
The oral storytelling has been a key element of Greenlandic social life. The listeners were entertained with strange, eerie and supernatural events that were always told as true stories. The tales are closely related to the original religion, way of life and morality, and deeper understanding of the tale thus presupposes knowledge of the culture.
The tales challenge culture, and at the same time they challenge the listener’s understanding of it. Even when the tale does not moralise, it puts existential matters into words, and this way, the language and the listener’s perception of key cultural concepts are developed.
The missionaries and early collection of tales
The tales first noticed by the missionaries were typically those which explained where different animals come from and why they are as they are. Often the missionaries saw these tales as signs of backwardness.
In the late 18th century, Europe began to take interest in both their own and others’ adventures, myths and legends. In the 1820s, the Greenlandic storytelling tradition met positive interest from the missionary Peder Kragh and his North Greenland catechist Wittus Steenholdt. They took the initiative to write down and transcribe various texts, mostly the traditional oral tales, which were popular and circulated around for reading aloud. The crucial role of Bible reading in the Lutheran mission and the efforts of the catechists meant that almost anyone could read.
H. Rink and the first printed work
In 1852, civil servant and geologist Hinrich Johannes Rink came to South Greenland, where he was first colony manager and in 1855 was appointed inspector of South Greenland. H. Rink reported that Danish colonisation was heading towards a fatal end. The population was unhappy, became increasingly passive and was declining as a result of hunger and epidemic.
In Copenhagen, H. Rink received a positive response to his ideas of writing down, collecting, printing and distributing the oral tales. With a wish to strengthen and preserve indigenous culture, this work began, and it became a key element in the building of a Greenlandic nation. Respecting the peculiarity of the language, he drew attention to the importance of ensuring that the dialect and spelling of storytellers remained their own and were not corrected.
In the introduction to the book Eskimo Tales and Legends (1866), H. Rink writes how he perceives the decay of Greenland culture and what, in his opinion, has gone wrong: The strangers have not understood that the small Greenlandic communities had a civilisation; without an actual social life, the Greenlanders could never have survived. The staple functions of community life were undertaken by an angakkoq (shaman) who, with his special abilities, helped the people of the small communities. During the drum song, he was able to leave his body and soar elsewhere. The angakkoq had a connection to the beyond and knew how things worked, what you could or could not do, he could advise and heal.
To undermine the authority of the angakkuit, the mission started to work hard against them. In the opinion of H. Rink, this was a fatal mistake as it removed the core element in society and thus broke down the culture: ‘One could also dare say that if they are abolished, and no corresponding heads of the nation are put in their place, it will eventually perish.’
Much of H. Rink’s Eskimo Tales and Legends was written down by Aron of Kangeq and Jens Kreutzmann of Kangaamiut, who had also both made illustrations. Among Aron’s tales, there are many dealing with the meeting with the Norse. Aron of Kangeq writes flawlessly and elegantly, and one senses a self-censorship trying to make the tales more decent, while Kreutzmann is more outspoken.
H. Rink had also got hold of some tales from Labrador, and Peder Kragh sent his old collection, which was also included. Later, H. Rink published the collection in English.
Greenland expeditions and documentation
The collection of the tales mainly started for the Greenlanders’ sake, but soon it became commonly recognised that Inuit culture was disappearing, or at least changing radically, and now the driving interest became to document the culture before it was lost. When in 1883‑1985, Gustav Holm led the Umiak Expedition to East Greenland, where the expedition wintered and established contact, he collected as the first tales.
From the early 1900s, Knud Rasmussen travelled on expeditions with dog sleds, reaching almost all areas inhabited by the Inuit. Along with his own personal records, he industriously collected tales and documented the Inuit way of life, including in areas that had only very rarely contact with people from outside. However, it is not clear how accurate his renderings are.
At the same time, a number of West Greenland missionaries started to make great efforts to document life in East Greenland. First, the missionary Christian Rosing arrived in 1900, in 1906, he published the book Tunuamiut, describing East Greenland culture. In 1921, Danish eskimologist Thalbitzer published a number of songs, poems, incantations and stories from East Greenland.
Audio and visual recordings of tales
The first audio recordings from Greenland came in 1906 with the Austrian Rudolf Trebitsch. Released in 2003, they include hymns, poems, legends, sagas and myths in short lyrical forms, as well as rhythmic play with words and nonsense.
A few years after, in 1909, Norwegian music ethnologist Christian Leden came to Uummannaq and Qaanaaq, and in 1912, he travelled to the Uummannaq-Upernavik areas. On both voyages, he recorded cuddle songs, satirical song and drum songs.
Since French ethnologist and polar explorer Paul-Émile Victor collected 500 songs in East Greenland in 1935, France has had a particular interest in the area. Together with anthropologist Joëlle Robert-Lamblin, he has also published some tales.
In 1934, for the first time, a cinema audience could experience a film, Palos Wedding, with sound and in the East Greenlandic dialect. It was written by Knud Rasmussen, who himself played a key role during filming.
A third pioneer was eskimologist Erik Holtved, who in Thule 1935‑37 and 1946-47 recorded almost 200 tales and songs, and transcriptions of those were published in English. Holtved’s categorisation of the tales provides insight into the diversity: Myths and legends, fabulous beings, epic tales, fairy tales, children’s songs, fables and animal tales. The remaining, almost half, which he calls historical legends, are subdivided into several types of legends about resurrection, killing, revenge and taboos.
Throughout her life, the writer Mâliâraq Vebæk collected folklore from South Greenland, which she wrote down and published, and she also recorded tales and songs.
The East Greenlander Isaiah Kuitse probably became the last traditional storyteller. Teacher Niels Grann and French linguist Nicole Tersis filmed him. The footage appeared in 2016, and in parallel, a transcript and an analysis of the gesturing were included in the accompanying book Paroles et gestuelle. Un conteur inuit du Groenland oriental/Words and gesture. An inuit storyteller in East Greenland. Kuitse’s episodes and scenes alternate between suspense, revenge, hopelessness and comedy, which he plays with great intensity.
Ulrikke Oodaaq of Qaanaaq is in the movie I remember … from 2002. Karen Littauer is behind the filming of storytellers from the districts of Ammassalik, Thule and Upernavik. Among other things, Oodaaq tells to the camera a story about a mysterious childhood experience that happened one day she was home alone. The oral tale is supported by gesturing, for example, the hand creates an illusion of a wall in the house, both before and after it is mentioned verbally. It shows her ability to recall the moment, and the audience has to wait for the few words that tell what the gesturing shows.
Further reading
- Drum dance and drum song
- Film in Greenland
- Hans Egede and the work for the mission service
- Inuit way of life
- Language
- Literature
- Museums of cultural history and heritage
- Music
- Population and demographics
- Religion and religious communities
- Theatre and dance
- Towns and settlements
Read more about Culture in Greenland