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The Scottish kayaks reconsidered

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Ian Whitaker
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Extract

In my article in 1954 I suggested that the role of the Finns in the folklore of the northern Scottish Islands might have assisted in the attribution to these visitors of the designation “Finn-men” which is found in the earliest accounts. The aim of the article was to dispose of suggestions by earlier students of the problem (e.g. MacRitchie, 1912a, 130-1) that they might be visitors from Northern Europe, and to identify them clearly as Eskimos arriving directly from Greenland. The problem that the kayak becomes waterlogged after being immersed in water for 48 hours presents difficulties to this solution which could only be overcome if one postulated Olympic standards on the part of the travellers. At the time of this study I presumed that the Scottish specimens and traditions were unique, and therefore sought an explanation which was particular to that country.

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Antiquity , Volume 51 , Issue 201 , March 1977, pp. 41 - 45
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 1977 

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Footnotes

*

Some twenty-three years ago (1954, 99–104) our predecessor in the Editorial chair published an article by Professor Whitaker which examined the traditional and material evidence for the appearance of Eskimo kayaks off the Scottish coast. Professor Whitaker now wishes to re-examine the situation in the light of the publication of a study from Holland which has not so far been reviewed in the British Isles, and of which Professor Whitaker has only recently become aware. Professor Whitaker is Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada.

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