to protect indigenous peo-ples’ sacred and ritual sites. The aim is to promotethe preservation of indigenous cultural and spiri-tual heritage in the Arctic in sites that have sacredsignificance and enjoy high biodiversity andnature value, in order to demonstrate the necessi-ty to incorporate sacred sites into the network ofprotected natural territories.

In addition to literature and archive reviews ontopics such as indigenous culture, spiritual andreligious representations, traditional knowledge,resource use, and environmental protection,experts from CAFF and the Indigenous Peoples’Secretariat have developed a questionnaire thatregional researchers and local, indigenous assis-

tants have used to identify sacred sites. Theresults of the field studies were presented afterdiscussions with the communities involved andthe idea is to develop detailed recommendationsto governmental authorities in Yamal andKamchatka.

In the Tazovsky district of the Yamal-NenetsAutonomous Okrug, 263 sacred sites were identi-fied, described, and mapped from interviews withindigenous elders. In the Koryak AutonomousOkrug, interviews in villages of the Oloyutorskydistrict helped describe and map 84 sacred sites.All questionnaires are archived in the RAIPONoffice and can be used for further research. Theproject will also identify ways to improve the pro-tection of sacred sites. In conclusion, it seems thatmodern civilization is finally learning from indige-nous peoples, who still worship Nature as a livingbeing and consider contacts with the land to bethe primary factor of survival. One of the projectparticipants expressed it as follows: “Sacred sitesmean environment, morality and veneration forlife.”

Mikhail Todyshev, Tamara Semenova et al.,RAIPON

The conservation value of sacred sites: a case study from northern Russia

World views are not limited to the religioussphere. In fact, Arctic indigenous worldviewsare characterized by their holistic nature, whichmeans that they cannot be easily compartmen-talized into religious, economic, social, or othercomponents. Still, those aspects of Arctic worldviews such as “ecological” practices and beliefsthat seemed non-religious to outside observers,faced less opposition from missionaries andstate agencies than those more obviously

directed toward supernatural forces. While itwould be naïve to assume that ecological beliefsand practices have not changed over time (57),the persistence of “subsistence ideologies” (58)is noteworthy. Contemporary Gwich’in think-ing on “subsistence” illustrates how changingeconomic and religious conditions becomeintegrated, as is described in detail in the boxbelow.

Art: functional beauty and commercialcommodityArt in the Euro-american understanding of theterm – objects made solely for aesthetic purpos-es – did not exist in the Arctic until recently.However, an archaeological record with won-derful sculptures and drawings shows that peo-ples in the Arctic have been making objects thatwere functional and aesthetically pleasing fromtime immemorial.

The first encounters with outsiders providednew possibilities for artistic expression, forexample by the introduction of iron tools.However, Christian missionaries and govern-ment officials were often responsible for under-mining the religious basis on which most of


The Nenets sacred siteNumt’ khantorma.

Subsistence, narrowly defined, means to survive.To the Gwich’in, it means far more. Besides ourspiritual relationship with God, the Creator of allthat is, subsistence is the essence of the Gwich’inNation. It is how we are sustained physically. Itserves to support us economically and spirituallyand is a key to our sustainability as a people. Weare fed by plants and animals of the water, air, andland. Wood provides warmth and housing and theraw materials for tools and transportation devices,such as boats, snowshoes, and toboggans [run-nerless sleds widely used by Native Americans].

The cash component of our economy is a smallbut important element of our subsistence lifestyle.We harvest wood, fur, and wildlife for barter orsale, mostly locally, but occasionally abroad. Whilesome have assumed the role of full-time workers,many rely mostly on natural resources they catchor cut to meet their economic needs. Our spiritu-ality is tied inextricably to the water, land, air, andresources within them. Our relationship to thespiritual realm has always been conductedthrough the beauty and awe of nature around us.

We are sustained as individuals and as a peoplethrough our subsistence lifestyle. Our resource-dependent culture is sustained by unfetteredmobility and access to the resources we dependon. Unfettered mobility means that we pursueresources where they are most abundant and

where there is easy access. Unfettered accessmeans that we gather resources when we needthem and in the most economical and feasiblemanner possible. As we continue this lifestyle, webuild and maintain our close and interdependentties to the resources around us.

Gwich’in identity is a picture of integration withthe land and resources. We see ourselves as anintegral part of the diversity of the landscape. Webelieve that we would not be whole if we wereseparated from this land. We also believe that thisland would not be whole without our presence.Our well-being is linked closely with our ability tolive on and adapt with the land. Our family andland-based bonds are strengthened, restored, andinvigorated as we continue our subsistencelifestyle. A tremendous sense of belonging andpurpose is experienced as we survive on the land.

Subsistence encompasses all areas of Gwich’inlife from the cradle to the grave. Gwich’in youthare trained early on the intricacies of our relation-ship with the natural environment and the har-vesting, processing, and distribution of wildresources. These relationships are strengthenedwhen our youth mature into leaders. The cycle oflife continues as they pass what they have learnedfrom their elders and through trial and error totheir children and relatives.

