Table Of ContentAlready published in this series:
OLFACTION AND TASTE Edited by Y. Zotterman, 1963.
LIGHTING PROBLEMS IN HIGHWAY TRAFFIC Edited by E. Ingelstam, 1963.
THE STRUCTURE AND METABOLISM OF THE PANCREATIC ISLETS Edited
by S. E. Brolin, B. Hellman and H. Knutson, 1964.
TOBACCO ALKALOIDS AND RELATED COMPOUNDS Edited by U. S. von Euler,
1965.
MECHANISMS OF RELEASE OF BIOGENIC AMINES Edited by U. S. von Euler,
S. Rosell and B. Uvnäs, 1966.
COMPARATIVE LEUKAEMIA RESEARCH Edited by G. Winqvist, 1966.
THE FUNCTIONAL ORGANIZATION OF THE COMPOUND EYE Edited by
C. G. Bernhard, 1966.
OLFACTION AND TASTE II Edited by T. Hayashi, 1967.
MAGNETIC RESONANCE IN BIOLOGICAL SYSTEMS Edited by A. Ehrenberg,
B. G. Malmström and T. Vanngard, 1967.
STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION OF INHIBITORY NEURONAL MECHANISMS
Edited by C. von Euler, S. Skoglund and U. Söderberg, 1967.
GROUND WATER PROBLEMS Edited by E. Eriksson, Y. Gustafsson and K. Nilsson,
1968.
PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOPHYSIOLOGY OF PLASMA PROTEIN META-
BOLISM Edited by G. Birke, R. Norberg and L.-O. Plantin, 1969.
THE POSSIBILITIES OF CHARTING MODERN LIFE Edited by S. Erixon and Assisted
by G. Arwidsson and H. Hvarfner, 1970.
EVALUATION OF NOVEL PROTEIN PRODUCTS Edited by A. E. Bender, R. Kihlberg,
B. Lofqvist and L. Munck, 1970.
VESTIBULAR FUNCTION ON EARTH AND IN SPACE Edited by J. Stahle, 1970.
THE STRUCTURE OF METABOLISM OF THE PANCREATIC ISLETS Edited by
S. Falkner, B. Hellman, and I. B. Taljedal, 1970.
HUMAN ANTI-HUMANGAMMAGLOBVUNS Edited by R. Grubb andG. Samuelsson,
1971.
STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION OF OXIDATION-REDUCTION ENZYMES Edited
by Â. Âkeson and A. Ehrenberg, 1972.
CERVICAL PAIN Edited by C. Hirsch and Y. Zotterman, 1972.
ORAL PHYSIOLOGY Edited by N. Emmelin and Y. Zotterman, 1972.
CIRCUMPOLAR PROBLEMS
HABITAT, ECONOMY, AND SOCIAL RELATIONS
IN THE ARCTIC
A Symposium for Anthropological
Research in the North,
September 1969
Edited by
GÖSTA BERG
PERGAMON PRESS
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Copyright © 1973 Pergamon Press Ltd.
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First edition 1973
Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 72-88050
Printed in Great Britain by A. Wheaton & Co., Exeter
ISBN 0 08 017038 2
PREFACE
THE papers presented in this volume were written as contributions to the Symposium on
Circumpolar Problems which was arranged by the Nordic Council for Anthropological
Research from 14 to 21 September 1969, in Luleâ, Sweden, and Troms0, Norway.
The scope of the symposium was very wide, not only in regard to time and to the vast
geographical area, but also to the subject matter in the papers. An organizing committee
headed by Professor Gutorm Gjessing, Oslo, set up the programme and invited scholars
from Canada, the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. as well as the Scandinavian countries, to
participate. Papers dealing with archaeological and ethnological problems up to modern
sociological ones were presented. In view of the extreme conditions of life in arctic areas,
an ecological background to the papers was thought to be desirable.
