Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T04:04:42.605Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Eskimo Law in Light of Self- and Group-interest

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Nelson H. H. Graburn
Nelson H. H. Graburn*
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The considerable literature on Eskimo law is replete with contradictory descriptions of matters such as the functions of leadership, the imposition of sanctions, the involvement of the community as a whole in juridical matters, and the presence or absence of specific methods of conflict resolution. Rather than accuse certain ethnographers of error, I would judge that all the well-known accounts are substantially accurate.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , August 1969 , pp. 45 - 60
Copyright
Copyright © 1969 by the Law and Society Association

Footnotes

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This paper is based partly upon fieldwork carried out in the eastern Canadian Arctic: 1959, northern Ungava; and 1960, southern Baffin Island, both under the auspices of the Northern Coordination and Research Centre of the Government of Canada–1963-64, the Eskimos and Indians of the Ungava Peninsula, work supported by the Cooperative Cross-cultural Study of Ethnocentrism, Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill.–1967-68, in the Ungava Peninsula and southern Baffin Island, work supported by the National Science Foundation, Washington, D.C. The present paper is a revision and combination of two papers presented at the Symposium on Primitive Law at the Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association in Seattle, November 1968 (Graburn, 1968a, 1968b). For the preparation of the above papers and the present work, I am grateful for the help of Professor Klaus Koch of Harvard University and Professor Laura Nader of the University of California, Berkeley, and particularly to the editors of The Law & Society Review.

References

GEARING, F. (1958) “The structural poses of 18th century Cherokee villages.” Amer. Anthropologist 60 (December): 1148–1157.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
GRABURN, N. H. H. (1968a) “Eskimo Law in the Light of Self- and Group-Interest.” Paper presented to the Symposium on Primitive Law at the Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association, Seattle, November.10.2307/3052761CrossRefGoogle Scholar
GRABURN, N. H. H. (1968b) “Inuariat: The Killings.” Paper presented to the Symposium on Primitive Law at the Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association, Seattle, November.Google Scholar
GRABURN, N. H. H. (1964) Taqagmiut Eskimo Kinship Terminology. Ottawa: Northern Coordination and Research Centre.Google Scholar
HOEBEL, E. A. (1954) The Law of Primitive Man. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press.10.4159/9780674038707CrossRefGoogle Scholar
GRABURN, N. H. H. (1941) “Law-ways of the primitive Eskimos.” J. of Criminal Law and Criminology 31, 6: 663–683.Google Scholar
KOCH, K. F. (1967) “Conflict and Its Management Among the Jale People of West New Guinea.” Ph.D. dissertation. Berkeley: Univ. of California.Google Scholar
MAUSS, M. (1906) “Essay on the seasonal variations of Eskimo society: A study of social morphology.” (In French) Paris: L'Annee Sociologique 9: 39.Google Scholar
POSPISIL, L. (1964) “Law and societal structure among the Nunamiut Eskimo,” in Goodenough, W. (ed.) Explorations in Cultural Anthropology. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
RICHARDSON, J. (1940) “Law and status among the Kiowa Indians.” Monographs of the Amer. Ethnological Society 1. New York: J. J. Augustin.Google Scholar
VAN DEN STEENHOVEN, G. (1959) Legal Concepts Among the Netsilik Eskimos of Pelly Bay. Ottawa: Northern Coordination and Research Centre.Google Scholar
VAN DEN STEENHOVEN, G. (1956a) “Caribou Eskimo Legal Concepts.” Paper presented to the Thirty-Second International Congress of Americanists, Copenhagen.Google Scholar
VAN DEN STEENHOVEN, G. (1956b) “Research Report on Caribou Eskimo Law.” (mimeo) Ottawa: Northern Research and Coordination Centre.Google Scholar
WILMOTT, W. E. (1960) “The flexibility of Eskimo social organization.” Anthroplogica 2, 1: 48–57.10.2307/25604446CrossRefGoogle Scholar