A Passion for the Arctic
A Passion for the Arctic The Hans van Berkel Collection Art and Handicrafts from Canada, Greenland and Siberia
Cunera Buijs editor
Contributors Cunera Buijs, FrĂŠdĂŠric Laugrand, Jarich Oosten, Cornelius Remie and Karel Stevens
Collection Series Rijksmuseum Volkenkunde / National Museum of Ethnology
1 | ‘Drum dancer’ by Arnakadlak Pootoogook, Kinngait (Cape Dorset), Nunavut, Canada, 1996 Serpentine, antler and bone 26.5 x 18 x 9 cm Van Berkel collection NMVW no. RV-6094-51
Contents 7
Preface Stijn Schoonderwoerd
8
Introduction Cunera Buijs
12
Hans van Berkel: Collector of Inuit Art and Handicrafts Cunera Buijs
24
The Inuit of Nunavut, Canada: Past and Present Lifestyles in Kugaaruk Cornelius Remie
38
The Development of Inuit Art in Canada Cunera Buijs and Karel Stevens
50
Shamanic Transformation: Myths, Animals, and Miniatures among the Inuit Frédéric Laugrand and Jarich Oosten
70
Arctic Women and the Art of Living Cunera Buijs
86
Art and Handicrafts from Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland) Cunera Buijs
102
Collections of the Chukchi of Northeast Siberia Cunera Buijs
122
Epilogue Cunera Buijs
128 130 136 142
Maps Notes Bibliography Authors
Preface In 2015, the Dutch collector Hans van Berkel (1946) granted his private collection of Inuit and Chukchi art and handicrafts to our museum. Numbering 600 objects as well as a rich assortment of medals, coins, and postage stamps connected to the history of the Arctic, Van Berkel’s collection has been the result of a personal endeavour spanning more than forty years. Starting in the early 1970s, Van Berkel has built up the most important and comprehensive private Inuit-related collection in the Netherlands. It was not only his passion for collecting that spurred him to amass such a vast collection, it was also his passion for people. Van Berkel was driven by the wish to help the Inuit people, who are still suffering from the adverse side effects of colonisation. He felt that by buying their products, he could in some small way support Inuit artists. Through Leo Mol, a renowned sculptor in Winnipeg, Canada, he became inspired by the lives and work of especially Canadian Inuit hunters and carvers. Gifts from Mol were the first Inuit art objects in what later became known as the Van Berkel collection. And now it is Van Berkel who is offering a very special gift: the gift of his collection.
2 | Mike Imaruittuq hunting seal at a breathing hole, Fury and Hecla Strait, Nunavut, Canada, February 1987 Photo: Willem Rasing
7 | Preface
This book presents some of the collection’s most beautiful and interesting artefacts, each with its own story to tell. Reflecting Van Berkel’s special interests, shamanism and spiritual culture are particularly well represented in the collection, which showcases the skilled craftsmanship of Inuit and Chukchi artisans. Also included are objects from the daily lives of hunters, reindeer herders, and their wives, which reflect the norms and values of these remarkable cultures of northern Canada, Greenland, and Siberia. One of Hans van Berkel’s beliefs was that: “In life, we are obliged to hold material goods in our hands only for a short while, to pass them on to others.” By donating his collection to the National Museum of Ethnology—now part of the larger National Museum of World Cultures—Van Berkel has made it possible for the general public to enjoy, for generations to come, the beauty of these Arctic objects and the creativity of the people who made them.