In order to provide a focus to this general orientation it was decided that the arrangement
should take the form of a mobile symposium. The county curator of Norrbotten, Harald
Hvarfner, Norrbottens Museum, Luleâ, and the director of Tromso Museum, 0rnulv
Vorren, assumed the responsibility of arranging the additional programme and the itinerary
of the symposium in Northern Sweden, Finland and Norway, areas with geographical condi-
tions relevant to the problems of the symposium. Indispensable help was given by Professor
Greta Arwidsson, University of Stockholm, and her research assistant, Carin Orrling, who
acted as the secretary to the Symposium. The co-operation with these and other un-
mentioned contributors was a pleasure for which I want, on behalf of the Nordic Council,
to express our appreciation.
The symposium started in the northern lowlands bordering the Baltic Sea in Luleâ,
Northern Sweden, moved across the mountain areas via Kiruna, and then to Kilpisjärvi
in Northern Finland, and closed its sessions on the west coast in Tromso, Northern Nor-
way. The economic and social problems of this region, particularly in regard to industry,
mining, reindeer economy, fishing, and the redistribution of the population, were demon-
strated to the members of the symposium by means of discussions with local
specialists.
The symposium was partly financed by a grant to the Nordic Council for Anthropo-
logical Research from the Wenner-Gren Society, Stockholm. Contributions were made
from Letterstedtska Foreningen and Svenska Institutet, Stockholm, and from the Nor-
wegian Research Council to Tromso Museum, from the Finnish Department of Education,
and from funds drawn upon by a number of participants for travelling from their home
countries to Stockholm. The arrangements in the far north were to a considerable extent
supported by local institutions through the Norbottens and Tromso museums. The Nordic
Council for Anthropological Research wishes to express its deep gratitude for this generosity,
which made the symposium possible.
vii
viii PREFACE
It is the hope of the Nordic Council that the experience gained by the thirty-two sym-
posium members, and the contacts made between them, will be of some value to their
individual scientific pursuits. The Council wishes to thank them for their contributions, and
for their goodfellowship.
KNUT KOLSRUD
President of the Nordic Council for Anthropological Research, 1968-9
GREENLANDERS AND LAPPS:
SOME COMPARISONS OF THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO
THE INCLUSIVE SOCIETYt
VlLHELM AUBERT
University of Oslo
GREENLANDERS and Lapps are probably the two most important minority groups in
Scandinavia. I am not going to deal with their history or patterns of culture, but shall
concentrate on their position as citizens with minority status. On the one hand we are con-
cerned with the relationship between the Greenlanders and the Danish society. On the other
hand we deal with the Lapps in their relationship to the Norwegian society, leaving out a
discussion of the Lapps in Sweden, Finland or the Soviet Union. The rationale for com-
paring Greenlanders and Lapps lies in the similarity between some of their important
characteristics. However, the differences are no less striking, nor less interesting. It is
precisely the variations upon a common main theme which make such a comparison fruitful
from a theoretical point of view, and useful with respect to plans for shaping policy in the
future.
Let us start out with a brief sketch of the similarities in the situation of the two minority
groups.
Contrary to the situation of other minority groups, as, for example, the Jews, or the
recently immigrated labourers from Southern Europe, the Greenlanders and the Lapps
made up the original population in their areas of settlement. They had lived there and
exploited the natural resources from time immemorial, before the Danes appeared in
Greenland or before the Norwegians started to colonize Finmark. For this reason it is not
entirely appropriate to use the terms minority and majority groups if we focus upon the
Inner Finmark, and even less so if we consider the island Greenland as a social unit. Here
the minority group constitutes the majority of the population.
Another similarity between the two minority groups is that they possessed no written
language, and that the culture in other respects had been classified as "primitive". The
later development of a written language is in both cases due to the influence of colonial
representatives. It should, however, be mentioned that in both groups there had developed
t Many thoughts which have been expressed in this paper are no doubt due to the influence of my colleague
in the study of the social situation of the Lapps, and my travel companion in Greenland last summer, Mr.
Anton Hoëm. However, the responsibility for the conclusions must of course rest upon me alone.
1
2 VILHELM AUBERT
quite an advanced technology in hunting and sealing on the one hand, and in reindeer-
herding on the other hand.