Craig L. Fleener, Gwich’in Council International

The worldview of Gwich’in subsistence

PHOTO:RAIPON

Arctic artistic production was based. In certainareas, such as Greenland, art came under directinfluence of European traditions early on. TheGreenlander Aron of Kangeq (1822-1869)became known throughout Greenland andDenmark for his lively watercolors of Inuit vil-lage life and tales. In other areas, such as Alaskaand many parts of Arctic Canada, handicraftitems for trade provided a venue for “native art.”For example, delicate Athabascan beadwork onmoose and caribou skin was popular through-out the Canadian and Alaskan Arctic and sub-arctic (59).

The entry of Arctic art into international mar-kets is recent. One of the best-known examplesis Canadian Inuit printmaking. In 1948, JamesHouston, a young non-Inuit Canadian artist,traveled north to the Nunavik village ofInukjuak for a sketching trip. Houston befriend-ed the local Inuit, who coveted imported com-modities. In trade, the Inuit brought him small

soapstone models of animals. Houston per-suaded the Canadian Government to subsidizesoapstone carving, which eventually became amulti-million-dollar enterprise for the Inuit. Adecade later, Houston had moved to CapeDorset on Baffin Island and repeated the samesuccess story with printmaking. There, localInuit artists submitted drawings for print mak-ing. The prints were marketed in North Americaand Europe, and the demand soon outstrippedthe supply. Thanks to worldwide media cover-age, artists such as Kenojuak Ashevak andPudlo Pudlat became famous with Inuit art col-lectors. Their works are in museums, art gal-leries, and private collections around the globe.

In the early 21st century, indigenous art in thecircumpolar North is thriving. Cruise-ship pas-sengers and other tourists are eager to bringhome objects which signify the exotic Arctic. InAlaska and coastal British Columbia, gift shopsroutinely sell copies of native art mass producedin Asia where labor is cheap (59). The authentic-

ity of indigenous art is to some extent protectedby subsidized programs that provide artists witha sticker guaranteeing the authenticity of theirwork (60). However, more and more artists inthe Arctic do not want to be seen as representa-tives of a particular ethnic tradition but as activeparticipants in a globalized art scene. Whateverthe position of the individual artist is, the factremains that almost all indigenous art from theArctic is today created for consumption in a cul-ture that is economically and politically morepowerful than theirs (61).

In recent years, the development of Arctic artshas gone far beyond the confines of what havebeen traditionally considered the fine arts. Newart forms, such as literature and filmmaking,have become prominent. For example, the criti-cally acclaimed film Atanarjuat (“The FastRunner”) – written by Paul Apak Angilirq anddirected by Zacharias Kunuk – is the first featurefilm made in Inuktitut. Moreover, writers suchas the Chukchi novelist Yuriy Rytkheu have suc-cessfully transformed oral traditions into bookswhich are read throughout the Arctic and non-Arctic world. Finally, new forms of Arctic musicare developing, which incorporate traditionalelements, such as the Sami yoik, and elementsof western popular music.

Similarities and differences with non-Arctic areasMany of the cultural trends in the Arctic are theresult of an unbalanced encounter between thecultural traditions of small-scale, hunter-gatherersocieties and large-scale agricultural and indus-trial states. What is peculiar for the Arctic is thatthese encounters occurred relatively late, andthat agricultural/industrial cultural values wereimposed in the 20th century. The similarities tonon-Arctic areas are greatest with those of otherhunter-gatherers pushed aside by agriculturalists


‘The Enchanted Owl’Stonecut, 1960 byKenojuak Ashevak.Reproduced with permis-sion of the West BaffinEskimo Cooperative,Cape Dorset, Nunavut

PHOT

O:JO

RMA

LEHT

OLA

Davvi S uvvá (The NorthSings) in 1993

relatively recently, as in Australia and Amazonia.However, the indigenous groups in the Arctic aregenerally less impoverished than in their third-world counterparts. And even more important,they are part of larger societies that have come tosupport – by and large – a fuller implementationof civil and indigenous rights.

Variations within the ArcticVarious parts of the Arctic came into intensecontact with cultural agents from the outside atdifferent points in time, which in turn oftendetermines the extent to which non-Arctic ele-ments have been incorporated into local cultur-al traditions. An example is the almost completeerasure of shamanistic elements from Saamiworldviews as a result of almost 1,000 years ofChristian influence. For current culturalprocesses in the North, government policies areamong the most important variables. In the 20th

century, the policies implemented by the SovietUnion differed most from other Arctic countries.Moreover, the cultural trajectories of Icelandand the Faroe Islands are noticeably differentfrom the rest of the Arctic, primarily because oftheir different settlement history. While the cul-tural background of the ancestors of the con-temporary Icelanders and Faroese wasundoubtedly non-Arctic and agricultural, theirdescendants can point to over 1,000 years ofcultural development in the Arctic.

Trend summaryOutsiders and Arctic residents have beenbemoaning “culture loss” for decades. This kindof judgment fits with the measurable decline inlinguistic and religious knowledge, the fact thatcertain songs, dances and other art forms werepushed out of use, that languages becameextinct, and worldviews replaced. However,“culture gain” and “culture creation” are alsopart of the cultural realities of the Arctic.Vocabularies, dialects, and languages werereplaced by others, as were religions and artforms. Also, many aspects of Arctic worldviewshave persisted despite processes of change andreplacement. In the final analysis, the mostimportant factor is whether the local communi-ty in question identifies with the cultural brico-lage its residents hold today. Culture is inti-mately tied to identity and the major question iswhether you can consider the language/s youspeak and the spiritual entities you respect as“yours,” no matter where they “originated.”

