178
cultural trappings in Greenland date back to at least 4400 years ago, and one individual in particular known as “Inuk”—something of a physiological ambassador for
the Saqqaq world, whose remains were found in the village port of Qeqertarsuaq,
half-way up the West Coast. Inuk was a hunter. But during early Norse settlements,
commencing in 985 CE, with Erik the Red’s second exile, there accumulated great
Nordic wealth, the importation of bovines, sheep, and goats from Iceland, and an
eventual population zenith of nearly 2000 probably very satisfied human souls.
There were churches and a widespread farming community with evidence for some
“500 farms” on the southeastern coast, and approximately “100” to the southwest.
All the comforts of home, for a couple of centuries
8
. Then came a great “silence”
that seems to have enshrouded Norse culture in Greenland, corresponding to dramatic climate change.
19.2 A Teleology of Killing
The Inuit people who also occupied southern Greenland continued their hunting
traditions which sustained them, without a dependency upon the vagaries of
Greenland agriculture, which appears to have ultimately doomed the Nordic settlers. Although today, with a human population of approximately 57,000 there has
evolved the expected kinds of changes that Denmark’s own influences would have
exacted. A curious mix, most certainly. The largest island in the world, with over
650,000 square miles still under ice, but melting fast for no fault of the indigenous
residents, whose self-rule since 1979 and later separation from the EU has guaranteed a demographic bubble under the Sun.
In 1991, the Premier of Nuuk, Lars Emil Johansen wrote in the Foreword to the
book Nature Conservation in Greenland – Research, nature, and wildlife management
9
, “Only by bringing down wild animals and using them for food and heat, and
by making clothing and boats from skins, can we survive in our part of the world.
And that is why the people of Greenland have always been hunters. Technological
development has not changed this.” He adds that it is “no longer a matter of life or
death” but rather a question of “identity”; an “attitude to nature and its resources”
that differs from those points of view shared within industrialized nations. Indeed,
such human changes have definitely altered Greenlanders’ Weltanschauung. Today,
whilst an increasing percentage of those hundreds-of-billions of hamburgers
devoured throughout the world are being replaced with varieties of plant-based
8 Groeneveld, Emma. “Viking Age Greenland.” Ancient History Encyclopedia. Ancient History
Encyclopedia, https://www.ancient.eu/article/1208/viking-age-greenland/. Accessed 06 Apr 2019.
9 Kalaallit Nunaanniu nunanik piinillu allanngutsaaliuineq, Atuakkiorfik, Greenland, p. 7.
19 A Village in Prince Christian Sound
cultural trappings in Greenland date back to at least 4400 years ago, and one individual in particular known as “Inuk”—something of a physiological ambassador for
the Saqqaq world, whose remains were found in the village port of Qeqertarsuaq,
half-way up the West Coast. Inuk was a hunter. But during early Norse settlements,
commencing in 985 CE, with Erik the Red’s second exile, there accumulated great
Nordic wealth, the importation of bovines, sheep, and goats from Iceland, and an
eventual population zenith of nearly 2000 probably very satisfied human souls.
There were churches and a widespread farming community with evidence for some
“500 farms” on the southeastern coast, and approximately “100” to the southwest.
All the comforts of home, for a couple of centuries
8
. Then came a great “silence”
that seems to have enshrouded Norse culture in Greenland, corresponding to dramatic climate change.
19.2 A Teleology of Killing
The Inuit people who also occupied southern Greenland continued their hunting
traditions which sustained them, without a dependency upon the vagaries of
Greenland agriculture, which appears to have ultimately doomed the Nordic settlers. Although today, with a human population of approximately 57,000 there has
evolved the expected kinds of changes that Denmark’s own influences would have
exacted. A curious mix, most certainly. The largest island in the world, with over
650,000 square miles still under ice, but melting fast for no fault of the indigenous
residents, whose self-rule since 1979 and later separation from the EU has guaranteed a demographic bubble under the Sun.
In 1991, the Premier of Nuuk, Lars Emil Johansen wrote in the Foreword to the
book Nature Conservation in Greenland – Research, nature, and wildlife management
9
, “Only by bringing down wild animals and using them for food and heat, and
by making clothing and boats from skins, can we survive in our part of the world.
And that is why the people of Greenland have always been hunters. Technological
development has not changed this.” He adds that it is “no longer a matter of life or
death” but rather a question of “identity”; an “attitude to nature and its resources”
that differs from those points of view shared within industrialized nations. Indeed,
such human changes have definitely altered Greenlanders’ Weltanschauung. Today,
whilst an increasing percentage of those hundreds-of-billions of hamburgers
devoured throughout the world are being replaced with varieties of plant-based
8 Groeneveld, Emma. “Viking Age Greenland.” Ancient History Encyclopedia. Ancient History
Encyclopedia, https://www.ancient.eu/article/1208/viking-age-greenland/. Accessed 06 Apr 2019.
9 Kalaallit Nunaanniu nunanik piinillu allanngutsaaliuineq, Atuakkiorfik, Greenland, p. 7.
19 A Village in Prince Christian Sound