ABSTRACT

The late-seventeenth century saw a peak in accounts of supposed encounters with “Finnmen” in Orkney. These accounts have shaped the folklore of the Northern Isles. Scholars linked to the Royal Society suggested the accounts represented encounters with Inuit. Subsequent explanations included autonomous travel by Inuit groups and abduction and abandonment. These accounts should be understood as part of a European scientific tradition of preternatural philosophy, occupied with the deviations and errors of nature. Far from indicating the presence of Inuit individuals in Orkney waters, they provide evidence of the narrative instability of early-modern science and its habit of “thinking with things.” Captivated by Inuit artefacts, the natural philosophers and virtuosi of the Royal Society imagined Orkney as a site of reverse contact with the “primitive.” Nineteenth-century antiquarians and folklorists reliant on these texts failed to understand the extent to which objectivity was not an epistemic virtue in early-modern science.

摘要

17 世纪后期，关于在奥克尼与“芬兰人”的所谓遭遇的报道达到了顶峰。这些记载塑造了北岛的民间传说。与皇家学会有联系的学者认为，这些账户代表了与因纽特人的相遇。随后的解释包括因纽特群体的自主旅行以及绑架和遗弃。这些叙述应该被理解为欧洲超自然哲学科学传统的一部分，被自然的偏差和错误所占据。它们远非表明奥克尼水域中存在因纽特人，而是提供了早期现代科学叙事不稳定及其“用事物思考”的习惯的证据。被因纽特人的手工艺品、自然哲学家和艺术大师所吸引英国皇家学会将奥克尼想象成一个与“原始人”反向接触的场所。依赖这些文本的 19 世纪古物学家和民俗学家未能理解客观性在多大程度上不是现代科学早期的认知美德。