Who's afraid of Kaassassuk? Writing as a tool in coping with changing cosmology

Bibliographic Data

ID5084906
AuthorsBirgitte Sonne (University of Copenhagen, corresponding author)
Year2011
Volume34
Issue2
Pages107-127
Publication date2011-06-16
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueÉtudes/Inuit/Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0701-1008 • E-ISSN: 1708-5268
PublisherConsortium Erudit (PUBLISHER • CA)
DOI10.7202/1004072ar
OpenAlexW2099423466
LanguageEN
References cited10

Education, literacy, and art were technologies used by Greenlanders in adapting to and coping with changes brought about by colonial impacts from Denmark. Stories orally transmitted through the ages were among the first texts to be written by Greenlanders. This article focuses on changes in symbolic meanings of the environmental setting in the pan-Inuit myth about the maltreated orphan Kaassassuk who became a strong man and took a terrible revenge. Beginning with the traditional pan-Inuit and Greenland variants, the analysis ends up with Hans Lynge's playKâgssagssuk, staged in 1966. Traditionally, the symbolism of the natural forces underscored Kaassassuk's brutal character, but later it structured the literary composition of his story and changed him into a re-socialised individual. In Lynge's play, the natural forces even gave way to contemporary moral and psychological considerations during the political upheaval leading to Greenland's Home Rule

Archaeology · Art · Character (mathematics · Colonialism · Coping (psychology · Literacy · Literature · Mythology · Natural (archaeology · Pedagogy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · History · Indigenous Studies and Ecology · Law · Literature, Politics, and Exile Studies · Media, Communication, and Education · Psychology

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