Socialization, kinship, andnew networksThe accelerated change of recent decades hasbeen accompanied by gaps in socialization andknowledge transmission between generations.Despite these difficulties, kinship and familyrelations, especially for indigenous peoples,have remained a central focus. This is true alsoin the growing Arctic towns and even in urbansettings outside the Arctic homeland.Contemporary social networks also includeconnections between recent Arctic emigrants tomore southerly cities and the Arctic communi-ties they came from, as well as between south-ern immigrants to the Arctic and their socialmilieu of origin. This section highlights howcurrent social change is shaped by relationsbetween generations, kinship networks, urban-ization, and the extension of local communitiesthrough emigration.

Social transmission of knowledgeacross generationsAmong indigenous peoples, recent changeshave been so precipitous that they have beeninterpreted by outsiders as a break from thepast, and in some cases even, as a breakdown ofsocieties and cultures. In particular, transforma-tions have been associated with major commu-nication gaps between generations. These gapswere amplified by just as abrupt linguistic shifts,which are described in the previous section ofthis chapter. In many regions, children were inboarding schools where the only language theyspoke was a language different from that oftheir people. Communication with their grand-parents was thus often precluded. Arctic devel-opments confirm the fact that minority lan-guages can be dealt deadly blows in the space ofone or two generations.

The break in socialization was accentuatedwhen social changes and the school system dis-rupted important features of traditional educa-tion systems. For example, among many indige-nous peoples, a great deal of learning occursthrough observation and imitation rather thanthrough the written or spoken word.Transmission of knowledge also takes placethrough the telling of myths and stories thatimplicitly teach lessons of life to those who areculturally trained to decode them (62-63).Furthermore, among Inuit for example, childrenare considered as autonomous beings, embody-ing the name soul of a deceased relative, whose


own volition should not be interfered with (64).These aspects of traditional culture have clashedwith the recently introduced formal educationand new role models. The introduction of cul-turally sensitive curricula should reconcile pub-lic education with other modes of socialization.

In some cases, parents thought they wereimproving their children’s chances by lettingthem be educated in another culture and lan-guage, rather than encumbering them with acultural heritage they were told was obsolete.Such a break in communication between gener-ations, which was common in the second half ofthe 20th century and continues today in someregions, has created a bottleneck for socialreproduction. Nowadays, parents struggle withthe atomization of the household and the com-petition of television programs when they try toprovide role models, while indigenous eldersstrive to reach out to youngsters. The box belowillustrates this modern dilemma.

Kinship and other social networksIn the Arctic, kinship has for centuries deter-mined the choice of marriage partners, whereyou live, and participation in subsistence andritual activities. The definition of kinship andrelatedness, however, does not give the same

emphasis to biological relatedness as exists inmost Euro-american societies. Notions of kin-ship are flexible and in many cases, social rela-tions are kinship relations. Kinship structuresrelations of cooperation and mutual aid, as wellas those of avoidance and hierarchy.

The majority of indigenous Arctic societies(e.g., most Inuit and Yup’ik societies, the Saami,and the Chukchi) are characterized by bilateralprinciples of descent reckoning. This recognitionof both the father’s and the mother’s kin pro-vides ample means for including a wide range ofpeople among those considered relatives.Patrilineal descent is found only among theSamoyedic, Tungusic and Turkic groups ofnorthern and central Siberia, probably an influ-ence from Central Asia. Matrilineal descent, onthe other hand, is only prevalent in the north-western part of the North American Arctic,among Athabaskan groups of Alaska and, to alesser degree, Canada. Since matrilineal systemsneed fairly large groups of people to functionproperly, bilaterality among most CanadianAthabaskan groups could be due to resourcepressures and population losses triggered byEuro-american expansion (67). Athabaskan kin-ship terminologies sometimes refer to particularcousins as spouses, thereby implying cultural


What child-rearing practices we follow are notthat of our parents, as we were too young to havelearnt it before we went off to boarding school. Wedid not learn to be parents from school either,because there was no parenting role model to fol-low. We have children who have grown up in theTV age. They are learning what families are “sup-posed to be like” from what they see: mostly TVsitcoms. In addition some of our children areaffected by the abuse of alcohol and other sub-stances. We are the only ones in our self-containednuclear household trying to be mother or fatherwho is supposed to provide affection, discipline,enjoyment time as well as getting them to helparound the house [. . .]. These are the changes thathave occurred in one generation. Who is raisingthe children? What parenting skills have they beengiven? What parenting skills are they passingalong to their children?

Alexina Kublu, Iqaluit (Nunavut) (65)

“We elders are also to blame because we are nottalking to young people as much anymore. We arerelying on the teachers. Our parents did not haveteachers or anyone else to rely on. […] Some peo-ple think that because their children are able to

speak English, even though they can’t understandthem, they follow them, because they think theyare more capable than they are. That is not the wayit is. […] People fluctuate in the amount of timethey spend talking to young people. Sometimesthey become too preachy and other times theytotally neglect them. This, too, is not good foryoung people.”

