The Central Eskimo

Record summary

Franz Boas’s The Central Eskimo presents Inuit tales, religious concepts, seasonal life and accounts of relations among humans, animals and supernatural beings, based on work in the eastern Canadian Arctic. It can support comparative research into sea dangers, winter catastrophe, transformation and origin motifs, while also showing how early anthropology classified Inuit narratives. The text is not a record of a modern anomalous event, and its translations and informant contexts need scrutiny. Researchers should identify whether a proposed deluge parallel occurs in the source narrative, in Boas’s commentary or only in later comparative folklore writing.