Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-ndmmz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-05T06:39:58.363Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The history of musk-ox domestication

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 October 2009

Paul F. Wilkinson
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

If one is sufficiently bold or foolish to ask why the musk-ox Ovibos moschatus was domesticated, even a superficial review of the available evidence suggests that several answers may be given, depending upon the viewpoint from which the question is posed. I have argued elsewhere (Wilkinson, 1972a; 1973) that the domestication of the musk-ox was inevitable if the exploitation of musk-oxen was to continue in the present century. Because of certain biological and behavioural characteristics, musk-oxen can be exploited in only two ways without endangering their survival or exceeding their capacity to regenerate their numbers: they may be hunted as what I have called a critical resource, by which I mean a resource that is not exploited regularly (including seasonally) or intensively, but without which human survival is difficult or impossible incertain areas and periods; alternatively, musk-oxen may be exploited on a sustained basis for a combination of meat, milk, robes, or qiviur through domestication. Archaeological and ethnographic evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that, as a general rule, musk-oxen were hunted as a critical resource before the arrival of Europeans in the Canadian Arctic.

Type
Articles
Information
Polar Record , Volume 17 , Issue 106 , January 1974 , pp. 13 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1974

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, R. M. 1924. The present status and future prospects of the larger mammals of Canada. Scottish Geographical Magazine Vol 40, No 6, p 321–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arnold, R. D. 1968. Village Alaska. In: Federal Field Commission for Development and Planning in Alaska. Alaska natives and the land, Washington, DC, US Government Printing Office, p 37–84.Google Scholar
Atkinson, F. H. D. 1922. Ovibos fibre. University of Leeds, Department of Textiles. 2 vols. [Unpublished PhD thesis.]Google Scholar
Baird, S. F. 1854. In: Goodrich, E. S., ed. Pictorial geography of the world, Vol 2, p 39–40.Google Scholar
Bergen, W. von. 1931–1932. Musk ox wool and its possibilities as a new textile fibre. Melliand Textile Monthly, Vol 3, p 472–74, 553–56, 646–48, 743–45, 844–46.Google Scholar
Clarke, C. H. D. 1940. A biological investigation of the Thelon Game Sanctuary. Bulletin of the National Museum of Canada, No 96.Google Scholar
Douglas, R. and Wallace, J. N., eds. 1926. Twenty years of York Factory, 1694–1714. Jeremie's account of Hudson Strait and Bay. Translated from the French edition of 1720, with notes and introduction by R. Douglas and J. N. Wallace. Ottawa, Thorburn and Abbott.Google Scholar
Durrell, W. B., and Bolton, W. D. 1957. Parasitosis in a musk ox. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, Vol 131, p 195–96.Google Scholar
Easton, R., and Brown, M. 1970. Lord of beasts. The saga of Buffalo Jones. Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
Fleming, R. H., ed. 1940. Minutes of Council, Northern Department of Rupert Land 1821–31. London, Hudson's Bay Record Society.Google Scholar
Gervais, P. 1855. Les trois règnes de la nature: histoire naturelle des mammifères ... Paris, Curmod, 2 vols.Google Scholar
Gllmore, P. 1874. Prairie and forest: a description of the game of North America. New York and London, Harper.Google Scholar
Hanbury, D. T. 1940. Sport and travel in the northland of Canada. New York, MacMillan.Google Scholar
Hoare, W. B. 1938. Sanctuary. Beaver, Outfit 270, No 1, p 38–41.Google Scholar
Hone, E. 1934. The present status of the muskox in Arctic North America with notes on distribution, extirpation, transplantation, protection, habits and life history. Cambridge, Mass, American Committee for International Wildlife Protection.Google Scholar