Nunavut Inuit elder Itinnuaq (66)

“We were advised from the time we were childrento aim towards being good people. We have notdone all that our ancestors did, but we haveknowledge that our parents passed on to us. Ithink that if we were to impart this knowledge, itwould really improve our young people’s lives. Iagree that we elders have not passed this knowl-edge on enough to our young people. If we start-ed talking to them about what we know, I thinkthe number of offences would go down. We seemto have been hiding our knowledge. We havebased this on our thinking that it conflicted with[Christian] religion. We have a lot of knowledgethat we should be passing on.”

Nunavut Inuit elder Angutinngurniq (66)

Parenting and counseling the young: voices from Nunavut

expectations as to whom one is supposed tomarry (68).

While earlier studies mostly paid attention toformal aspects of kinship systems, more recentinvestigations have focused on the culturalnotions that underlie how kinship and othersocial relations work in practice. For example, inthe everyday lives of Barrow andKangersuatsiaq residents, the flexibility of Inuitkinship makes relatedness negotiable andalmost entirely independent from biologicallinks (69-71), while among contemporaryDolgan and Nganasan residents of the TaimyrPeninsula, relatives still play a major role in fooddistribution, sharing, and other aspects ofeveryday life. (72)

The relevance of kinship has not diminishedwith urbanization. An illustration of this is pro-vided in a case study from Greenland presentedin the box below.

The extension of Arctic ruralcommunitiesUrbanization is a universal and well-studiedtrend. In the Arctic, where living off the landdictated low population densities and scatteredsettlements, it is a relatively recent phenome-non, associated with the rise of welfare statepolicies, industrialization, and the spread ofwage employment. The concentration of thepopulation in permanent settlements took place

during the twentieth century. Many of the majorArctic towns have been growing at a rapid pace,and they are becoming increasingly multi-cul-tural (73-76). The figure on the following pageprovides an illustration of the rapidity of urban-ization in Greenland since 1950.

In the past few decades, increasing numbersof indigenous people are also settling down inlarger centers away from their home areas. Forinstance, Oslo, Stockholm and Helsinki areplayfully referred to as the largest Saami villagesor siidas in the Nordic countries (77). Accordingto a recent study (78), about 7,000 Greenlanderslive in Denmark, which is equivalent to about15% of the Greenlanders in Greenland. Twothirds of them are women, and they are spreadthroughout the country rather than concentrat-ed in the capital. In 2001, about 10% ofCanadian Inuit lived outside the Arctic (79-80).Among the recently better-studied Native urbancommunities are the Yup’ik and Iñupiat inAnchorage, Alaska (81-83). In 2003, about 10%of the 274,000 inhabitants of Anchorage wereNative or part Native people, which corre-sponds to almost 17% of the total Native popu-lation of the State (84-85).

According to Fienup-Riordan, outmigrationto cities does not mean the severance of tieswith home communities: “Yup’ik communitiesare not disintegrating, their lifeblood graduallyseeping away. Many can be seen as actually


In Greenland, family is important also for manypeople living in towns. For example, in Nuukwhere family members have to work many hoursduring the week, it becomes important for kins-men to spend time together in their spare time,during holidays, family celebrations, and times ofcrisis. Also, because people live in a large-scalesociety, they have a need to stick together to han-dle outside crises. Voices gathered in research onthe role of kinship among families in Upernavik,with 1,218 inhabitants, and Nuuk with 13,884inhabitants (2003 figures) illustrate this well:

“A family is a person whom you can get supportfrom, I don’t know what I should do without myfamily. I need my family – it can be my own fami-ly or my husband’s family.” (35-year old woman).

“Generally most of the families keep together,but a lot of the time they have to work. Your kins-men give you strength and help you throughcrises, it is therefore important that families keeptogether. If families don’t stick together it will beharder for them to handle crises, because they will

have no one to support them.” (67-year oldwoman)

“I think families are more divided today maybebecause they are so busy, but there are still fami-lies that are strongly connected. It is very impor-tant that families are connected [...] we teach ourchildren to understand how important it is for usto keep together.” (young mother, 35 years old)

Although urban kinship can be utilized in manydifferent ways, the basic ideology is centeredaround expectations about moral and mutual obli-gations in the realms of sharing, naming, andadoption, among others. Relatives have many dif-ferent kinds of mutual obligations in their lives andsharing defines the family. Family members striveto keep relatives together to avoid being isolatedand having no one to support and share with.People have a choice as to whether or not to fulfillthe mutual obligations of the family, and sharingdoes not always mean that kinship systems andforms of social organization are harmonic.

Gitte Tróndheim, University of Greenland, Nuuk

Kinship in urban Greenland

expanding and recreating themselves inunprecedented ways until today, when they areas strong and vital as at any time in their 2,500-year history. […] Although geographically muchfarther-reaching than ever before, contemporaryYup’ik community continues to be characterized

by wide sharing throughout the extended fami-ly, with money from wage labor and commercialfishing used to support a variety of harvestingactivities to fulfill extended family needs” (86).Also, Yup’ik identities are not abandoned, butreinforced in Anchorage, albeit in a modified


I became interested in urbanization while carryingout a study of the socio-economic dimensions ofYup’ik grass basketry. During the first few years ofthe study, when Annie Don, my Yup’ik collaborator,and I traveled frequently throughout the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta villages, we often arrived in com-munities with no prearranged place to stay. Almosteverywhere, there would be an older person livingalone who was willing to take us in. Because it isunusual for Yup’ik / Inuit – especially older people –to live by themselves, I began to make inquiries.“Where’s your daughter?” I’d ask. “Moved intoAnchorage with the kids,” would come the reply.