Stijn Schoonderwoerd General Director of the National Museum of Ethnology
Introduction Cunera Buijs
The social life of things1 I do not remember the first time I met Hans van Berkel, but it must have been in the early 1990s—probably at a public event related to the Arctic somewhere in the Netherlands at which we were both present. I am sure that during our first encounter he spoke of his collection. Some years later, he phoned me at the museum in Leiden and invited me to visit him in Eindhoven to discuss his idea of granting his collection to an ethnological museum in the Netherlands. Together with Ronald Kerkhoven, my colleague from the Museon in The Hague, I visited Van Berkel at his home in Eindhoven. If I recall correctly, the year was 1994. Van Berkel welcomed us with great hospitality, and we discussed openly the ins and outs of his deepfelt wish to donate his collection. We asked about the possibility of dividing the collection over two museums, with the Museon in The Hague receiving the Greenlandic part of his collection and the museum in Leiden adopting his Canadian and Siberian materials. We made this suggestion in order for both museums to be able to benefit from this rich Arctic collection. But Hans van Berkel found it very important that his collection remain together as a whole, and he preferred the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden for its scientific character and because it has a specialised curator for the Arctic. The process of arranging the grant was a slow one, as it involved building up a relationship based on trust. After consulting with his family, Van Berkel finally made the decision to grant his collection to the museum in Leiden, the first part of which was transferred in 2010. In order to fully understand what the collection meant to Hans van Berkel, we must trace it back to Van Berkel’s home—where it was piled up in three sleeping rooms upstairs,—and unearth how he collected it over a forty-year timespan. In the years in which his collection grew, Van Berkel generously lent his objects to museums and organisers of public events and exhibitions in the Netherlands—for instance the Museum t Houten Huijs in De Rijp and the anthropological museum in Groningen (now
part of the University Museum). The Siberian objects from his collection were also part of an exhibit called ‘When the Ice Melts’ at the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden in 2007. But parting permanently from his collection must not have been an easy thing to do. As Arjun Appadurai posits in his book entitled The social life of things: Even if our own approach to things is conditioned necessarily by the view that things have no meanings apart from those that human transactions, attributions, and motivations endow them with, the anthropological problem is that this formal truth does not illuminate the concrete, historical circulation of things. For that we have to follow the things themselves, for their meanings are inscribed in their forms, their use, their trajectories. (…) Thus, even though from a theoretical point of view human actors encode things with significance, from a methodological point of view it is the things-in-motion that illuminate their human and social context. (1986: 5) Obviously these human and social contexts shift from the field in which these objects were used by the makers and owners in the Arctic to the collector who gathers artefacts in his house—which in turn adds new meanings to them. The next shift in contexts is connected to the transfer of these artefacts to the museum setting. Now the Van Berkel objects are part of a national collection and are being presented in the context of thematic or permanent exhibitions or as part of a catalogue. In this volume, we will also follow the ‘things’ themselves, all of which showcase the skilled craftsmanship of Inuit and Chukchi artisans of the North. The collection also includes tourist art and objects from daily Arctic life, leading us to Arctic hunters, reindeer herders, and their wives—objects which reflect the norms and values of these remarkable cultures of northern Canada, Greenland, and Siberia. When talking about the Arctic, people tend to
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3 | ‘Gathering for Big Drum Dance’ by Jessie Oonark, printed by T. Iksiraq, Qamani’tuaq (Baker Lake), Nunavut, Canada, 1975 Serigraph 52.2 x 74 cm Van Berkel collection NMVW no. RV-6094-174
9 | Introduction
emphasise the harsh climate, the dark winters, or the difficulty of surviving in such a hostile environment. But not Van Berkel. Nor was he solely interested in the beauty of the pieces of art he purchased. As we will see in the chapters that follow, Van Berkel was deeply moved by the spirit of the Inuit people living in these remote areas. By donating his private collection to a public institution, Van Berkel has made it possible for us to learn from these
intriguing objects and from their creators. It is truly a collection that can be enjoyed by everyone. The organisation of this book The book opens with Cunera Buijs’ impressions of the life and work of Hans van Berkel. By highlighting specific items in his collection, she conveys his passion for the Arctic people and their material culture.
4 | ‘Mask’, by Tagialuk Nuna, Kinngait (Cape Dorset), Nunavut, Canada, 1991 Marble 13.5 x 11 x 3 cm Van Berkel collection NMVW no. RV-6094-132
The second chapter dwells on the dramatic changes that have occurred in the lives and culture of the Inuit in the Canadian Arctic. Cornelius Remie discusses the far-reaching influence of Western culture in Nunavut by following the community of Kugaaruk (formerly known as Pelly Bay) from the past to the present. The influence of the West can also be seen in the changes and developments in Inuit Art in Canada, as Cunera Buijs and Karel Stevens note in the third chapter. In Van Berkel’s collection, however, there is an unmistakable trace of traditional Inuit culture as illustrated by artists such as Simon Tookoome, Jessie Onark, or Thomassie Tookalook. Kenojuak Ashevak, the Cape Dorset artist, once stated: “There is no word for art. We say it is from the real to the unreal.” The art created by these artists has meanwhile found its way to markets outside of Canada.
