Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2013, Page 38

SÓLVEIG GUÐMUNDSDÓTTIR BECK
goose (or Branta sp.) species (see
Hambrecht 2009, 13 and 20-22).
Meat preparation, consumption
and storage
Bird meat, whether it was from land or sea
birds, seems to have been mostly
processed for personal consumption or to
exchange for other necessities (table 1).
According to Kristjánsson (1980, 86-87)
the people of Skaftafell often traded salted
Fulmar and feathers for dulse and people
inland sometimes traded tallow, pate,
smoked meat or mittens and socks for sea
bird feathers for bedding at the end of the
19th/early 20th century (ÞÞ 4450). One
exception is the ptarmigan. In the 19th and
beginning of the 20th century at least,
ptarmigan was usually sold and shipped
abroad in the feathers (Kristleifsson 1945,
141; ÞÞ 6307; ÞÞ 6376; ÞÞ 6699).
Whether the birds were salted before
transport is unclear. It would presumably
depend on what salt would do to the
feathers as the price depended on how
well they looked. The feathers had to be
snow white without a speck of blood, so
generally ptarmigans that looked bad
fetched a lower price or were kept for
eating. In 1880, 720 ptarmigans were
transported on six horses from Húsafell to
Reykjavík (Kristleifsson 1945, 142).
According to Guðmundsson (1900,
216-217) in 1896 ptarmigan for 6000 kr.
was exported to Denmark, most likely to
arrive there before Christmas
(Kristleifsson 1945, 142). With a price
range example between 15-125 aurar a
ptarmigan (ÞÞ 6307; ~70 aurar on
average), that could have been at least
8500 birds. That is certainly a high
number but as they were exported whole
no clear archaeological evidence is likely
to be found of such export.
At home every useíul part of killed
birds was eaten or otherwise utilized.
Before salt became common in Iceland
after the 18th century, meat was
presumably smoked, wind dried or stored
in whey when it was not eaten fresh in
soup or boiled (írying was rare). Sea birds
were either salted or smoked when not
eaten fresh and their spines were stored in
whey for softening, although cormorant
spines usually followed the skin in the
cleaning process which was then dried and
used for firewood (Anonymous 1936,
186; Jónsson Aðils 1948, 200;
Kristjánsson 1986, 236, 241-242 and 270;
Friðfmnsson 1991, 48-49; Magnússon
1995, 51; Gísladóttir 1999, 138-147; ÞÞ
6272; ÞÞ 6307; ÞÞ 6376; ÞÞ 7061). Swan
necks are known to have been stored in
whey as well (ÞÞ 6699). Wings, head and
feet were chopped off and when birds
were not salted whole the breastbone was
removed (only thighs and breasts;
Gísladóttir 1999, 142; ÞÞ 6307). When
Pufíin chicks were eaten, usually nothing
was leít other than leg bones and their
wings and heads were often used as
kindling (Gísladóttir 1999, 145). In
Grímsey where íuel was scarce, wings of
gull chicks and whole poor quality Fulmar
chicks and bird heads were sometimes
stuffed in between poor turf strips in stack
piles which through time became a good
íuel source called wing turf (vœngjatorf,
Norðmann 1946). The crop of the Great
auk was so oily it was also sometimes
used as kindling (Anonymous 1936, 186).
Whether this was done with crops of other