At the same time, I realized that Annie, who haslived in Anchorage since 1994, was part of thismigration, as were her circle of mainly Yup’ikwomen friends. Furthermore, at the AlaskaFederation of Natives Crafts Fair held inAnchorage each October, roughly 75% of the ven-dors are female. So I wondered if the migrationwas evenly distributed between men and women.Sure enough, this demographic reflects the genderbreakdown of Anchorage-based Alaska Natives asa whole. In 2000, there were slightly over 7,000Alaska Native women 18 years and above residingin Anchorage, but only some 5,500 men.

How does urban in-migration affect AlaskaNative women? For one thing, they confront on adaily basis political issues that would be at greaterremove from them in the village. Some 50-75% of

the urban-dwelling women support themselvesthrough the sale of arts and crafts. These commodi-ties in turn depend for their appeal on exotic rawmaterials such as seal hide, walrus stomach, andbasket grass only obtainable in rural areas. Thequestion of whether urban Native people will havecontinued access to these products on public land isat present hotly debated and since their very liveli-hood depends on such access, they are beginningto participate more actively in the political processthan would normally be the case. In 1998, theAlaska Federation of Natives, its collective patienceworn thin by the absence of resolution, called for apublic protest, summoning Alaska Natives to amarch and rally in downtown Anchorage. ForAlaska Natives generally – and Alaska Nativewomen in particular – direct confrontation such asa protest march, represented a lapse from cultural-ly approved styles of conflict-resolution, which tendto favor settling disputes by negotiation. Amongher circle of friends, the question of whether to par-ticipate was hotly debated. So as I circled by Annie’shouse to pick her up, I wondered if she would act.But there she was on the doorstep. ”It’s for mygrandkids,” she commented as she climbed into thecar, “Anyway if I can’t go home and pick grass, howwill I make my baskets?” Her remark illustrates theurban and rural connectedness that characterizes somuch about life for Alaska Natives today.

Molly Lee, University of Alaska Fairbanks

Rural-urban connections in Alaska

Evolution of urban and rural populations in Greenland, 1950–2000 (population born in Greenland)

Source: J. Robert-Lamblin 2003 (96), with permission.

0

10,000

20,000

30,000

40,000

50,000

60,000

1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

pop.urban

pop.rural

pop.total.Greenland

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

19952000

19501955

19601965

19701975

19801985

1990

pop.rural pop.urban

form emphasizing the common Yup’ik heritagerather than the local origin (87). Thus, outmigra-tion extends the social network of homeland vil-lages and gives rise to “translocal communities”– at least for a time (88). A similar case has beenmade for the Inuit in Montreal, where it appearsthat urban Inuit are using ethnic identity as anadaptive tool in a multi-ethnic city (89).

Due to the original vocation of anthropologyas a “western” discipline striving to study “exot-ic others,” corresponding studies of southernimmigrant communities in the Arctic are muchless abundant. For instance, Danish identities inGreenland are only recently attracting theattention of researchers, one of them aGreenlander (90).

The persistence of kinship and communitynetwork among Arctic emigrants to urban areasis similar to recent observations in urbanSoutheast Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Sofar, the pattern is quite different from the devel-opments that took place in Europe and in NorthAmerica in connection with industrializationand urbanization.

Trend summaryMost Arctic communities have experiencedrelentless and pervasive changes over the pastdecades. The disruption of communicationbetween generations is as much a consequenceas a cause of difficulties in social reproduction.Kinship ties and networks have not died outwith urbanization but remain a focus for mean-ing and identity in the growing Arctic towns,and even in urban settings outside the Arctichomeland.

Key conclusions of policyrelevanceArctic societies and cultures are highly adapt-able and resilient and thus well-equipped forintegrating change. The fact that they integratemodernity should be viewed positively ratherthan with nostalgia for traditions lost. The con-cept of traditions should be seen as a dynamicone: traditions do not and should not hinderdevelopment.

If there is a political lesson to be learned, it isthat paternalistic attitudes, top down approach-es, and change imposed from the outside arecounter-productive, even if they seem to fostersocial and cultural perseverance in the shortrun. In the long run, the transfer of decision-making powers from central to local authorities

might be the most important factor in helpingreduce social and cultural problems associatedwith rapid change. To reverse negative trendsthat have their origins decades or centuries ago,however, requires a lengthy “normalization”period. Thus, one cannot expect things toimprove immediately.

In each Arctic region, there is a feeling ofbeing distinct from regions further south, evenwhere those regions are adjacent. Globalizationincreases worldwide connections, but the infor-mation and communication technology thatfosters it is also used to intensify circumpolarconnections. The emergence of a pan-Arcticidentity can be further encouraged.

Finally, decision makers should not overesti-mate the predictive power of social science data.The inherent complexity of social and culturalsystems makes predictions that rest upon theextrapolation of particular factors or trends ten-tative at best. “Social planning” approaches ofthe past testify to these dangers. Only throughfurther investments into the development ofbetter datasets and methodological tool kits canthese limitations be overcome.