Jennov, J. G. 1950. Moskusoksen som tamdyr i Vestgronland. Naturens verden, Vol 34, p 250–57.Google Scholar
Lønø, J. 1960. Transplantation of the muskox in Europe and North-America. Norsk Polarinstitutt Meddelelser, No 84, p 1–25.Google Scholar
Lynge, B. 1930. Moskusoksen i Øst-Grønland. Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift, Bd 3, p 16–33.Google Scholar
MacMillan, D. B. 1928. Etah and beyond, or life within twelve degrees of the pole. London, Chapman and Hall.Google Scholar
Nathorst, A. G. 1900. Om myskoxen och planen att domesticera i Sverige. Tidskrifter för Landtmän, 1900, p 829–33.Google Scholar
Nathorst, A. G. 1901, Le loup polaire et le boeuf musqué dans le Greenland oriental. Géographie, Vol 3, p 1–16.Google Scholar
Palmer, L. J., and Rouse, C. H. 1963. Progress of muskoxen investigations in Alaska, 1930–35. Juneau, US Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife.Google Scholar
Pennant, T. 1784. Arctic zoology, Vol 1. Introduction. Class 1. Quadrupeds. London, Henry Hughs.Google Scholar
Richardson, J. 1829. Fauna boreali-americana, or the zoology of the northern parts of British America ... London, J. Murray, Vol 1.Google Scholar
Rutherford, J. G.and others. 1922. Report of the Royal Commission . . . to investigate the possibilities of the reindeer and musk-ox industries in the arctic and sub-arctic regions of Canada. By Rutherford, J. G., McClean, J. S., and Harkin, J. D.. Ottawa, Queen's Printer.Google Scholar
Sabine, J. 1823. Zoological appendix. In: Franklin, J., Narrative of a journey to the shores of the polar sea in the years 1819, 20, 21, and 22. London, J. Murray, p 644–703.Google Scholar
Schell, L. S. 1972. The musk ox underwool, qiviut; historical uses and present utilization in an Eskimo knitting industry. College, University of Alaska. [Unpublished MA thesis.]Google Scholar
Skarland, I. 1947. Musk oxen may return to campus. Farthest North Collegian, Vol 25, p 1 and 8.Google Scholar
Stefansson, V. 1922. The northward course of empire. New York, MacMillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stefansson, V. 1928. The resources of the Arctic and the problem of their utilization. In: Joerg, W. G. L., ed. Problems of polar research. New York, American Geographical Society, p 208–33.Google Scholar
Stefansson, V. 1946. Farming without barns. Harper's Magazine, Vol 192, p 53–56.Google Scholar
Teal, J. J. Jr, 1958. Golden fleece of the Arctic. Atlantic Monthly, Vol 201. p 76–81.Google Scholar
Teal, J. J. Jr, 1970a. Domesticating the wild and woolly musk ox. National Geographic Magazine, Vol 137, No 6, p 863–79.Google Scholar
Teal, J. J. Jr, 1970b. Operation musk ox, 1969. American–Scandinavian Review, Vol 58, p 10–23.Google Scholar
Wilkinson, P. F. 1971. The domestication of the musk-ox. Polar Record, Vol 15, No 98, p 683–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilkinson, P. F. 1972a. The relevance of musk ox exploitation to the study of prehistoric animal economies. Cambridge, Department of Archaeology and Anthropology. 2 vols. [Unpublished PhD thesis.]Google Scholar
Wilkinson, P. F. 1972b. Oomingmak—moskusoksen i Grønlands landbrug .Grønland, Vol 20, No 10, p 289–306.Google Scholar
Wilkinson, P. F. 1972c. Oomingmak: a model for man-animal relationships in prehistory. Current Anthropology, Vol 13, No 1, p 23–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilkinson, P. F. 1973. Musk ox exploitation and the study of prehistoric animal economies. In: Higgs, E. S., ed. Papers in economic prehistory, Vol 2. [Provisional title], Cambridge, Cambridge University Press [in preparation].Google Scholar
Williams, G.ed. 1969. Andrew Graham's observations on Hudson's Bay, 1767–91. London, Hudson's Bay Record Society.Google Scholar
Yarham, E. R. 1951. Saving the musk ox from extinction. Zoo Life, Vol 6, p 68–72.Google Scholar
Zeuner, F. E. 1963. A history of domesticated animals. London, Hutchinson.Google Scholar