The Umialiit-Kariyit Whaling Complex and Prehistoric Thule Eskimo Social Relations in the Eastern Canadian Arctic

• Main Author: James M. Savelle
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Visiting Scholar; National Museum of Ethnology; Osaka Key Words; Thule Eskimo Culture; social relations; Umialiit-Kariyit; prehistoric whaling; Arctic; Somerset Island; eskimo*; Alaska
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.618.4830; http://ir.minpaku.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/10502/3250/1/KH_027_1_004.pdf

The investigation of social relations amongst prehistoric Thule Eskimo bowhead whaling societies in the eastern Canadian Arctic has traditionally been based upon ethnographic analogies drawn from historic Eskimo societ-ies in this region. However, these historic Eskimo societies engaged in com-paratively little bowhead whaling, and were generally much smaller, more mobile, and less logistically and institutionally organized than we can expect Thule whaling societies to have been. Accordingly, it is suggested that the North Alaskan Eskimo umialiit-kariyit whaling complex provides a far more appropriate analogy. This paper describes the umialiit-kariyit whaling com-plex as ethnographically documented in northern Alaska, defines its asso-ciated archaeological correlates, and applies these correlates to three Thule whaling sites on Somerset Island in the eastern Canadian Arctic.