Gaps in knowledgeMost Arctic states do not keep separate statis-tics for their Arctic regions regarding key indi-cators of social and cultural change. For exam-ple, it is virtually impossible to determine num-bers of speakers of particular languages spokenin the Arctic or to find reliable data about thereligious affiliation of Arctic residents. Wetherefore encourage the Arctic states andPermanent Participants to actively assist in thecompilation and distribution of Arctic social sci-ence data.

The study of social and cultural processes inthe Arctic has been dominated by the disciplineof anthropology. While this has led to a numberof excellent studies on the local level, regionaland national data are much rarer.

The anthropological heritage of Arctic socialscience research has led to a particular empha-sis on indigenous groups and peoples, at theexpense of ”mixed” and ”newcomer” groups.

Anthropological research in the formerSoviet Union focused more strongly onprocesses of the past than in other Arctic coun-tries. Thus, there is a lack of studies regardingcontemporary trends in the Russian North,especially for the period between World War IIand 1990.


The former Soviet Union is not alone in put-ting more emphasis on certain kinds of researchthan on others. Most Arctic regions have excel-lent data on one or another aspect of social andcultural processes at the expense of others. Acircumpolar research agenda would overcomethe limitations of these “national” researchagendas and result in increased comparability ofthe acquired data.

While there is ample documentation of theeffects of individual aspects of social and cultur-al change, there is little understanding of thecumulative effects of rapid change. This gap inknowledge adds to the weak predictive poten-tial of current knowledge.

Chapter summaryArctic societies and cultures have been under-going changes since time immemorial, but the20th century resulted in an unprecedentedamount and speed of social and cultural change.Still, even periods of rapid change have noteradicated traditional Arctic social and culturalsystems. Rather, the contemporary Arctic ischaracterized by various combinations of“indigenous” and “western” elements.Alternatively perceived as “loss” or “innova-tion,” these social and cultural processesinevitably lead to new forms of mixing “old”and “new.” It will be up to Arctic residents todetermine which kind of mix will best servetheir future needs.

The Arctic has “grown” considerably duringrecent decades. Not only have contacts and lev-els of cooperation increased within the circum-polar North – especially since the opening of theformer Soviet North – but the interconnected-ness of Arctic and non-Arctic communities hasbecome more apparent. While the impact ofsouthern power centers on Arctic communitieshas long been noticed, Arctic communities aregradually expanding their reach south andthereby carrying Arctic social and cultural tradi-tions into regions far removed from tundras andnorthern forests.

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4. Lehtola 2002:42-43 (2).5. N. Vakhtin, Native Peoples of the Russian Far North

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6. D. Jenness, “Eskimo Administration vol. 1-5”(Technical Papers of the Arctic Institute of NorthAmerica 10, 14, 16, 19, 21. 1962-1968).

7. Grønlands Statistik, Grønland 2003: Statistiskårbog (Grønlands Statistik /Atuagkat, Nuuk,2003), table 4.1 p. 448.

8. E.g. Damas 2002 (15), Tester and Kulchisky 1994(91), and Marcus 1995 (92), for the centralCanadian Arctic; Slezkine 1994 (93), Vakhtin1992:19(5), and Krupnik and Chlenov in prep.(12), for the North of the Soviet Union, andLehtola 2002: 68 (2) for Sápmi.

9. E.g. Damas 1996:377 (15); Robert-Lamblin1971:64-5 (94)

10. A. W. Bentzon, T. Agersnap, Urbanization,Industrialization and Changes in the Family inGreenland during the Reform Period since 1950(København, 1971).

11. Grønlands Statistik, Grønland 2003: Statistiskårbog (Grønlands Statistik /Atuagkat, Nuuk,2003), p. 74.

12. I. I. Krupnik, M.A. Chlenov, “Survival inContact: Yupik (Asiatic Eskimo) Transitions,1900-1990” Contributions to CircumpolarAnthropology (Arctic Studies Center,Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, forth-coming), chapter 12.

13. E.g. R. Condon, P. Collings, G. Wenzel, “The bestpart of life: subsistence hunting, ethnicity, andeconomic adaptation among young adult Inuitmales” Arctic 48(1), 31 (1995).

14. E.g. T. Ingold, “Work, identity and environment:Finns and Saami in Lapland” in Arctic Ecologyand Identity, S. Mousalimas, Ed. (AkadémiaiKiadó, Budapest, 1995), pp. 41-68.

15. D. Damas, Arctic Migrants, Arctic Villagers: The Transformation of Inuit Settlement in the CentralArctic (McGill-Queen’s University Press,Montreal, Kingston, 2002), pp. 197-202.

16. J. Motzfeldt, “Forord,” in Kalaallit Nunaat:Gyldendals bog om Grønland, B. Gynther, M.Aqigssiaq, Eds. (Gyldendalske Boghandel,Nordisk Forlag A/S, Copenhagen, 1999) (inDanish), p. 7.

17. V. Alia, Names, Numbers, and Northern Policy:Inuit Project Surname, and the Politics of Identity(Fernwood Publishing, Halifax, 1994).

18. A. Kublu, J. Oosten, “Changing perspectives ofname and identity among the Inuit of NortheastCanada” in Arctic Identities, J. Oosten, C. Remie,


Eds. (University of Leiden, Leiden, 1999), pp.56-78.