The transformation from human beings into animals and animals into human beings is a recurrent theme in Inuit mythology and art. In the chapter on shamanic transformation, Frédéric Laugrand and Jarich Oosten explore various forms of transformation, including the transformation of objects. They pay particular attention to the concept of the miniature, which plays a central part in the complex theme of beliefs and practices of transformation in the Canadian Arctic and beyond. Female material culture and women’s art did not begin appearing in art publications until the 1980s and 1990s, as Buijs discusses in the chapter on Arctic women. Yet Arctic women’s artistic contributions are just as indispensable as those of their male counterparts: they produce clothing essential for survival in the Arctic, as well as wall hangings, dolls, tapestry, and soapstone sculptures. Inuit woman are
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also active in printmaking and graphical art. The Van Berkel collection includes women’s art and handicrafts ranging from the artist Hanne Bruun of Greenland to the Canadian Inuit artists Ada Eyetoak, Kenojuak Ashevak, Mary Pudlat, and Emily Nipisa’naaq Alerk. The final two chapters deal with the cultures of the Inuit of Greenland and the Chukchi of northeastern Siberia. Buijs highlights not only the political changes within these societies but also their spiritual culture, illustrated by the Greenlandic tupilak complex and the whale festival of the Chukchi with its elements of danger, fertility, and renewal, which is reflected in their art and handicrafts. Here we learn that, contrary to Appadurai’s contention, objects are not only endowned with meaning added by persons, they also have an intrinsic meaning and a life of their own according to the worldview of the Arctic peoples. In the epilogue, Cunera Buijs presents an overview and a profound analysis of the developments of material culture, identity, loss, and renewal in the Arctic. In this publication, we use as far as possible the latest orthography of the names of Inuit and Chukchi artists, place names, and indigenous terms following the semantic rules of the various regions. For example, the plural form of ‘tupilak’ is written differently among Canadian and Greenlandic Inuit, and therefore in this book it is spelled ‘tupilait’ and ‘tupilat’ respectively in the relevant chapters. Acknowledgements I am most grateful for the kind support, cooperation, and advice received from Bernadette Driscoll Engelstad, who supported this endeavor and commented on every part of this book. Her help and friendship have been of incalculable value to me. Bernadette: qujanaq. I am also grateful to Åge Kristiansen, Paulus Larsen, Thomasine Tarkissimat, Thomasine Umerineq, and Gideon Qeqe—five East Greenlandic consultants and friends who came to the Netherlands to add new meanings to the Arctic museum collections in Leiden and The Hague. I received much welcome help in the form of additional literature and extensive discussions from members of the
11 | Introduction
Dutch Research Group Circumpolar Cultures—namely Frédéric Laugrand, Jarich Oosten, and Cornelius Remie, some of whom have written chapters for this book. My thanks also go out to Karel Stevens, who provided additional documentation on the many objects of the Van Berkel collection; Afke Koek, who helped document the collection in the museum’s database; Ben Bekooy, who scanned and assisted with some of the illustrations; Ben Grishaver and Irene de Groot, who photographed the collection; photographs were provided by Anne van Berkel, Herman de Boer, Ingeborg Eggink, Cees de Gooyer, Ivars Sillis, Willem Rasing, Cornelius Remie, the Arctic Institute and the National Museum in Copenhagen, National Archives Canada; the Canadian Library and Archives, which provided some of the illustrations in this book; and Gioia Marini, who copyedited the text. I would also like to thank Stijn Schoonderwoerd and Laura van Broekhoven, director and head curator respectively of the National Museum of Ethnology, for their interest in publishing this collection and for the financial support they arranged. Last but not least, I would like to express my gratitude to the Van Berkel family—especially Anne and Marijke—for their patience, hospitality, and help in sorting out all types of documentation, letters, and important notes, as well as for all the coffee and lunches. Without their help, this project would not have been possible.
Hans van Berkel: Collector of Inuit Art and Handicrafts I have pushed a stone in a river on earth. The water runs differently from before. Bram Vermeulen2
Cunera Buijs
5 | Her Royal Highness Princess Margriet of the Netherlands (right), in the company of (from left to right) curator Cunera Buijs, Hans van Berkel and his two grandsons, and Stijn Schoonderwoerd, Director of the National Museum of World Cultures at the opening of the Totem Pole Exhibition in Leiden. On that day, Van Berkel officially granted the second part of his collection to the museum. Photo: Anne van Berkel
At the end of the 1990s, Hans van Berkel made the decision to donate his private collection of Inuit art and handicrafts to the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden— now part of the larger National Museum of World Cultures encompassing three museums in three different cities. Starting in 1973, Van Berkel has built up the most important and comprehensive private Inuit-related collection in the Netherlands. Van Berkel was first inspired to begin collecting when he came into contact with Leo Mol, a renowned sculptor in Winnipeg, Canada. Gifts from Mol were the first Inuit art objects in what later became the Van Berkel collection. In 2010, Van Berkel donated 425 objects to the National Museum of World Cultures (series RV-6002 and RV-6094); in 2012, he made a second donation of ca. 50
