Johan Petersen

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Johan "Ujuât" Christian August Petersen (born March 12, 1867 in Salliit ; † December 7, 1960 in Copenhagen ) was a Greenlandic expedition member , interpreter , trade and colonial administrator .

Life

childhood

Johan Petersen was born in 1867 as the son of the Danish Udsteds administrator Andreas Martin Petersen (1826–1885) and his Greenlandic wife Karen Margrethe Birgithe Hansen (1835–1888).

Johan Petersen grew up until he was eleven in the now long-abandoned town of Salliit near Qaqortoq , where a large number of Tunumiit resided who traded with the Kitaamiut there . Thereby he learned Tunumiisut , the language of the Tunumiit.

In 1878 he moved with his parents to Denmark , where his father had bought a small property south of Helsingør on the north-eastern tip of Sjælland . At the age of 14 Johan left school and helped his father in the fields, worked as a carpenter and in the office, but also dreamed of going to sea.

Expeditions

In 1882 the Danish polar explorer Gustav Frederik Holm became aware of the 15-year-old Johan and his older brother Hendrik Theodor, who would later also make a career as a trade and colonial administrator, because he needed a spokesman for East Greenland for his women's boat expedition to East Greenland. He asked her father for permission and finally took them both on the expedition, with their uncle Johannes Hansen leading the Kalaallit they had taken with them . The two brothers took the barge Ceres to Nuuk , where they arrived on July 15, 1883. On a schooner they drove to Nanortalik , where they hibernated. On May 5, 1884, they finally set off for East Greenland. On September 1st they reached Tasiilaq , where they moored and named King Christian IX Land . Johan Petersen had to observe the water level and the ice conditions, but acted mainly as an interpreter and was responsible for the contact between Danes and East and West Greenlanders. He translated East Greenlandic sagas and thus made a significant contribution to the ethnographic and cultural-historical research on the expedition. Even then, the residents were promised to send out an administrator and a pastor, but nothing happened for ten years.

After the expedition ended in 1885, he got a job with Den Kongelige Grønlandske Handel . In 1888 he was appointed Udsteds administrator of Imerissoq .

In 1891 the Danish polar explorer Carl Ryder took Johan Petersen with him on his expedition to map East Greenland to Kangertittivaq , which did not return to Copenhagen until the end of the following year . Only a few months later, in the following spring, Vilhelm Garde and Carl Moltke took it with them on their inland sea expedition to southern Greenland.

Career as a colonial administrator

After his return, he founded a trading post on Eggers Ø in 1893 , which was named Itilleq according to the island's Greenlandic name . In addition, it was finally decided in 1894 to set up a trading post in Tasiilaq and no one saw any more suitable as a trade administrator than Johan Petersen. Shortly before his death, he said that without Western action, the region would probably have been depopulated there in the next five years. Famine , murders every few days, and other crises made the job difficult, which he was nevertheless able to manage satisfactorily. In 1904 he was appointed colonial administrator in East Greenland. In 1916, however, his health failed and he returned home. In 1923 he returned again as a substitute.

On September 1, 1895, he married the Danish Ane Sørensen (1867–1944), daughter of the farm owner Jens Sørensen (1841–1902) and his wife Abelone Jørgensdatter (1845–1921) in Tasiilaq. The marriage resulted in two sons: Gustav Sophus Frederik Petersen (born June 18, 1900 in Tasiilaq) and Jens Dana Andreas Nuka Petersen (born July 10, 1907 in Tasiilaq).

In 1924 Ejnar Mikkelsen initiated the establishment of Ittoqqortoormiit and Johan Petersen was chosen to lead and administer the settlement. Despite the outbreak of a flu epidemic , he was able to hand the town over without any problems.

Also in 1924 he had helped in the discovery and research of the Grænlendingar settlements around Herjólfsnes , led by the archaeologist Poul Nørlund .

Age, Death, and Legacy

From 1928 to 1931 Johan Petersen was head of the Grønlænderhjemmets in Copenhagen. From 1934 to 1935 he was appointed deputy administrator of Ittoqqortoormiit one more time, before ending his working career at the age of 68. In 1944 he was made an honorary member of the Greenlandic Association Peqatigiit Kalaalliit in Copenhagen and in 1952 an honorary member of the Greenlandic Society . He had been Dannebrogsmand since 1916 , Knight of the Dannebrog Order since 1926 and wore the Kongelige Belønningsmedalje in silver. He spent his old age in Copenhagen, where he died very old in 1960 at the age of 93.

In 1957, his diaries were in the form of the book Ujuâts dagbøger fra Østgrønland 1894-1935. Østgrønlændernes sagn og fortællinger published. From 1895 to 1915 Johan Petersen had already published the weather and ice conditions in the annual books of Danmarks Meteorologiske Institut . In 1921 he wrote Tohundrede Aaret for Hans Egedes Ankomst til Grønland on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the colonization of Greenland . In 1942 he published the treatise Grønlændernes Sprog, Litteratur, Musik og Udskæringkunst. William Thalbitzer's monograph The Angmagssalik Eskimo from 1914 goes back to Johan Petersen's research results, as does The birds of Angmagssalik by ornithologist Otto Helms .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Biography in Dansk biografisk leksikon
  2. ↑ Church registers Qaqortoq 1862–1887 (Born boys p. 18)
  3. ↑ a b c biography in Kraks Blå Bog 1957
  4. ↑ a b Ujuât fortæller: Den sidste overlevende fra konebådsekspedUNGEN in the Atuagagdliutit of January 1, 1961
  5. ↑ Biography in Biografisk Leksikon for Grønland
  6. ^ Church records Tasiilaq 1890–1921 (Married people, p. 131)
  7. ^ Church records Tasiilaq 1890–1921 (Young men, p. 2)
  8. ^ Church records Tasiilaq 1890–1921 (Young men, p. 8)
  9. ↑ Ved Ujuâts død in the Atuagagdliutit of January 12, 1961
  10. ↑ Ujuât in memoriam in the Atuagagdliutit of February 16, 1967
personal data
SURNAME Petersen, Johan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Petersen, Johan Christian August (full name); Ujuât (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Greenlandic expedition member, translator, trade and colonial administrator
DATE OF BIRTH March 12, 1867
PLACE OF BIRTH Salliit
DATE OF DEATH December 7, 1960
Place of death Copenhagen