Page 119 - J. C. Turner "History and Science of Knots"

Inuit Knots 109

east coast, rounded Kap Farvel and were on their way north. The British
expeditions aided a local increase in whaling and fishing activity representing
many nations. Notably, the Dutch were early traders and whalers in the Davis
Strait area. They were already in these locations during the last two decades
of the 17th century with up to 150 ships during peak years of their activity [19,
p. 15). The whalers were very industrious in Davis Strait. The species they
hunted were available in the open sea. There was thus no need to penetrate the
ice pack to the north. The strong Dutch influence declined considerably after
1721 when Denmark colonized Greenland and lit the path for their missionary
Hans Egede. His ambition was to convert all Inuit tribes, but he achieved this
only from Kap Farvel to central west Greenland.
Meanwhile the quest to find the Northwest Passage to the Orient contin-
ued and yielded not only geographical results, but also increased ethnograph-
ical knowledge. In August 1818 Sir John Ross's expedition, well up north in
the Baffin Bay ice, came across Inuits who had come south from the Thule
district to hunt narwhals. He was led to believe that they belonged to a hith-
erto unknown tribe. Later, away up in the high north, Robert Peary's 1891
expedition was to re-establish contact with them. Ancestors of these peoples
had been known to the Vikings, but that knowledge had vanished together
with those early settlers. As the Inuits are semi-nomadic people a fair amount
of travel, in particular along the west coast of Greenland, can be postulated;
which means that the Polar Inuits which Sir John Ross met most certainly
had been influenced by other Inuit tribes. It may be safely assumed that all
the tribes in the area knew of each other's existence; but contacts between
them may have been as infrequent as once a generation or so [26). Perhaps the
encounter was that specific tribe's first with Europeans, but not necessarily
their first with elements from the latter's culture. It should not be forgotten
that, at that time, the region's periphery had already been exposed to over
100 years of the whaling industry. Moreover, until then the Inuit culture, and
especially their technical heritage, had not only been influenced from the east,
i.e. by the Hudson Bay Company and other whaling ships, but most of all by
what they brought with them from early times and possible encounters with
Indians during their eastbound trek over the Arctic.
Nowadays the Inuits are integrated into the Canadian and Danish soci-
eties, but in. the Greenlandic case they enjoy a considerable degree of home
rule. Compared to their ancestors they are more adapted to, and have taken
over larger parts of, modern life; all of this at the cost of the disappearance of
their aboriginal culture.

Why study Knots used by the Inuit?

From a reductionist view, I prefer to see knots as solutions to rope problems.