Both groups live under arctic or sub-arctic conditions, and their cultural development has
been shaped in many respects by this fact. They have developed specific adaptive mecha-
nisms which aim at solving the problems which confront the human race under such natural
conditions. This is not only true of technological adaptation to arctic living. The spiritual
culture, for example in religion, exhibits common traits which are related to an earlier
Shamanism. To a greater or lesser degree Greenlanders as well as Lapps have practised a
type of nomadism. Recently both groups have adopted a more sedentary life, although this
development in some districts has come only very recently.
The Lappish as well as the Greenlandish language is very different from the main language
of the national society. This is of dominant significance in the present-day situation, since
formal education is so important in the life of the individual. Lappish is related to relatively
large language groups, like the Finnish or the Hungarian, and is probably of Indo-European
origin. The language of the Greenlanders has only small related language groups among the
Eskimos of Alaska and Canada, and among the people of the Aleuts. It is an extraordinarily
difficult language to learn for those who have not grown up with it. It is not so difficult to
learn Lappish. On the other hand, there has been a greater production of literature in
Greenlandish than in Lappish. Thus, the schools in Greenland are better equipped than are
the schools in Lappish districts with textbooks in the mother tongue.
Hunting has been an important or predominant occupation for the two peoples. Today
fishery plays a very important role among the Greenlanders, and this is also true for a large
number of coastal Lapps in Finland and Troms. Lapps as well as Greenlanders belong to
occupational groups which face difficult situations and which are underprivileged. In
addition to those handicaps which derive from natural conditions in the districts of the
minority groups, there arise certain handicaps out of the minority status itself.
Greenlanders as well as Lapps are, within the national framework, relatively poor,
powerless and afflicted by more social problems than are the rest of the population. This is not
without exception, however. There are prosperous Lapps also, among the reindeer-herders.
And among the Greenlanders one may find certain prosperous skippers on fishing vessels.
By and large, however, there is a relationship between minority status and a low rank in
the system of social stratification and in the class structure. The social problems are in
part the same in both groups, like overcrowding, families with many children, and a
preponderance of unmarried mothers. Among the Lapps there has been a relatively high
proportion of invalid pensioners, while this has not yet been registered among the Green-
landers. On the other hand, the alcohol problem has attracted a great deal of attention in
Greenland, while this cannot, in general, be said to constitute a problem in the Lappish
districts. On the contrary, many Lappish hamlets are characterized by teetotalism, or at
least by a great moderation in the use of alcohol.
A predominant characteristic of the old Greenland society as well as of the Lapps was
the absence of strong political institutions. There was no authority originating within the
group itself comprising more than a very small number of individuals or families. Among
the Lapps one had the Siidä, the Lappish village which was united in reindeer-herding on a
common territory under one leader: siidä-ised. Among the Greenlanders also leadership
was limited to the small hamlets. This is a very important factor in a situation where con-
tacts with the inclusive society and with the representatives of the majority group exert a
decisive influence upon the course of events. The encounter with the national society and
GREENLANDERS AND LAPPS 3
its demand for counterparts with which to negotiate produce new dominant organs within
the two minority groups. The lag in the development of organizations constitutes a weakness
which explains in large measure the powerlessness of the two minority groups. They lack
those traditions which might furnish the basis for collective action and leadership, with
the bargaining power which would flow from it.
An important aspect of the similarity between the two situations has to do with the
characteristic of the majority group itself. The Danish and the Norwegian societies are
relatively similar in culture, politics and social structure. During a formative phase in the
integration of the minority group into the larger society, colonization took place on the
same basis and was in part carried out by personnel belonging to the Danish-Norwegian
state. It was a Norwegian, Hans Egede, parson in Lofoten, who started to colonize Green-
land, and later on other Norwegians also played a dominant part in its colonization. Lars
Dalager, for example, played a role in Finmark as well as in Greenland.
In Greenland as well as in North Norway there has taken place a long process of assimila-
tion. It has produced a group of middle men who have characteristics of the minority as
well as from the majority group, and these people play an important role as mediators in
the process of development. Not infrequently the attitudes and interests of the middle men
and mediators, which derive from their special position, help to shape the development.