19. R. Williamson, “Some aspects of the history ofthe Eskimo naming system: name change andnetwork loss” Folk 30, 245 1988.

20. Quote from page 170 in Vakhtin, 1998 (21).21. N. Vakhtin, “Endangered languages in Northeast

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22. E.g. C. Malet, et al., “Stratégies de subsistance etperception des aliments des populations deYakoutie arctique (districts de basse et demoyenne Kolyma)” Bulletins et Mémoires de laSociété d’Anthropologie de Paris 15(1-2), 101 (2003)(in French).

23. F. B. Larsen, “Death and social change inIttoqqortoormiit (East Greenland)” in Looking tothe Future: Papers from the 7th Inuit StudiesConference, M.-J. Dufour, F. Thérien, Eds. (LavalU., Association Inuksiutiit Katimajiit, Quebec,1992) pp. 125-139. (expanded version in Danish:“Voldsom død og social forandring iIttoqqortoormiit” in Grønlandsk kultur- og sam-fundsforskning 92 (Ilisimatusarfik/Atuakkiorfik,Nuuk, 1992), pp. 129-146.

24. J. Hicks, G. White, “Nunavut: Inuit self-determi-nation through a land claim and public govern-ment?” in Nunavut: Inuit Regain Control of theirLands and their Lives, J. Dahl, et al., Eds. (IWGIA,Copenhagen, 2000), pp. 30-115 (p. 90).

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29. Y. Csonka, “La Tchoukotka: une illustration de laquestion autochtone en Russie” Recherchesamérindiennes au Québec 28, 23 (1998). (inFrench).

30. I. Krupnik, N. Vakhtin, “Power, politics, and her-itage: undercurrent transformations in the post-soviet Arctic: the case of Chukotka” in Changes inthe Circumpolar North. Culture, Ethics, and Self-Determination, ICASS III, Keynotes presented at theThird International Congress of Arctic SocialSciences, F. Sejersen, Ed. (IASSA, Copenhagen,1999) pp. 27-42.

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Kasten, Ed. (Dietrich Reimer, Berlin, 2002), pp.7-43.

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36. For the Russian North, see N. B. Vakhtin, Yazykinarodov Severa v XX veke. Ocherki yazykovogosdviga (Dmitriy Bulanin, St. Petersburg, 2001).

37. G. Pálsson, “Language and Society: TheEthnolinguistics of Icelanders” in TheAnthropology of Iceland, E.P. Durrenberger, G.Pálsson, Eds. (Univ. of Iowa Press, Iowa City,1989) pp. 121-139.

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39. J. D. Bobaljik, “Visions and realities: researcher-activist-indigenous collaborations in indigenouslanguage maintenance” in Bicultural Education inthe North: Ways of Preserving and EnhancingIndigenous Peoples’ Languages and TraditionalKnowledge, E. Kasten, Ed. (Waxmann, Münster,1998), pp. 13-28 (p. 14, 19).

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41. S. Lund, “Der asfalten slutter, byrjar samane”Klassekampen, (October 1994); http://home.online.no/~sveilund/sami/skanit.htm 7 November 2003.

42. L. Huss, Reversing Language Shift in the Far North,Linguistic Revitalization in Northern Scandinaviaand Finland (Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis,Uppsala, 1999) pp. 149-150.

43. D. Patrick, Language, Politics, and Social Interactionin an Inuit Community (Mouton de Gruyter,Berlin, 2003).

44. L. Kaplan, “Inupiaq Identity and InupiaqLanguage: Does One Entail the Other?”Études/Inuit/Studies 25(1-2), 249 (2001).

45. Kaplan 2001:255 (44).46. E.g. Burch 1994 (48); N. Kishigami, “Why

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47. For Lule Saami, see H. Rydving, The End ofDrum-Time: Religious Change among the LuleSaami, 1670s-1740s. (Uppsala Univ., Uppsala, ed.2, 1995).

48. E. S. Burch, Jr. “The Inupiat and theChristianization of Arctic Alaska”Études/Inuit/Studies 18(1-2), 81 (1994).

49. C. G. Trott, “The Rapture and the Rupture:Religious Change amongst the Inuit of NorthBaffin Island” Études/Inuit/Studies 21(1-2), 209(1997).

50. For religious syncretism see, e.g. L. T. Black,“Religious syncretism as cultural dynamic” inCircumpolar Religion and Ecology: An Anthropologyof the North, T. Irimoto, T. Yamada, Eds. (Univ. ofTokyo Press, Tokyo, 1994), pp. 213-220.

51. C. Z. Jolles, “Salvation on St. Lawrence Island:Protestant conversion among the Sivuqaghhmiit”Arctic Anthropology 26(2), 12 (1989).

52. Vera Timoshenko was interviewed by TatianaGrigorieva, IA coordinator in Nikolskoye.

53. E.g. T. Yamada, T. Irimoto, Eds. CircumpolarAnimism and Shamanism (Hokkaido Univ. Press,Sapporo, 1997).

54. E.g. V. Diószegi, M. Hoppál, Eds., Shamanism inSiberia (Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 1978); J.Pentikäinen, Ed., Shamanism and NorthernEcology (Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, 1996); T. A.Vestergaard, Ed. “Shamanism and TraditionalBeliefs,” North Atlantic Studies 4(1-2), 3 (2001).

