Page 124 - J. C. Turner - History and Science of Knots

Inuit Knots 113

Inuit knotting, ethnographical and archaeological. The methodology we wish
to apply will be one derived from their combined approach, that is:

1. A survey of the records of ethnographical observations in the literature.
These sources, Sollas, Murdoch and Boas [30], [25], [3] commence rather
late, i.e, from ca. 1880 and onwards. This sudden ethnographical interest
in the subject was due to the emerging realisation of the importance of
technology to the structure and functioning of society, as ltnots can be
seen as a rudimentary form of technology. However, lcnots seldom stand
alone and are usually incorporated into more sophisticated constructions.
Porsild discussed the construction and use of knots in a baleen sealing net
[28], Ford showed a baleen net knot [lo], while Birket-Smith has described
the incorporation of knots in implements from the Egedesminde district
121.

2. Accessible hard archaeological evidence in the form of excavated ltnotted
artifacts and either artifacts described in the literature or available at
the National Museums of Denmark and Great Britain. The oldest set
of known proper ltnots are those excavated at the Saqqaq settlement
of Qeqertasussuk tucked away in the southeastern corner of Dislto Bay
in central west Greenland [15]. On the other hand, Karen McCullough
found knot samples from around A.D. 1000 during her Ruin Island project
and on which she reports by means of photographic illustrations [24].
Erik Holtved [22] described excavated Thule Inuit Knots from about 200
years later.

Excepting some further snippets, which are few and far between, the above
mentioned cover almost all currently accessible ltnowledge about Inuit ltnots.
Fortunately there remain the serendipitous sources. H. C. Gull~v, from Den-
mark's National Museum's Etnografisk Samling in Copenhagen, was so ltind
as to supply me with descriptions of knots, which he had excavated at a site in
the vicinity of Nuult and dated to be from A.D. 1700. Around 1985 G.Budworth
surveyed some ltnots on a Polar Inuit sledge, which is ltept at the Museum of
Manltind, the ethnographical department of the British Museum in London
[7]. The sledge was brought back by Sir John Ross from his 1818 exploration
to find the Northwest Passage. It represents a sample of Polar ltnotting skills
uninfluenced by outsiders. Jgrgen Meldgaard at Denmark's National Museum
has informed me about material involving ltnots from A.D. 600 to appear in
an In Memoriam paper he is producing on Helge Larsen's excavation of an
Ipiutak Inuit site in the western part of the arctic region.
A few words follow on the kind of knots we shall be discussing. The
foregoing examples are all of practically applied ltnotting, but lilte many other