Assimilation has taken place in many similar ways in both groups, for example through
mixed marriages, geographic mobility, and also in the sense that relatively "pure" repre-
sentatives of the minority group have, as a result of economic development or schooling,
adopted important characteristics from the majority culture.
These similarities are so many and so important that they furnish us with a basis for
undertaking comparisons with respect to the development during recent years. We are not
faced with types of situations which are completely incompatible. As soon, however, as
one starts to look at the dissimilarities, it will become apparent that it is not a priori given
that a policy that might lead to fruitful results in one of the areas necessarily would lead to
similar results in another.
The most important difference in the situation of the Greenlanders and the Lapps has
to do with the relationship to the territory. Greenland constitutes a very clearly distinguished
territorial unit. It is far removed from the mainland, South Denmark, so called after the
inclusion of Greenland in Denmark. Greenland itself is called North Denmark. The Atlantic
Ocean divides the two parts of the country, and the differences in nature and climate are
drastic and unchanging. In contrast to this, the territorial differentiation of Lapps and
Norwegians in Northern Norway is less clear, and this is even more characteristic when we
look at small Lappish groups in Southern Norway. In certain municipalities in Inner
Finmark, for example Kautokeino and Karasjok, the Lappish domination is very strong
and can be compared to the situation in Greenland. However, as one moves from this
central Lappish area towards the more peripheral Lappish districts, the borderlines become
more fluid. This territorial dissimilarity between Greenland and Northern Norway has a
number of important implications.
One of the implications is that the Greenlanders seem to be somewhat more homogeneous
than the Lapps with respect to language and culture. The great majority of Greenlanders
speak the same language with only small differences of dialect. A very few East Green-
landers and North Greenlanders speak strongly deviant dialects. The Lapps, however, are
divided into a number of language groups where mutual understanding is often difficult or
non-existent. Among the Greenlanders one may find important differences of an economic
4 VILHELM AUBERT
and social kind, for example between hunters and fishermen, and also between these two
groups on the one hand, and the educated élite. The lines of division seem to be even more
marked, however, among the Lapps, among whom one finds reindeer-herders, fishermen,
farmers and also an intellectual élite of teachers, and holders of certain political offices.
What is especially important is that there have been rather sharp conflicts of interest
between reindeer-herders and sedentary Lappish peasants and fishermen.
Relatively few Greenlanders have been assimilated outside the territory, that is to say
in South Denmark. On the other hand, a very large number of Norwegians had Lapps
among their ancestors. Along the entire coast of Northern Norway one may find townships
which a hundred years ago had a strong Lappish dominance but which today have lost all,
or practically all, Lappish traits. Among other things this means that in Northern Norway
there exist a very large number of people who have a somewhat ambivalent and prob-
lematical relationship to their Lappish ancestry. In various ways this impinges upon their
relationship to the present members of the minority group. From the Lappish side it is
often maintained that among those who have lost their Lappish identity, but who are of
Lappish ancestry, one may find those who discriminate most against the Lapps. One can
hardly find a parallel to this in the relationship between Greenlanders and Danes.
The relationship between the Danes and Greenlanders was paternalistic; Danish civil
servants governed Greenland on the basis of an ideology purporting to protect the Green-
landers, while taking Danish superiority for granted. There existed no strong conflict of
interest between these two groups: rather, the relationship was a complementary one. The
relationship between Lapps and Norwegians has been more characterized by competition
between equals since, for example, the members of both groups might be peasants or
fishermen. It was not to be taken for granted that the Lapp would be inferior in the encoun-
ter between the two groups. The situation may often have been the reverse. This implies
that there has been more competition over the same scarce natural resources, as, for example,
when the reindeer-herders moved the herds near to or across the fields of the Norwegian
peasants. This led to numerous conflicts and considerable bitterness between the groups.
