Customer Reviews

Never in Anger: Portrait of an Eskimo Family

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Never In Anger was an assigned book for my first year anthropology class at Memorial University of Newfoundland, Jean Briggs' alma mater. This ethnography opened my eyes to the wonderful field of cultural anthropology. Jean's honesty concerning her observations of her adopted family made the story real for me, and would for anyone. Never In Anger is a wonderful study of a culture that highly prizes emotional restraint and family ties. By reading this book, one is forced to draw parallels to today's Western Societial values. Highly recommended!

AWESOME text! A very common Antrho refference text. Even if you aren't a student of anthropology, it is an interesting read. I found it quite fascinating to read about a world where people do not show anger, do not express any negative emotions, and how an outsider tries to live like them. The enthropologist, an American woman, reports her life in the Inuit camp where she lived over the course of almost a year, and the relationships she made with them. Very very interesting book that I will surely read again!

The story in brief.

As an ethnologist, when you come to live with a people in order to write a study, you're not supposed to lie. You're supposed to make it clear that you're studying them, or the climate, or whatever. This is what long experience has taught cultural anthropologists.

Jean Briggs, however, lied -- or at least misrepresented the truth, saying that she was coming to stay with an Eskimo family that basically assumed she was going to become their adopted daughter. Hijinks ensue when she demands a level of freedom they are not prepared to grant their new "daughter."

For all that -- or possibly because of that -- it's very interesting: an insightful and at times gun-wrenching portrait of what life is like as an Eskimo.

There's a reason why cultural anthropology courses all over the country assign this as required reading!

It's an engaging first-hand account from an anthropologist who went to live with an Inuit family. She gives a very candid account of her own difficulties in adapting to their culture.