objects (series RV-6192); and in 2015, Van Berkel donated a third assortment of about 100 objects, including an extensive collection of postage stamps (series RV-7026). In the years that followed, Van Berkel continued to collect Arctic artefacts in small quantities for the museum’s collection. From monastery to marriage Hans van Berkel was born in the Catholic village of Stiphout in Brabant, a southern province of the Netherlands on the 7th of May 1946. He was the youngest child of Antonius van Berkel, a manager of weavers in a textile factory in Helmond, and Anne Marie Maas. In a speech given at the formal transfer of his collection to the museum in Leiden, Van Berkel reflected on the olden days in the country village of his youth: “During my
6 | Hans van Berkel with a kayak model in his garden in Eindhoven in 2005. Photo: Cees de Gooyer
childhood, we still fetched water out of the water well, we attended a boys’ school since there was no co-educational school yet, and the priest dominated politics in the village.”3 After primary school, Hans attended the high school of the brother congregation ‘Our Holy Lady of Seven Sorrows’4 in Wellerlooi in the municipality of Bergen, Limburg, to eventually become a priest and teacher. He stayed at several other locations of the brother congregation, such as Geldrop and Amsterdam, for educational reasons for ten years, after which he went to the Social Academy in Amsterdam (1966-1968) and Eindhoven (1968-1970) to specialise in rehabilitation and child protection. At the Social Academy, a ‘whole new world’ opened up to Van Berkel. The 1960s was an era of major societal change in Europe, and this atmosphere influenced the Roman Catholic Church as well. It was the time of the Second Vatican Council, which ushered in a new view of secular society that triggered a strong
13 | Hans van Berkel: Collector of Inuit Art and Handicrafts
conservative countermovement within the clerical realm. The reforms introduced by Pope John the XXIII were gradually reversed. The Dutch Catholic community became increasingly divided, which led to an increase in secularisation. Van Berkel began to see the Catholic Church as a hierarchical and authoritarian institute. All of these influences as well as his acquaintance with Marijke Bogers, a fellow student at the Social Academy in Eindhoven, led Van Berkel to decide not to become a clergyman. In 1970, the couple got married in a crypt of St. Peter’s in Rome. After a follow-up study in management and teacher training at the Catholic College for Nursing in Nijmegen (1973-1976), Hans started work as a nurse, moving on to become a regional manager in the care sector for the mentally disabled and later a teacher of nurses. In the beginning of the 1990s, he was forced to retire early due to health problems. Van Berkel still recalls his time in the monastery with gratitude. According to him,
“It laid the very basis of my view on mankind and of my attitude to be a person who helps other and to have consideration for the lower stratum of society.”5 A significant stay in Canada During the Second World War, Marijke’s parents provided shelter for the Ukrainian refugee Leonid Molodoshanin (1915-2009) and his Austrian wife Margareth in Eindhoven, helping them in every conceivable way. In 1948, with the Berlin Blockade signalling the onset of the Cold War, the Molodoshanin couple migrated to Canada, where they settled in Winnipeg. Leonid Molodoshanin changed his name to Leo Mol. He became a stained glass artist and sculptor, gradually building up his reputation over the years. He made bronze sculptures of various officials such as Dwight D. Eisenhower, Pope John Paul the 2nd, and Winston Churchill, and his sculptures are housed in national art galleries and public parks.6 In July 1969, Marijke’s parents lost their lives in a bus accident while on vacation in Belgium. After that tragic event, Leo Mol, who was like an ‘uncle’ to Marijke, invited her and her husband to travel to Winnipeg and stay 7 | Leo Mol and Marijke van Berkel in the Leo Mol Sculpture Garden in Winnipeg in 1997. The Leo Mol Museum is in the background. Photo: Hans van Berkel, NMVW no. C2-1-37
with Leo and Margareth in order to get acquainted with life in Canada with the aim of having them eventually settle there. Hans and Marijke accepted the invitation and in 1973 paid a six-week visit. Through Leo Mol, who had in the meantime become protector of art in the State of Manitoba and was collecting Inuit sculptures out of an artistic-professional interest, Hans van Berkel came into contact with many Inuit and First Nations artists. He visited the Winnipeg Handicrafts, of course, but also other areas. As he narrates: I also visited very different other places, where life had a different appearance, such as under the bridges of the Assiniboine River and the Red River, where these rivers join. There, I met with Indians and Inuit, who made their living shelters there. (…) I witnessed the consequences of alcoholism.7 Western culture has not brought much good to the Inuit. The church destroyed the indigenous religion. These influences have been highly destructive to the social lives, culture, and economy of the Inuit. By buying their sculptures, I hoped to
8 | ‘Children Playing’ by Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk, the first artefact that Hans van Berkel bought in Canada in 1973. Kangiqsujuak (Wakeham Bay), Nunavik, Quebec, ca. 1970 Steatite 11.3 x 28 x 15 cm Van Berkel collection NMVW no. RV-6094-157. 9 | ‘Hunter and Prey’, artist unknown, one of the first sculptures in the collection of Hans van Berkel, given to him as a present by Leo Mol in 1973. Canadian Arctic, ca. 1965 Steatite, 16 x 16 x 19 cm Van Berkel collection NMVW no. RV-6094-84.
reinforce their culture slightly and stimulate in a sense their economy and cultural identity.8 Although the Van Berkels were very positive about life in Canada, they decided to remain
15 | Hans van Berkel: Collector of Inuit Art and Handicrafts
in Eindhoven, where they raised their three children, Jinze, Xavier, and Anne-Marie. After this first visit to Canada, Van Berkel never stopped collecting and has built up an impressive collection, of which the first two sculptures were gifts from his ‘uncle Leo’.
