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Race, gender,
and ethnicity |
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The American explorer Robert E. Peary
and Stefansson were probably the most visible early tentieth-century
explorers. Peary was an ambitious explorer who claimed in 1909 to
have discovered the North Pole, but his claim was challenged by
another American explorer, Frederick Cook. Both Peary and Stefansson,
Bloom suggests, "anchored the authority of their discourse
under the banner of science and progress (31)
Stefansson and Peary, however, represent important differences in
personality and context. While Peary had no ethnographic ambitions
Stefansson thought of himself as both anthropologist and explorer.
No doubt Stefansson's writings on the Inuit were partly informed
by the Icelandic community in Canada and North Dakota in which he
grew up. In the days of early Norse exploration across the North
Atlantic more than thousand years ago, the Icelandic concept of
skraelingi ("native", "barbarian") - a term
several times used by Stefansson in his diaries in relation to the
Inuit - referred to an inhabitant of Greenland (Eskimo or Inuit).
Although in Old Icelandic or Old Norse ("Danish Tongue",
as it used to be called) the concept of skraelingi was obviously
not a neutral one, first-hand accounts by early Icelanders of their
western neighbours were far less fantastic and ethnocentric than
their saga accounts of the Orient (32).
The limited experiences of "real" others, and the monolithic
Icelandic cultural background, were unlikely to engender serious
interest among Icelanders in comparative cultural or social anthropology.
Social life, however, in North America presented the immigrant Icelandic
community with new experiences and pressing questions. In his autobiography,
Stefansson described his encounter with members of the Sioux tribe,
"the very tribe that the Icelandic community so greatly feared":
"I cannot recall another time in my life when I made such a
quick and thorough readjustment of long-held ideas (33)".
Perhaps, such encounters sparked Stefansson's interest in exploration
and ethnographic description. Also, they may have informed his lasting
negative impression of Indians vis-Ŕ-vis his rather generous impression
of the Inuit. For Stefansson some Aboriginal Peoples seem to have
been more equal than others. He comments as follows upon his experience
from the first expedition: One thing I noticed about the Eskimos
in particular was their graceful, free-swinging walk. This was in
direct contrast to the jerky, almost furtive movements of the forest
Indians. I distinctively began to feel that the Eskimos were a superior
race. (34) Later on, when reflecting
in his diaries on the relationship between social and ecological
change in the Arctic, Stefansson indicates that the Indians, in
contrast to the Inuit, are just as afraid of the "friendly"
Arctic as Westerners: At present the caribou has in winter a wide
zone of safety between the Indians who dare not face the barren
ground and the Eskimo who prefer the sea coast. But the Eskimo fear
the woodless barrens about as much as a fish fears water ..... (35)
While Stefansson usually provided the personal names of his Inuit
companions, he tended to refer to others with the generic "the
Indian." This practice may both reflect Inuit stereotypes and
those of the North American Icelandic community. The attitude of
the Icelandic community towards Aboriginal Peoples, however, was
both complex and contradictory. Apparently, there was racism as
well as admiration. (36) Before
starting his journey back to "civilization", Stefansson
settles his accounts with some of his key informants, including
Pannigabluk. The settlements are described in the following manner: |
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Settlement with natives: [... ] We owe Pannigabluk about $25000,
but she is drawing a monthly allowance from the "Rosie
H." for which we pay in fox skins at ca. $50 for skin:
Anderson will get her account whenever she shall have Baillie
for the Mackenzie and I am to try arrange credit for her with
Cottle. (37)
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Despite his important ethnographic
contributions, Stefansson's texts, no less than those of most of
their contemporaries, are rather weak on the context of fieldwork
and the making of ethnography. Stefansson has little to say about
his relations with the Inuit. Elsewhere, I have tried to account
for Stefansson's reticence The larger to admit and seriously address
his intimate relationships in the field. (38)
The larger social context, and the relations of race, ethnicity
and gender characteristic for the expanding West at the beginning
of the twentieth century, is an important factor. Generally Stefansson
presents himself, in both his diaries and his publications, in terms
of the heroic image of a masculine hunter and explorer, engaged
in dangerous excursions into the wild domain of natives and animals,
extending the realm of rationality, science, and Western civilisation
into "nature." For him and many of his contemporaries,
fieldwork and geographical explorations were, above all, exercises
for testing and strengthening the sensibilities of manhood against
all kinds of odds. Accounts of such gallant journeys inevitably
placed the natives in the back seat whatever their real contributions.
It would be silly to force modern methodological standards upon
Stefansson's approach and viewpoints. The point is not to establish
that he failed to conform to our standards, which seems rather obvious,
but rather to explore the differences between the two contexts.
Most anthropologists nowadays would argue that it is important to
be explicit about the effects of one's presence, on the scene as
well as in ethnographic texts. As a result, anthropologists generally
feel compelled to situate their accounts and to reflect on the texts
they write as well as their relations with their hosts and their
readers. Anthropologists have fiercely debated a series of issues
regarding ethnographic theory and practice, including the nature
and role of textual accounts, participant- observation, and cultural
representation, all of which are fundamental for a discipline traditionally
focused on othering and cultural translation. Interestingly, Stefansson
comments in his diaries about the ethnographic importance of the
literary skills that allow the anthropologist to turn routine and
everyday experience into fascinating but credible accounts: |
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I ... have often found on belated reference to my diary that
I have told to many men on many occasions ... facts and feelings
which seem to have been absent at the time of an 'adventure'
but which have by some mental process attached themselves to
it later and have become vivid as the real facts, or have now
overshadowed them and even obliterated the facts. Where my contemporaneous
record of an event is meagre, these adventitious elements are
bound to remain undetected and become for me and anyone who
believes me, as if they had happened. (39)
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