Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.2005, Page 53

Great Northern Diver (Gavia immer) in
circumpolar folk ornithology
Ingvar Svanberg1 and Sigurður Ægisson2
1 Department of East European Studies, Uppsala University, Box 514, SE-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden.
Emai 1: ingvar.svanberg@east.uu.se
2 Hvanneyrarbraut 45, 580 Siglufjorður, Iceland. Email: sigurdur.aegisson@simnet.is
Úrtak
f fólksligari vitan og siðbundnum búskapi hevur havgás
(Gavia immer) verið ein týdningarmikil fuglur. Hon
eigur í íslandi og í Bjarnoynni, men vitjar ofta strendur
og oyggjar í Útnyrðingsevropa um veturin. Fuglurin
er vælkendur, við nógvum staðbundnum nøvnum bæði
á norðurlendskum og keltiskum, og liann hevur verið
nógv brúktur sum veðurmerki. Fólk hava eisini etið
havgás og gagnnýtt hamin.
Abstract
The great northern diver (Gavia immer) has played an
important role in the folk ornithology and traditional
econonty of the various ethnic groups which lived
within its domain. In Europe it breeds regularly in
Iceland and a few pairs on Bear Island, but it is a
frequent winter visitor to the coastal and island areas
in north-western Europe. It has been a well-known
bird, with many local names, both in Norse and Celtic
traditions, and it was believed to be a weather prophet.
Its meat and skin has also been utilized.
Introduction
The interest in folk ornithology - i.e. the
local traditional knowledge about birds
- has increased since the publication of
the groundbreaking Birds of My Kalam
Country by Ian Saem Majnep and Ralph
Bulmer in 1977. This book has been re-
garded as a landmark in the development
of ethnobiology as a scientific discipline.
The aim of ethnobiology is to reveal those
meaning carrying systems that constitute
traditional ecological knowledge. To do
so, the researchers must take their start-
ing-point in native classification systems,
folk taxonomies and interpretations of the
consistency that a people or local com-
munity have used and experienced about
the biosphere around them (Silow, 1992;
Berkes, 1998: 8). Ethnobiology could
therefore be defined as the study of the
bio-cultural domains that emerge in the
activity contexts between human beings
and other species. Such domains include
the cumulative body of use, naming pat-
tern, beliefs as well as empirical and old-
established interpretations of behaviour,
habits and interrelationships between spe-
cies within an ecosystem (Svanberg, 2001;
2004a: 100-101; 2005; in press).
Ralph Bulmer and Chris Healey empha-
size that such traditional knowledge does
not exist “as a readily separable body of
knowledge in traditional societies, where
generally no distinction is made like that
Fróðskaparrit 53. bók 2005: 51-66