10 | ‘Two Polar Bears fighting’ by Thomas Clipping, Tadoole Lake, Manitoba, Canada, 1997 Alabaster and caribou antler 13.5 x 29 x 20 cm Van Berkel collection NMVW no. RV-6094-25
The attraction of collecting With Mol’s help, Van Berkel was able to collect art and objects of daily life from the Canadian Inuit during three visits to Canada in 1973, 1978, and 1997. He received information from museum curators as well, whom he visited and corresponded with. He bought objects from art galleries, from trading posts of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and directly from the
Inuit. He describes one purchase in his diary, written during a trip with Marijke to Churchill, Manitoba, in 1998: I asked the curator Lorraine Brandson if this artefact was of good quality, which she acknowledged several times. Especially both bears were elaborated very precisely, and the statue of caribou antler was like a
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11 | Hans van Berkel and Thomas Clipping in front of the Eskimo Museum in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, 1996 Photo: Marijke van Berkel, nr C1-2-50
freak of nature. At last she was able to negotiate a price for me. The name of the artist is Thomas Clipping from Tadoule Lake, Manitoba, and the artefact was made in 1997. (…) Both sculptures [of polar bears] were made of alabaster from Gypsum Ville. The artist’s mother is depicted on the cover of a book which Lorraine has. It is entitled ‘From Tundra to Forest’.9 She gave it to me as a present.10
and ivory in order to create a new source of income. Franz Van de Velde was instrumental in the founding of the Eskimo Museum in Churchill, Manitoba.11 The missionaries provided medical care for the Inuit, fought for their rights within Canada, and studied their language and cultural habits. Their knowledge was passed on to anthropologists, ethnologists, museums, and collectors. Hans van Berkel explains:
Van Berkel was acquainted with the Belgian Father Franz Van de Velde (1909-2002) and became friends with the Dutch Father Kees Verspeek (1914-2009), both missionaries of the Oblates of Mary Immaculata (OMI). Father Van de Velde came to the Canadian Arctic in 1937 to work with the Inuit in Pelly Bay, who addressed him as ‘Ataata Vinivi’. Confronted with poverty and gripped by a wish to help, he encouraged the Inuit to cut sculptures of bone
Father Van de Velde was already old when I got to know him, but I knew Kees Verspeek quite well. He was part of a congregation in Dordrecht in the Netherlands, and he was sent to Churchill, where he had contacts with the Inuit.12 He introduced me to Lorraine Brandson, curator of the Eskimo Museum in Churchill. Later I met Father Verspeek several times at Karel Stevens’ gallery in Eindhoven.13
17 | Hans van Berkel: Collector of Inuit Art and Handicrafts
12 | Inuit mother and child in Penny Rawlings’ handicraft shop ‘The Arctic Trading Company’, Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, 1997 Photo: Hans van Berkel, NMVW no. C2-1-35
Via the curator of the Inuit Museum in Churchill, Van Berkel came into contact with Penny Rawlings, who was also acquainted with Father Van de Velde and Verspeek. She owned a small shop called ‘The Arctic Trading Company’. She selected for Van Berkel highquality art objects of the Inuit carvers in advance. In the meantime, she had put out materials for me, but I also found a casting up game [ajangaa], a pin with a taper point. Usually, the pen has to be cast into a piece of hollow bone, but peculiarly the hollow bone was supplanted by a caribou vertebra. Penny had found something extra too, namely a hunting tool which was used as a swing for catching caribou. The swing gets stuck between the legs of the caribou so the animals drops down and the hunters can kill it.14
In Rawlings’ shop, the Van Berkels met three Inuit woman, one with an infant in her amautik (a garment with a broad hood in which a baby can be carried) and one of whom was pregnant. The women visited the shop to sell their products, which were ornamental objects made by the father of one of them: I bought a pendant designed as a woman’s knife with images of beluga whales. I asked her where the adornment came from and by whom it was made. They came from Eskimo Point and the women needed money for the hospital. I paid them in cash but for the other objects they received a ‘credit voucher’ because otherwise the money would not be spent at the hospital but would probably go to the pub. The woman with the child carried it more or less in the traditional way in her official dress: on her back in a broad hood. In the
