Damas, David 1926–

(David John Damas)

PERSONAL:

Surname rhymes with "Thomas"; born December 27, 1926, in Algoma, WI; son of Raymond Z. (a shipping executive) and Laura H. (a homemaker) Damas. Ethnicity: "North European." Education: University of Toledo, B.A., 1950; University of Chicago, A.M., 1960, Ph.D., 1962. Hobbies and other interests: Sailing, golf, jazz and classical music.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Burlington, Ontario, Canada; fax: 905-632-5597.

CAREER:

National Museums of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Arctic ethnologist, 1962-69; McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, associate professor, 1969-73, professor of anthropology, 1973-91, professor emeritus, 1991—. Military service: U.S. Marine Corps, 1945-46.

MEMBER:

Arctic Institute of North America (fellow), American Anthropological Association (fellow), American Ethnological Society (fellow), New York Academy of Sciences, Sigma Xi.

WRITINGS:

Iglulingmiut Kinship and Local Groupings: A Structuralist Approach, National Museum of Canada (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada), 1963.

(Editor and contributor) Band Societies, National Museum of Canada (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada), 1969.

(Editor and contributor) Ecological Essays, National Museum of Canada (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada), 1969.

(Editor and contributor) Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 5: The Arctic, Smithsonian Institution Press (Washington, DC), 1985.

Bountiful Island: A Study of Land Tenure in a Micronesian Atoll, Wilfrid Laurier University Press (Waterloo, Ontario, Canada), 1994.

Arctic Migrants/Arctic Villagers: The Transformation of Inuit Settlement in the Central Arctic, McGill-Queen's University Press (Montreal, Quebec, Canada), 2002.

Also author of The Structure of Igluligmiut Local Groupings. Contributor to books, including Science, History, and Hudson Bay, Ottawa Department of Energy, Mines, and Resources, 1968; The Canadian Family, Holt (New York, NY), 1971; Hunters and Gatherers Today, edited by M.G. Bicchieri, Holt, 1972; Arctic Life: Challenge to Survival, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, 1983; and The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of North America, Volume I, Part 2, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1996. Contributor of articles and reviews to anthropology journals, including American Ethnologist, Culture, Human Organization, Arctic Anthropology, Current Anthropology, Anthropologica, Ethnohistory, Etudes/Inuit Studies, Journal of the Polynesian Society, and Human Ecology.

SIDELIGHTS:

David Damas once informed CA that he has made five field trips to the Arctic and four to Micronesia. His languages include German and Eskimo. Later he added: "At present my primary motivations for writing stem from a backlog of hard-won, information-based anthropological field work and library and archival research, a desire to set the record straight on certain developments which occurred in the Canadian Arctic in the period between 1950 and 1970, and a desire to take advantage of an opportunity to set an example, if possible, for younger scholars in a number of fields to strive for objective assessment of subject matter—for the quest for the truth rather than a faddish or propagandist distortion of truths.

"I suppose that my writing process is not much different from that of most writers—a gradual easing of pain as I work from the first rough draft to the finished product. My background in English and American literature has been an unexpected aid in my writing. The topics chosen for my writing have been pretty well pre-ordained by my choice of occupation and the geographical regions I have visited. If there has been any real change in my writing, it has been sensitivity to the criticism of having a too ‘packed’ style and overly long sentences."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Review of Canadian Studies, winter, 2005, Christopher G. Trott, review of Arctic Migrants/Arctic Villagers: The Transformation of Inuit Settlement in the Central Arctic, p. 756.

Arctic, June, 2003, George Wenzel, review of Arctic Migrants/Arctic Villagers, p. 202.

Canadian Geographer, summer, 2004, Peter J. Usher, review of Arctic Migrants/Arctic Villagers, p. 248.

Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, August, 2003, Nelson H.H. Graburn, review of Arctic Migrants/Arctic Villagers, p. 355.

Choice, September, 1995, R. Berleant-Schiller, review of Bountiful Island: A Study of Land Tenure on a Micronesian Atoll, p. 172.

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, December, 1996, Mary McCutcheon, review of Bountiful Island, p. 750.

Oceania, December, 1996, Glenn Petersen, review of Bountiful Island, p. 173.