55. T. Yamada, An Anthropology of Animism andShamanism (Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 1999).

56. A. I. Hallowell, “Bear Ceremonialism in theNorthern Hemisphere” American Anthropologist(n.s.) 28(1), 1 (1926).

57. See, e.g., Krupnik and Vakhtin’s study of the sub-tle changes of Siberian Yupik practices and theirinterpretations over several generations: I.Krupnik, N. Vakhtin, “Indigenous knowledge inmodern culture: Siberian Yupik ecological legacyin transition,” Arctic Anthropology 34(1), 236(1997).

58. E.g. Hensel, Telling Our Selves: Ethnicity andDiscourse in Southwestern Alaska (Oxford Univ.Press, Oxford, 1996; A. Wiget, O. Balalaeva,“Khanty communal reindeer sacrifice: belief, sub-sistence, and cultural persistence in contempo-rary Siberia” Arctic Anthropology 38(1), 82 (2001).

59. M. Lee, “Arctic Art and Artists (Indigenous). InEncyclopedia of the Arctic, M. Nuttall, Ed. (FitzroyDearborn, London, in press).

60. E.g. J. Hollowell-Zimmer, “Intellectual propertyprotection for Alaska Native arts” CulturalSurvival Quarterly 24(4), 55 (2001).

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64. E.g. Nuttall 1992:69 (70).65. For further context, see box “Growing up with

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69. B. Bodenhorn, “ ‘He used to be my relative’:exploring the bases of relatedness among Iñupiatof northern Alaska” in Cultures of Relatedness:New Approaches to the Study of Kinship, J. Carsten,Ed. (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 2000),pp. 128-148.

70. M. Nuttall, Arctic Homeland: Kinship, Communityand Development in Northwest Greenland (Univ. ofToronto Press, Toronto, 1992).

71. M. Nuttall, “Choosing kin: sharing and subsis-tence in a Greenlandic hunting community” inDividends of Kinship: Meanings and Uses of SocialRelatedness, P. Schweitzer, Ed. (Routledge,London, 2000) (pp. 33-60).

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79. J. Bell, “One in 10 Inuit Live in the South, CensusShows” Nunatsiaq News 50 (Jan. 24, 2003) pp. 1, 4.

80. N. Kishigami, “Inuit identities in Montreal,Canada” Etudes/Inuit/Studies 26(1), 183 (2002).

81 A. Fienup-Riordan, W.Tyson, P. John, M. Meade,J. Active , Hunting Tradition in a Changing World:Yup’ik Lives in Alaska Today (Rutgers Univ. Press,New Brunswick, NJ, 2000) (chapter 5).

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83. M. Lee, “The cooler ring: urban Alaskan Nativewomen and the subsistence debate,” ArcticAnthropology 39(1-2), 3 (2002).

84. Alaska Community Database, http://www.dced.state.ak.us/dca/commdb/CF-CIS.cfm; 2/2/ 2004.

85. U.S. Census Bureau, “Census of population &housing, summary file 2” (2000).

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94. J. Robert-Lamblin, “Les Ammassalimiut émigrésau Scoresbysund: étude démographique etsocio-économique de leur adaptation” Bulletinset mémoires de la Société d’anthropologie de Paris,Cahiers du Centre de recherches anthropologiques11-12 (1971).

95. This chapter follows the AMAP boundaries ofthe Arctic, because they fit better with culturaland linguistic units than the AHDR boundaries.The table of Arctic languages and the relatedmap of Arctic peoples try to capture a circumpo-lar perspective and, thus, cannot aspire to do jus-tice to local and regional variations in dialectsand identities. For example, Meänkieli - whichhas the status of a minority language in Swedensince 1996 - is linguistically a dialect of Finnishand therefore not listed separately, and theKvens who speak it are not distinguished on themap. We acknowledge, however, that even minorlinguistic differences can be of major importancefor local identities.

96. J. Robert-Lamblin, 2003. Impacts on IndigenousPopulations. Pp. 425-435 in R. Rasmussen and N.Koroleva (ed.). Social and EnvironmentalImpacts in the North. Kluwer AcademicPublishers.

AcknowledgmentsFirst of all, we would like to thank Jens Dahl, CraigFleener, Victoria Gofman, Anna Karlsdóttir, AlexinaKublu, Molly Lee, Carl-Christian Olsen, Gunn-BrittRetter, Tamara Semenova, Mikhail Todyshev, andGitte Tróndheim, all of whom contributed importanttexts to our chapter. Winfried Dallmann deserves ourpraise for the map and Heather Campbell, NelsonGraburn, Jorma Lehtola, Vlad Peskov, and JoëlleRobert-Lamblin assisted in selecting images andacquiring copyright. Hugh Beach and Ludger Müller-Wille served as external reviewers and provided uswith extensive and helpful suggestions. Likewise, wethank members of the AHDR executive and steeringcommittees, and fellow lead authors, for theircomments and reviews. Finally, we want toacknowledge the input from the AHDR managementand editing team: Niels Einarsson who providedoverall guidance for our chapter, Joan NymandLarsen who made sure that we did not fall too farbehind in our schedule, and Annika Nilsson whodisplayed great competence in translating ouracademic prose into a more readable text. Still, theresponsibility for errors, omissions, and the opinionsexpressed, rests solely with us.


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