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shop, I asked Penny if I could make photographs of the mother and her child, to which the woman agreed.15 At one point, Van Berkel began to expand his collection by buying Greenlandic objects in Denmark. With the help of the cultural attaché of the Dutch Embassy in Denmark, he visited the stores of the Greenland Royal Trading Company16 in Copenhagen, where he selected high-quality artefacts from Greenland to supplement his collection. In Copenhagen, he also made purchases at the renowned gallery Solberg. Since 1990, Hans began to buy art at Canuit, a private gallery in Eindhoven run by Karel Stevens, who imports Inuit art and handicrafts predominantly from Canada but also from Denmark and Greenland. At the gallery De Ruimte in Eersel, Van Berkel collected graphical art and some 1950s soapstone sculptures from the German family Krupp. From Galerie Lemaire in Amsterdam, he obtained a few archeological artefacts from Alaska. The cultural attaché of the Dutch embassy in Canada gave some Inuit prints to Van Berkel, and other private collectors have donated objects to him as well. Leo Mol and especially his wife Margaret were so impressed by Hans’ collecting activities that they granted him their own small Inuit collection.17
A passion for people In 1999 and 2000, a Siberian Chukchi-Yuit song and dance ensemble called Ergyron (which translates as sunrise in English) visited the Netherlands, and its members came into contact with Van Berkel. The group has organised several dance and music performances in theatres in the Netherlands over the years. Van Berkel travelled with the group within the Netherlands on several occasions, building a lasting friendship with the Chukchi performers and their Russian leader. The Chukchi are a minority in Siberia.18 In the second half of the twentieth century, Russian artists and choreographers migrated to remote areas in Siberia in an attempt to rejuvenate
19 | Hans van Berkel: Collector of Inuit Art and Handicrafts
their own art forms. These artists proceeded to introduce new techniques, new art themes, and new choreographies based on existing indigenous art forms. The result was a mixture or hybrid art and dance culture which is perceived by local communities as original, authentic, and indigenous. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, life in remote areas in Siberia has become very difficult, with many people ending up in poverty. When the Ergyron group left the Netherlands, they sold their theatre wardrobe, adornments, shaman drums, and objects related to the Chukchi whale ritual to Hans in order to raise money. Hans, for his part, has started a (financial) aid programme for Ergyron. The Van Berkel collection As explained above, the Van Berkel collection is Inuit-related and originates from Canada, Greenland, Alaska, and Siberia.19 The focus is on images of Christian religion and the Inuit worldview. His collection includes images of spirits in steatite, the transformations of spirits and animals depicted in graphical art, shamans’ paraphernalia from Siberia, and spiritual objects connected with the Chukchi whale festival such as oil lamps to be lit at the river and dishes and plates to serve food to the guests or to offer sacrifices of food to the river. Although he was educated as a clergyman at the beginning of his career, Van Berkel was critical of the church’s influence in Third World countries, as is apparent from his outspoken comment on one of the graphical prints by the Inuit artist Kananginak Pootoogook (see figures 30) depicting a baptism of a newborn Inuit child: The face of the priest really looks grim. I guess the artist must have had negative thoughts in mind about Christianity, which destroyed the native religion. The white priest with lighter hair and blue eyes is bigger, exalted above the Inuit. The wooden box (altar) is like a barricade between the two cultures. A baptism should be a happy event, but I doubt if this is the case here.20
13 | First Day Cover with a postage stamp designed by Jens Lorentzen, Greenland, 1988 Van Berkel collection NMVW 14 | Stonecut print ‘Symbols of the Arctic’ by Els de Meyer, Dordrecht, the Netherlands, commissioned by Hans van Berkel to mark 30 years of collecting, 2003 Stonecut 40.3 x 40 cm Van Berkel collection NMVW no. RV-6094-364l
Van Berkel’s artistic taste kept him from collecting non-figurative modern Inuit art. Figurative art from the ’traditional’ genre dominates in the collection. Images of hunters and hunting scenes prevail, as do whales and seals immortalised in soapstone and scenes of mother and child or families in folk dress during traditional subsistence activities. Although Van Berkel gathered artefacts related to traditional themes, with his material providing a somewhat romantic image of Inuit culture, there is an element of transition in his collection as well. For example, there are modern scrapers and harpoon heads as well as drugs pipes used by Canadian Inuit youngsters and postage stamps depicting paintings designed by Greenlandic modern artists. The collection is in every vein related to the person of Hans van Berkel, and some objects
