About

Several Arctic anthropologists, mostly based in Rovaniemi, Lapland, Finland, decided in 2011 that the time was ripe to create a platform for communicating our ideas beyond some office table or informal chats. Within the first 10 years, the blog had advanced to a well-read source in our discipline, and made it even to some ranking of the world’s anthropology blogs.

We have a shared enthusiasm for our discipline and an interest in the circumpolar North as a space for living and doing research among its inhabitants. Our research and theoretical interests are diverse, but united by the conviction that we can contribute to general debates in our discipline ‘from the North’, i.e. by combining evidence from our fieldwork with theoretical interests.

We hope that numerous comments and contributions on our topics here enrich all of our work, and in an ideal world maybe we can create new interest networks and contacts among colleagues to work jointly on promoting the study of and with Arctic residents in the discipline of social anthropology, and also in its relevance for improving the lives of those living in the North.

This blog is run by the anthropology research team at the Arctic Centre, University of Lapland, Finland. Texts and images here are often the process of co-creation in collaboration with people in our fields, some of whom consider themselves indigenous, and others not. We are happy to share knowledge, but please do not reuse our materials without asking first. Any reuse requires proper attribution, consent by the author of the blog entry (text and / or image), and an ethical approach. It is especially important that content is not taken out of context or used in ways that could misrepresent communities or contribute to stereotypes. Let’s work together to ensure that knowledge is shared with respect, care, and responsibility.
Here you can find who we are www.arcticcentre.org/anthropology

Further more, we also invite other anthropologists with a shared enthusiasm and interesting topics to contribute to our blog. If you want to become an author, you will need an invitation by the blog administrator. For this you should write a shortly why you think your posts should be shared here. Send this email to fstammle(at)ulapland.fi or sdudeck(at)ulapland.fi

3 thoughts on “About

  1. Do you realize that the European Arctic STALLO and the American Arctic TSONOQUA are one and the same
    Why are the words for ELEPHANT 
        so similar across EURASIA ??
    (Keep in mind that S, Z, K, G, are interchangeable  as in Caesar, Kaiser, TZar, Císař, and Know & Gnostic.) 

    Amharic (Horn of Africa)…….  ZehONa  (ዝሆን)
    fits into the EURASIAN mosaic of lexemes.
    Georgian ..kartuli……………….. SP I’ LO   (სპილო)
    contains Semitic PIL as well as Slavic SLOn
    Some linguists speculate that Kartulian languages are the foundation of Semitic, Ural-Altaic and Indo-European language families.)
    Chinese …………………………..SeeAHNg    (sδaŋ)
    Hakka (south China) …………. SiONg        (sδoŋ)
    Tocharian  A …………….    onKaLAM
    Tocharian  B………………   onKoLMo   
     Tocharian words for ELEPHANT “onKOLMo” & “onKOLaM”may have been  derived  from  
    Tibetan GLAN or from Slavic OKEL / KEL = TUSK. 
    Latvian …………………….. …   ZiLONus
    Saami/Lapp …………………… SLONN
    Tibetan………………………….. GLAN  
    Slavic (MANY languages!)….. SLON       (слон)
    Polish (Slavic variant) ……….  S”u”ON           (Słon)            
    Vietnamese ……………………  CON voi
    Mongol………………………….. ZaAN
    Japanese ……………………….. ZOsAN
    Laotian …………………………….SANg             (Saŋ)
    Thai ……………………………….CHANg         (Čaŋ)
    Roma(in Slovenia)……………    SLONO
    Kalderaš………………woroSLANo, SLONo, ilifanto
    Additional evidence in words for tooth, tusk and ivory. 

