A little book about Pooq

Pooq returned to Greenland in 1725 with his friend Qiperoq, who had died in Bergen, Norway.

Nevertheless, his return was a memorable affair. He had composed some songs about his voyage and the sights he had seen, and he performed them for his rapt countrymen.

He sang about the houses in Copenhagen, the Round Tower (which continues to amaze tourists even today), the soldiers, firefighting equipment, and the common people whom he found to be very friendly.

The cover of the 1857 publication about Pooq and his travels. The spelling “Pok” is that used before the standardization of Greenlandic orthography.

He also sang about an orphanage, the unfortunate inmates of a lunatic asylum, a prison that held vagrants, and about prostitutes and thieves. He sang too about the inns where people went to drink the water that took away their senses.

Pooq returned with many gifts from friends in Denmark, although he exaggerated considerably when he said that the king himself had given him five trunks full of presents.

Perhaps the most outrageous of his actions was strutting through the community in European clothing, complete with a sword.

But the townspeople were impressed with Pooq. They believed his tales.

Some time after his return, he planned to marry. But, as the historian Finn Gad expressed it, his “marriage plans had gone somewhat awry.”

Eventually he found a wife and they had two children in short order, children who were baptized immediately along with Pooq and his wife.

Unfortunately, Pooq soon wore out his welcome at the mission.

Hans Egede was anxious to rid himself of the burden of supporting Pooq and advocated for his return to Denmark, along with his family. He wrote to King Frederik V that “since they are only a source of expense and inconvenience to the colony here and cannot perform any service, and on account of the shortage of accommodation, which will be considerable this winter so that there will be no home for them, we are obliged most humbly to send them to you.”

So it was that Pooq and his family boarded a Danish ship bound for Copenhagen in August of 1728. Two young Inuit men and a girl accompanied them. Unfortunately, they all caught smallpox and died in the spring of the following year.

The story of Pooq and his first trip to Denmark survived orally in the Greenlandic Inuit community for over a century. In 1857, it acquired new life when it became the subject of a book published in Nuuk.

Many books had already been written about Greenland and Greenlanders, and some books had even been printed on an early printing press in Nuuk.

But in 1857, Heinrich Rink, the colonial inspector in Nuuk, then known as Godthaab, acquired a new press. He was a strong advocate for Inuit literacy and encouraged the work of Rasmus Berthelsen, an Inuk artist and poet, who now added printer and publisher to his list of accomplishments.

Berthelsen was assisted in his work by the always self-effacing Lars Møller, who usually identified himself in print simply as the son of Pele.

Bertelsen created four woodcuts of Pooq and Qiperoq’s activities in Copenhagen. The woodcuts show the two Inuit in their sartorial splendour wearing their European clothes, strolling through the town, and walking through a forest. One image shows them in a horse-drawn carriage on their way to the king’s palace. Another shows them entering the palace, dressed in their native garb, between two rows of uniformed guards. Many of the prints were individually hand-coloured.

The prints made from these woodcuts were the first examples of Inuit printmaking. When one thinks today of early Inuit printmaking, we think of Kinngait, where it was initiated in the 1950s under the tutelage of artist James Houston. But it began a century earlier in Greenland.

The four prints were included as part of a small book Berthelsen and Møller produced in 1857. Berthelsen could perhaps relate to Pooq because he had also been to Denmark, spending four years there for his education during the 1840s.

He and Møller had to learn the techniques of publishing on the fly — printmaking, design, formatting, typesetting, and printing. Considering their constraints, they did a remarkable job.

The book’s title is a mouthful: Pok, kalalek avalangnek, nunalikame nunakatiminut okaluktuartok. Angakordlo palasimik napitsivdlune agssortuissok.

This translates as: Pok [Pooq], a Kalaaleq who travels and tells a story to his countrymen upon his return. And of the conversation of a shaman on meeting priest.

Interestingly, authorship is not attributed to Pooq but instead to “old writings [manuscripts] found among inhabitants of Nuuk.”

What were these old documents? Berthelsen, it seems, had used the appendix to a Greenlandic-Danish-Latin dictionary published in 1760 by the missionary Poul Egede, son of Hans Egede.

Poul Egede had recreated what he assumed Pooq’s experience to have been. He presented it as a dialogue between Pooq and four of his countrymen: Simik, Kujaut, Persoq, and Tulugaq.

In one of the dialogues, Pooq explained to Persoq that he and Qiperoq rode “in a sled that was like a house with windows, to the great and powerful king.”

This was his description of riding in a horse-drawn carriage.

In another, Persoq asked Pooq, “What is the great house — the Royal Palace — like? Pooq replied, “It is like an iceberg.”

It is important to recognize that this little book was not meant for a European audience, but for the enjoyment and education of a local Greenlandic audience.

Greenlanders were the first Inuit to be literate in their own language. Only three years after this publication appeared, Atuagagdliutit, the first Greenlandic newspaper, began publication. Greenlanders read voraciously.

Another point is worth noting: The book was not given away, but rather sold to Inuit.

On the cover, below the title, is the notice, “The entire income from the sale of the book is to be shared among widows who have lost their husbands in kayak accidents.”

Taissumani is an occasional column that recalls events of historical interest. Kenn Harper is a historian and writer who lived in the Arctic for more than 50 years. He is the author of “Minik: The New York Eskimo” and “Thou Shalt Do No Murder,” among other books. Feedback? Send your comments and questions to kennharper@hotmail.com.