communicate this in particular (see figures 17 to 19). In 2003, on the occasion of his 30th year of collecting, Hans commissioned the Dutch artist Els de Meyer to create a stonecut print entitled ‘Symbols of the Arctic’. De Meyer combined Inuit symbolism and transformations with the personal ideas of Van Berkel. Other remarkable pieces of art are personally related to Hans van Berkel, two of which are portraits of him designed by the Chukchi artist Vassyly P. Kevkey, a member of the Chukchi ensemble Ergyron, in 1999. Van Berkel had met the artist several times in the Netherlands, and they quickly became friends. According to Van Berkel, the artist made this drawing at his home in Chukotka, some 7,000 kilometres from Eindhoven. Being a shaman, the artist narrated that Hans van Berkel
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15 | Els de Meyer in her atelier in Dordrecht, 2003
16 | Stone block and printing tools of Els de Meyer
17 | Untitled drawing by the Chukchi artist Vassyly P. Kevkey, portraying Hans van Berkel on a reindeer sledge. Chukotka, Siberia, 1999 Pencil 20.9 x 29.5 cm Van Berkel collection NMVW no. RV-6094-241 18 | Untitled drawing by Vassyly P. Kevkey, Chukchi, Chukotka, Siberia, 1999 Pencil 20.8 x 29.5 cm Van Berkel collection NMVW no. RV-6094-238
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Selling is not an option for me. Then the soul of the collection disappears. In life, we are obliged to hold material goods in our hands only for a short time. Then these follow their own path to others. In a sense, the sculpture ‘Genesis’ refers to this.21 Van Berkel continues: “All people and every culture have their own creation stories. In a sense, these stories do not differ much from each other and they contain similar elements.”22 Henrik Imanse, who worked in the Arctic department of the Museum of Ethnology in Leiden, comments: “The former monk Van Berkel seems to be speaking here, with a spiritual view on collecting, like the transfer [of material goods] from generation to generation without any [personal] claim on possession.”23 In 2010, Van Berkel expressed his motivation in his speech held at the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden: In life, we are allowed to keep something just for a short time. It is out of this attitude, or should I say this finding, that I stand here today. But that is not the only reason. One of our [Dutch] songwriters, the late Bram Vermeulen, sang in one of his songs: “I have pushed a stone in a river on earth. The water runs differently from before.”24
19 | ‘Genesis 1:28’ by Jeffrey Salomonie, Kinngait (Cape Dorset), Nunavut, Canada, 2000 Green serpentine 24 x 16 x 45 cm Van Berkel collection NMVW no. RV-6094-421 The human figures reminded Van Berkel of his wife and children as part of the creation.
appeared to him as a priest, symbolised by a shaman with a drum (on the left), and as a warrior, as a fighter of injustice (on the right). The artist combines these elements with scenes of daily life in the Arctic. The reasons Van Berkel had to grant his collection to the museum in Leiden were personal and manifold, including his own deteriorating health and the difficulties of storage in Van Berkel’s private home in Eindhoven. A safe professional place was needed where the collection could remain together, to be shared with the public and with future generations. Van Berkel explains:
23 | Hans van Berkel: Collector of Inuit Art and Handicrafts
For the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden, of which its minor Canadian Inuit collection has been underrepresented, the Van Berkel collection is a valuable and important addition to its material culture from the Arctic. The museum has a long history in research and collecting and owns a small but important collection of ca. 4,000 objects from the Arctic.25 A few art objects from the Canadian Inuit which originate from the Van Berkel collection are exhibited permanently in the Artic Room of the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden. The museum provides valuable background information on the collection, such as letters, pamphlets, books and other publications, audio-visual materials, and music CDs. The entire collection can be retrieved online via the museum’s website.
