LL-L 'Language use' 2006.08.11 (04) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 11 August 2006 * Volume 04
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From: 'Mark Dreyer' <mrdreyer at lantic.net>
Subject: LL-L 'History' 2006.08.10 (02) [E]

Hi Tom:

Subject: LL-L 'History'

> I would look for blood type distributions among the Inuit. For
> example, most Indians are type O. However one of my Anthropolgy books
> showed that among the Indians of Eastern Canada towards labrador,
> there is a significant presence of type A, which was common among the
> norse.

Seconded, but a word of warning. There is a complication born of Inuit
social practice. While it is NOT true that an Inuit's wife is free to any
guest, even at her husband's behest, there is a socio-economic relationship
between men that we in our simpler society would most closely relate to
trading partnerships. Adm. Peary inevitably fell into this system, & so did
his servant Matthew Henson, into another 'circle'. Both left descendants
known to this day. Many men that had serious business in the North among the
Inuit had to have a strong personal motivation not to render due benevolence
to their associate's wives. The problem is that almost any contacts between
the Inuit & the West until this day occurred with descendants of Vikings, &
how will we differentiate? Such recent co-mingling has no chronicle to help
us date it.

Yrs,
Mark 

----------

From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: History

Good one, Mark! Very astute!  This could indeed skew the DNA research results.

Indeed, "mixing" with North Europeans and the people's of the Northern Polar
Regions has been going on at least since the early 19th century.  On the European
side, this involved mostly people of British, Russian, French and Scandinavian
descent, of British descent mostly in Canada and Alaska, of Russian descent in
Alaska and Siberia, of French descent in Northern Quebec (now partly Nunavut) and
of Scandinavian descent mostly in Greenland (Kalallit Nunaat). I expect that
there are "indirect" Saxon admixtures, since Danes tend to be of partly Saxon
descent, and Norwegians used to be Danish citizens, those from coastal cities
being of more of less Saxon descent since the days of Hanseatic settlements in
Bergen, Trondheim, etc.

As most of you know, from a "Western" point of view, sexual encounters are not
taken very seriously in traditional Inuit and Yupik cultures. Lending a traveler
one's spouse (for a "laugh") used to be part of hospitality, young people tried
out several partners before settling with one, and divorce and remarriage merely
involved moving from one household to another.  It was perfectly moral to do so.
Problems arose only with encounters with people of European descent and in the
wake of "Westernization."  As in the case of Oceania, early European travelers
(mostly male) exploited the old customs quite eagerly, and this could lead to
problems when entire ships' crews descended on a village.  As a result, many of
today's Inuit and Yupik are of partly "Caucasian" descent, less so in some places
than in others.  For instance, in Greenland there has been more mixing among
speakers of West Greenlandic (Kalallisut) than among speakers of East Greenlandic
(Tunumiitoraasiat) and least among speakers of North Greenlandic (Avanersuaq),
the latter of which are linguistically, culturally and assumedly genetically much
more closely related to Canadian speakers of Inuktitut, especially to those
speaking dialects of the Qikiqtaaluquannangani, Natsilingmiutut and Inuinaaqtun
ranges than to speakers of the other dialects of Greenland.  Apparently, there
are noticeable genetic differences between Inuit and Yupik, the latter of which
live in Northwestern Alaska and Northeastern Siberia and, like the Aleuts, have
been mixing mostly with people of British and Russian backgrounds.  (However,
speakers of Eastern Central Alaskan Yukik and speakers of Farwestern Inuktitut
[especially of Qawiaraq dialects] probably consitute a bridge on account of close
geographical proximity.)  More and more people of non-indigenous descent have
been settling in the far north for decades now, and there has been a fair bit of
intermarriage, also intermarriage with "Indians."

The long and short of this is that DNA research may well yield results that don't
tell us a lot more than we already know.

For example, currently about 87 percent of Greenlands ca. 56,000 inhabitants are
"Greenlandic," which denotes those of mixed Inuit and European descent. 
Obviously there are more supposedly "pure" Inuit in the east and north. 
Nevertheless, I can't see what DNA research could possibly tell us about early
contacts between "Skraelingers" and "Vikings" under these circumstances.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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