How Are We to Imagine Them?: Shamanism, Structuralism and The Zoomorphic Series in Dorset Carving
Keywords:
Dorset, archaeological art, shamanism, naturalism, realismAbstract
Dorset people, particularly the Late Dorset, c. AD
700-1300, have produced an art of significant quality, potency,
and power. Dorset art constitutes one of the premiere museum
collections in Canada, in any mode, genre or form. This paper
examines the widely accepted view of Dorset carving as inextri
cably bound with shamanistic practice. Focusing on "naturalistic
miniatures," works of zoomorphic realism, it suggests these
works may have been vernacular objects, common and part of
everyday life, giving expression to the more mundane experi
ences of people in the past. This makes them no less emblematic
of Dorset social mores, habits, customs, and relations.
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Copyright (c) 2013 Ian J. MacRae
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