Culture of Greenland - Traditional Skills at Risk

Traditional Skills At Risk

Finally, traditional Thule culture is threatened by development and the growing cash-based economy. Even the smallest settlements in northwest Greenland have electricity today, albeit a small supply of electricity powered by diesel generators. Having electricity, as well as ammunition, hunting rifles and other store-bought products, means that at least one member of every family must be in salaried employment. In most cases, that member is a woman—a wife, daughter or mother. The jobs held by the women allow the men to continue to hunt full-time. But one consequence of this division of labor is that Thule women are losing their knowledge of traditional skills faster than the men. These skills include flensing, treating and sewing skins.

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