Although we may assume that in both societies there exist rather widespread prejudices
on the part of the majority combined with the feeling of superiority in relation to the
minority, the content of these attitudes may have been somewhat different due to these
other differences. The cultural gap between Danes and Greenlanders may have been wider
than that between Norwegians and Lapps, at least if one leaves aside the special relationship
between the Lapps and the civil servants among the Norwegians. While the distance may
have been greater in Greenland, the competition has been more intense in Northern Norway.
The administration of the Greenlanders and their society has been very strongly cen-
tralized. Traditionally the most important decisions have been made in Copenhagen, and
this is true even today. In Northern Norway the administration of the Lappish districts
has been characterized by the same amount of decentralization which characterizes all
administration of Norwegian districts. Local government has played a dominant part. At
the same time the administration has been spread and divided according to functionally
specific organs as is usually the case in Norwegian administration. One cannot very well
speak about a specific Lappish policy. Norwegian authorities do only in part recognize that
there exists a Lappish problem. The report of the Lappish committee in 1959 is a sign that
the minority problem has been evaluated as such. On the other hand, a large number of
measures and pronouncements on the part of the government exhibit a tendency to view
the problems of the Lapps as functionally specific problems within different fields such as
GREENLANDERS AND LAPPS 5
school policy, localization policy, social policy, etc. In contrast to this, the Danish political
authorities have very clearly defined a Greenland problem and given it a high priority.
Clear evidence of this are the enormous investments in Greenland in recent years, amount-
ing to 500 mill. Danish crowns a year. One cannot find parallel investments in the Nor-
wegian Lappish districts. Here the policy of appropriation is determined according to
general political principles, which imply that the Lapps have suffered under the present
tendency to favour more centrally located groups.
Greenland was a colony until 1953. In colonial times the policy aimed at a preservation
of the Greenland society, Greenland occupations, the Greenland culture and the Eskimo
language. The Lapps, on the other hand, have for a very long time had full or nearly full
citizenship rights. The policy has for a long time aimed at assimilation, at times even at the
extinction of the Lappish language and other special cultural characteristics. One may,
however, distinguish between formal policies and the policies which were actually carried
out. In practical terms, there has in many ways existed a policy of inequality in relation to
the Lapps. This implies that the Lapps have suffered from certain types of discrimination,
but also that they have had more opportunities to preserve their culture and their language
than the case would have been if the formally adopted policies had been more energetically
and more consistently carried out in practice.
The Greenlanders have their own representative political system in that they elect two
representatives to the Folketing, and that they have their spokesmen in the Landsrâdet,
which is composed of representatives of the nineteen electoral districts in Greenland.
Although the council has no more than a consultative influence, it may as a matter of fact
exert a rather strong pressure. The Lapps are, as Lapps, unrepresented in the Norwegian
political system. The Lappish council is government-appointed although it is constituted
by people who for the most part have a Lappish background. The Lappish representation
has taken place through the ordinary political institutions, the Storting and local govern-
ment. For a variety of reasons, however, which cannot be dealt with here, the absorption
into the general Norwegian political system implies that it becomes very difficult to further
specifically Lappish demands through these channels. Even in municipalities where the
Lapps make up a great majority of the population, the leadership has often been taken
over by Norwegians without a Lappish background.
Since 1953 the Danish Government has attempted to further the integration of Greenland
and the Greenlanders into the Danish society. A policy of acculturation has been substituted
for the old policy of protection and isolation. The means chosen are investments in Green-
land on a very large scale, primarily in hospitals, housing, schools and certain productive
enterprises. The explicit goal, in which few believe today, has been that Greenland should
become economically independent after an intensive period of investment lasting possibly
for some decades. Although the Danish influence has increased measurably as a result of
the expansion in education, including a built-in stay in Denmark for many Greenland
school children, there has been no attempt to facilitate mass emigration to South Denmark.
In contrast to this, the Norwegian policy of acculturation has in large measure aimed at
migration from the Lappish districts to areas with a stronger and more varied economic
structure. The public authorities have attempted to achieve this goal through a number of
specific measures, like adult education, the transfer of workers, and above all through a
general development of the schools in the Lappish districts. With respect to housing, and
even more with respect to productive enterprises, the government has been very reticent
with investments. Above all the schools have been the main object of investment in the
