An interdisciplinary approach to documenting knowledge of plants & their uses in Greenland

While the native language of west Greenland, Kalaallisut, is robust with over 50,000 speakers, traditional knowledge of plant uses has been lost due to extensive Danish contact. We take an interdisciplinary approach to reconstructing this lost knowledge: the biologist provides botanical identification, plant uses, methods of collection, preparation, and storage, while the linguist provides access to the linguistic identification of the plants, both in Greenland and in a pan-Inuit context, and access to the historical documentation. This collaborative effort allows us to document the revitalization of knowledge, reconstructed via exchange with other Inuit plant users (in Alaska and Canada) as well as other Arctic users (such as the Sami). Here we discuss our work collecting the knowledge (linguistic, scientific and local) about plants in Greenland. We supplement archived sources such as Nunaata Naasui (Greenland’s Flora), a bilingual (Kalaallisut-Danish) field guide with over 150 plants which lacks information on plant uses, with fieldwork and interviews. From a linguistic standpoint we consider the meaning and etymologies of Kalaallisut plant names, how they correspond to or differ with other Inuit terminology. Our findings indicate that local knowledge of plant uses is greater than believed. Certain medicinal plants appear to be known across the population, and differ in preparation across Arctic peoples. We have yet to find extensive knowledge of plants comparable to some individuals in Inuit cultures, but we are hopeful that our second trip in summer 2011 will contribute new data to this work is ongoing.