Sisters reap reward for what they sew

SIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS SERVICE

Two aging sisters from Aasiaat received the 2005 Greenland Cultural Prize for maintaining the old tradition of sewing.

The 76-year-old twin sisters from Aasiaat received the highest cultural award, worth $10,000, on June 21, Greenland’s National Day.

Benedikte and Regine Brandt now live in Aasiaat, but they are originally from a tiny community, Iginniarfiarfik, where they saw women working with seal skin and sewing since they were small.

The sisters started to work with sealskin, and after many years they learned how to make the complex Greenlandic traditional clothes.

“They maintained the old Greenlandic tradition of sewing skin, and had made the finest and most excellent things out of skins,” said Greenland’s minister for culture, Henriette Rasmussen, as she awarded Benedikte and Regine the cultural prize.

The cultural prize ceremony was held in the cultural house in Nuuk, Katuaq, and was transmitted direct on Greenland’s television and radio networks.