The Inuit of Nunavut, Canada: Past and Present Lifestyles in Kugaaruk Cornelius Remie
20 | ‘Fishing equipment’, by Mariano Aupilardjuk, Ranking Inlet, Nunavut, Canada, 1991 Serpentine, wood, bone, iron, leather 52 x 22 x 6 cm Van Berkel collection NMVW no. RV-6094-24 21 | ‘Building and Igloo’ by Saima Alayco, Québec, Canada, 2000 Grey steatite and green serpentine, signed on the bottom 8.5 x 13.5 x 10 cm Van Berkel collection NMVW no. RV-RV-6094-15 22 | ‘New fence for fish’ by Victoria Mamnguqsualuk, Qamani’tuaq (Baker Lake), Keewatin, Nunavut, Canada, 2001 Woodcut 30 x 35 cm Van Berkel collection NMVW no. RV-6094-184
The Inuit have inhabited the Canadian Arctic for over 4,000 years. They were the last wave of migrants to cross the Bering Strait around 2,500 B.C. and quickly spread over the Arctic regions of North America.26 Adapting to life on the Arctic coast, they developed a nomadic lifestyle characterised by adaptation to the extreme climate. Hunting and fishing in small egalitarian family groups and bands, they were able to survive the vagaries of the arctic climate thanks to an intimate knowledge of the Arctic environment, the development of a highly sophisticated technology, and elaborate patterns of collaboration and mutual sharing. Contacts with the outside world have changed this way of life dramatically. The Inuit in 2015 can no longer be characterised as nomadic hunters and gatherers. In the second half of the twentieth century, they became fully sedentary and now live in modern settlements, leading a life that in many respects resembles that of their neighbours in southern Canada. To illustrate the many changes that occurred during the last sixty to seventy years, I will use the Arviligjuarmiut of Kugaaruk (Pelly Bay) as an example. The Arviligjuarmiut were the last Canadian Inuit to become sedentary, and their way of life was chronicled in a series of documentary films entitled People of the Seal that have become an icon of traditional Inuit culture. Traditional life The Arviligjuarmiut take their name from Pelly Bay, which in the local Inuktitut dialect is called Arviligjuaq, i.e. the big place with the bowhead whales. The name is derived from the days when whales frequented the waters of Pelly Bay. When the Little Ice Age set in during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the whales disappeared from the area but the name remained. Although it can be argued that the Arviligjuarmiut of Pelly Bay can be perceived as a distinct society,27 they are commonly described as a subgroup of the greater Netjilingmiut group. They occupied an area that stretches from Lord Mayor Bay in the north to the upper Arrowsmith, Back, and
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Kellett rivers in the south and from Committee Bay in the east to Rae Strait in the west. The area is an exceptionally rich area for hunting and fishing due to its proximity to the main caribou migration routes in Boothia Isthmus and Simpson Peninsula and because of the prevalence of large numbers of seals in Pelly Bay, Lord Mayor Bay, and Thom Bay. Traditionally, the Arviligjuarmiut were migratory fishers and hunters of land and sea mammals. Seals, caribou, and Arctic char were their main sources of food. Seals were hunted collectively at their breathing holes (agluit)
25 | The Inuit of Nunavut, Canada: Past and Present Lifestyles in Kugaaruk
23 | ‘Family’ by Kananginak Potoogook, Cape Dorset, Nunavut, Canada, 1996 Pastel crayon and pencil 51.3 x 67 cm Van Berkel collection NMVW no. RV-6094-200
during the mid-winter period. In late winter and early spring, the seals were caught while they lay on the ice. Caribou and other land mammals were hunted in late spring, summer, and early autumn. Fishing for Arctic char at stone weirs occurred when the ice begins to break up in late June or early July and in the second part of August when the fish migrated to the inland lakes. In October and November, they went ice fishing at rivers and lakes. Group size and residential composition of the Arviligjuarmiut varied according to the seasons. The nuclear family was the basic social unit during the summer period, switching to the extended family during the spring and autumn. The large winter camp, which as a rule consisted of several related or unrelated extended families, was the social entity during the long winter period. Kinship was reckoned bilaterally, and marriage was characterised by a certain degree of kindred endogamy, cross and parallel cousins being preferential mates. Infant betrothal was common, and girls often joined their spouse’s
family at the age of twelve or thirteen. For boys, the average marriage age was higher. They usually married when they were sixteen or seventeen years of age. Residence after marriage was in most cases patrilocal. Among the Arviligjuarmiut, interpersonal relations were not only shaped by ties of kinship and marriage. They also recognised a number of structured dyadic relationships, which together constituted an intricate social fabric. Of these, the nirqaiturvik or seal-meatsharing partnership was perhaps the most important. This institution regulated the sharing of the meat of seals caught during the collective hunt at the breathing holes. In theory, each hunter had twelve hunting partners with whom he would exchange a certain part of the seal caught at the agluit during his entire life. Hunting partners were chosen outside the circle of direct relatives. A hunting partner (or rather his wife) could claim a specific part of the seal if, for example, he had been unsuccessful in the hunt or even if he had not taken part in the hunt, e.g. because
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24 | 'Kudlik (seal oil stone lamp)' by Peter Palvik, printed by Susan Malgogak, Ulukhaktok (Holman), Nunavut, Canada, 2004 Lithograph and stencil 41 x 38 cm Van Berkel collection NMVW no. RV-6094-209 25 | ‘After the walrus hunt’ by Enookie Akulukjuk, Pangnirtung, Nunavut, Canada, 1992 Stencil 31.5 x 63.5 cm Van Berkel collection NMVW RV-6094-216
27 | The Inuit of Nunavut, Canada: Past and Present Lifestyles in Kugaaruk