The Inughuit, hunters of narwhals. Evolution and adaptations of knowledge and know-how in a changing environment

• Main Author: Drieux, Christiane
• Other Authors: Laboratoire d'anthropologie sociale (LAS), École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS)-Collège de France (CdF (institution))-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Université Paris sciences et lettres, Charles Stépanoff
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: French
• Published: HAL CCSD 2019
• Subjects: Hunters; Environmental adaptations; Kayak; Dogs; Inughuit; Narwhal; Greenland; Chasseurs; Adaptations environnementales; Chiens; [SHS.SOCIO]Humanities and Social Sciences/Sociology; [SHS.ANTHRO-SE]Humanities and Social Sciences/Social Anthropology and ethnology; narwhal*; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://theses.hal.science/tel-02796560; https://theses.hal.science/tel-02796560/document; https://theses.hal.science/tel-02796560/file/2019PSLEP024_archivage.pdf

This thesis presents, in the form of a monograph based on several field works, the knowledge and skill of the Inughuit narwhal hunters, in northwest Greenland. Through abundant iconography and by putting into perspective of the practices of early twentieth century hunters and those of current ones, it highlights how the Inughuit combine resilience and creativity. Narwhal hunters favour equipment and kayaks whose design, with the skills and knowledge they require, connect them to their ancestors. By perpetuating narwhal hunting from kayak, they combine dexterity of gesture, extreme physical skills, attention to the environment and the animals, with their community traditions. While opening up to modernity gives them access to motorized vehicles, hunters, to go to the hunting grounds in the spring, load their kayaks on dog sledges. This thesis examines their choice and shows the special place that hunters give to interspecies dialogue with animals they consider to be intentioned and endowed with intelligence. In parallel, this study investigates the impact on traditional practices of new regulations to protect narwhals in what is a breeding area. Economic necessities and environmental changes due to climate modifications, compel hunters to turn to other sources of income, to adapt to other rules inspired by them opening up to a market society and induce a different relationship to the environment. Thus, hunters have created a cooperative that markets the mattaaq of the narwhals they have harpooned during the summer season and halibut whose fishing they have developed during the sea ice season. The study conducted in the four villages of the region, notes the influence of this evolution on the appropriation and redistribution of killed game, in a community regulated by mutual aid and sharing. While the Inughuit, in an approach combining creativity and resilience, open their world to globalization, narwhal hunting, deeply rooted in ancestral relationships with the environment and animals, continues to provide the ...