    sang-a
    “ivory” in Korean (similar to the Laotian word for “Elephant”)
    —————————————-
    zouge
     ivory in Japanese: (resembles some Bantu words for “Elephant”)
    —————————————-
    elefántcsont
    “ivory” in Hungarian
    —————————————-
    norsunluu     
    “ivory” in Finnish
    ————————————————–
    norsu     (u-SRON backwards)
    “elephant” in Finnish 
    —————————————–
    ZAHN is the German word for TOOTH
    and quite similar to the Mongol word for Elephant = ZAAN.
    Often one can observe a similarity between Tooth/Ivory and ELEPHANT. 
    ————————————————————————————————
    Stoßzahn is the German word for TUSK = means “Stab-Tooth”. 
    ————————————————————————————————-
    In Kalderaš the words for IVORY are “ivorio” and “filo”. (filo is Semitic) (Ivorio is Indo-European)
    Roma and Karderaš words for Elephant and Ivory are significant because like nomadic hunters of mammoths the Romany peoples in the last few centuries were mobile and acquired loan-words from others.  
    The SLONs continue to the Americas in MYTHS as TSONoquas…
    One should not expect Native Americans to have a word for “ELEPHANT”per se .  MYTHOLOGY of Alaska and the North-West Coast has many stories of Cannibalistic Giants – Ogres with ELEPHANT-LIKE FEATURES, and names with phonemic elements like “SLON”: 
    Tsunukwa (also spelled Dzunukwa, Dzoo-noo-qua, Dzoonokwa, Dsonoqua, Dzô’noqwa, Dzô’noq!wa, D’Sonoqua, and other ways): The Basket Ogress, a giant cannibal monster who catches human children and carries them off in her enormous pack basket. 
    Franz Boas and other prominent anthropologists of the early 20th Century wrote of Mythologies about Cannibalistic GIANTS and OGRES in Alaska, North-West coast of North America, the Northern Rockies, and in Siberia.  Others wrote about similar Mythological creatures in the cultures of the Saami of Lapland, Ancient Greeks, Wrangell Island, and even in Australia.  Categorically, the Mythological Creatures which they describe are: 1. Very large. 2. Either male or female. 3. They have small, hollow, deep-set eyes and are almost blind. 4. Often they have only one eye.  5. They have copious bodily hair. 6. They have a siphon or a proboscis which they use to suck life (or blood)(or brains)  out from people.  7. From their nose they blow out mucus (snots) at boys.  8. They have thick (pachyderm) skin which protects them from injury.  9. Humans dig pits and cover such with debris to create dead-fall traps (for creatures who have bulk rather than agility).  10. The Mythological creatures vocalize with whistle-like trumpeting sounds.  11.  Females have large breasts (located – as on humans, in the thorax region). 12.  They have a “Basket” on the upper back (hump for reserve?).  13.  They have “Stones” on either side of the head (tusks?).  13. Very often the names of these Cannibalistic Ogres contain the phonemic clusters resembling the Chinese and/or Slavic words for “Elephant” = SIOŋ or SLON.  14. Note how TSONoqua, TSONerhwah, STALLO, CLOO-teekl…  resemble the Chinese and/or Slavic words for “Elephant”.  15. The Giant Cannibals often have a LARGE CUTTING NOSE or GLASS BEAK.   16.  The giants are drowsy and prone to lapse into catatonic sleep.  17. They have a mixture of human and quadruped features.  18. They go distances for water.  18. TSONoqua has magical treasure, she has supernatural power and she can return to life.  19. Described as a fat ugly woman.  20. Called: SPLIT PERSON (part human?)  20. These monsters Sit like a person.  21.  As in Alaska and British Colombia (Canada) similar Cannibal Giantesses are in the Mythology of Koriaks and Chukchees. …in Siberia   22.  Specifically, common to the Indian and Mongol-Turk tales a monster woman is described in the myths of the Bella Coola Indians as a cannibal who inserts her long snout in the ears of a man and sucks out his brain.  22.  She is afterwards transformed into mosquitoes. 
        With the detailed descriptions and tales of the OGRES provided above I was lead to the conclusion that these are in fact stories of ELEPHANTS and MAMMOTHS orally transmitted since the Upper Paleolithic.  I was perplexed that Franz Boas (who is known as the Father of American Anthropology) did not make a similar leap of faith.  Recently I had written two papers addressing the observation that the words for Elephant were very similar across Eurasia.  

    Petr Jandacek
    127 La Senda Rd.
    LOS ALAMOS NM USA
    87544 

  2. Pingback: 2018.03 Лукас Аллеман. Воспоминания коренных жителей Севера о национальных и вспомогательных школах-интернатах

  3. Pingback: 2018.03 Лукас Аллеманн. Воспоминания коренных жителей Севера о национальных и вспомогательных школах-интернатах

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