Icelanders

E. PAUL DURRENBERGER AND JOHN BEIERLE

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Icelanders speak Icelandic and trace their origins to settlers who came from Norway in the ninth century. According to the Icelandic literary-historic tradition, it was an early settler who gave the island its foreboding name when he was forced to return to Norway because he fished and hunted all summer and failed to lay up hay for his live-stock. Today Icelanders enjoy a long life expectancy and one of the highest standards of living in the world.

Iceland is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, located between Greenland and Norway, just south of the Arctic Circle. It covers 103,000 square kilometers, of which about 1,000 are cultivated, 20,000 pasture, 12,000 covered by glaciers, and 67,000 covered by lava, sands, and other wastelands. Volcanic activity continues. The Gulf Stream moderates the climate. The average annual temperature in Reykjavik, the capital, is 5° C. January averages -0.4° C and July 11.2° C. Average annual precipitation in Reykjavik is 80.5 centimeters.

The total 1983 population was 237,894, about 2.3 persons per square kilometer. There were 128,221 people living in the area of the capital, and 87,106 in Reykjavik itself. There were 211,716 living in towns and villages of more than 200 people, and 26,178 in rural areas.

Icelandic is a Germanic language akin to Norwegian. Some call medieval Icelandic, the language of the Icelandic historic-literary tradition, Old Norse. Icelandic retains the full case structure, and some claim it is virtually unaltered since medieval times, though many modern Icelanders disagree. There are no family names. Everyone has one or two names and is referred to as son or daughter after his or her father. Directories are organized alphabetically by first name.

A number of medieval Icelandic manuscripts have been preserved. They include a compilation of stories collected just within the living memory of some of the earliest settlers about the settlement itself (the “Book of Settlements”); a grammatical treatise; the family sagas, composed during the thirteenth century about events of earlier periods; the Sturlunga sagas about contemporary thirteenth-century events; lawbooks; biographies of churchmen; other religious writings; and compilations of and commentaries on poetry and mythology. This is a unique record of a stratified society without a state, provided by the people of the society themselves. Romanticized nationalistic treatments of this tradition are common and are related to the ideology of the nineteenth-century Icelandic independence movement. This influence remains in some Scandinavian and other treatments of Icelandic culture and history. While scholars continue to debate the reliability of the documents of t he Icelandic literary-historic tradition, most agree about the following history. Iceland was settled by people from Norway beginning in the ninth century. Each nonchieftain belonged to the assembly group of a chieftain. The society was stratified, but there was no state system. In A.D. 930 a General Assembly based on the model of Norwegian assemblies was established. One “law speaker” was elected every three years to memorize the customs and laws and recite one-third of them at each annual meeting of the assembly. He had no executive authority, but he could be consulted on points of law. The chieftains in assembly changed laws and heard cases. The assembly was not a parliamentary structure nor in any way did it resemble a democracy. Under pressure from the king of Norway in 1000, Christianity was adopted as the general religion of the island by arbitration at the meeting of the General Assembly. With Christianity came bishops and, in 1096, a tithe law. Early in the twelfth century the laws were w ritten. A period of strife among chieftains resulted in the concentration of power into the hands of a few families in the thirteenth century, and in 1242 the remaining chieftains surrendered to the king of Norway. In 1380 Norway came under Danish rule, bringing Iceland with it. During the Reformation, in 1550, Catholicism was replaced by Lutheranism. From 1602 until 1787 there was a trade monopoly to prevent Icelanders from trading with British, German, and other fishermen and traders. In 1918 home rule was granted. During World War II, the Germans occupied Denmark and the British occupied Iceland. At the invitation of the British and occupied Iceland, the United States established military bases to free the British for other war tasks. Iceland became an independent republic in 1944. The American bases remain as NATO bases. Their presence is hotly debated in Iceland. Some argue they are Iceland's contribution to NATO while others argue they contradict Iceland's independence. Language, geography, and history place Iceland in the sphere of Scandinavian culture.

Iceland has always depended on trade. The growing season is too short for any crop but grass, cultivated as feed for cattle and sheep. Fishing and hunting have always supplemented livestock production. The relative place of each component in the economic system has changed over the centuries. Initially, livestock production was important both for domestic consumption and for production of woolen goods for trade with Europe for metal and wood products. Fishing provided additional food, and cod may have been traded commercially since medieval times. During the period of Danish colonial rule, livestock production predominated.

As Danish rule weakened toward the end of the nineteenth century, and local capital accumulation became possible, fishing communities grew along the coast and merchants developed foreign markets for fisheries products. Modern Iceland has an industrial economy based on fishing, fish processing, and fish exporting. Icelanders enjoy a high standard of living with 508 cars, 525 telephones, 266 television sets, and 2 physicians per 1,000 inhabitants in 1983.

Iceland's fishing and fish processing industries are among the most innovative and modern in the world. From their trawlers to their line boats and freezing plants, they take advantage of the most modern technology and innovations in all fields from computer science to plastics. Hydroelectric plants provide electricity for an aluminum processing factory.

The nation exports fish and fish products and imports most of its consumer goods.

Most Icelandic adults work, including most married women. As in other industrialized countries, the question is not so much one of division of labor as division of rewards such as wages and prestige. Icelandic women are generally paid less than their male counterparts. Women are usually assigned less desirable and less remunerative work in fish processing plants, for example. They are underrepresented on the faculty of the University of Iceland. This overall inequity may be in the process of changing, however. The economics and politics of gender equality have been issues in Icelandic politics for years, but during the 1980s the Women's List, a national political party, had some electoral success in parliamentary elections.

In medieval Iceland land tenure depended on being able to appeal to sufficient force to prevent others from taking the land one claimed. Chieftains built coalitions of commoners and entered into alliances with other chieftains. Commoners joined chieftains to insure their land claims. One of the contradictions of the period was an economic system based on concepts of landownership and stratification with no state system of governance to enforce it. From the thirteenth century on many landless people worked for wages or rented from the few landowners. This system continued virtually until independence. In independent Iceland land tenure is less important than sea tenure. In 1975 Iceland led the way to the establishment of the international 200-mile (333-kilometer) offshore limit, which resulted in its cod wars with Great Britain. This limited the right to fish within these limits to Icelandic fishermen, thus reserving a rich fishing area for Icelandic use. This has been and rema ins one of the most important aspects of Icelandic foreign policy.

The modern kinship terminology is made up of two systems. One is Ego-centered with terms that indicate specific individuals. The second is a set of collective terms that indicate groups of kin. Each of these two systems is divided into two more or less classificatory or descriptive subsystems. Descriptive terms designate individuals by generation, sex, and laterality. Merging terms refer to individuals with others of other positions of the same category. These systems have evolved from similarly complex medieval systems.

Documents of the literary-historic tradition record instances of men having multiple mates if not legal wives. Marriage has never been considered as important in Iceland as in some other societies. Since the early nineteenth century when national statistics began to be recorded, from 13 to 36 percent (in 1977) of births have been illegitimate. Illegitimacy has never been a stigma or hindrance. Of the Nordic countries, Iceland has the youngest age at marriage (24.9 years for males, 22.7 years for females). Divorce has always been easy. The rate of divorce in 1977 was 9.12 per thousand married women. Because of the high rate of cohabitation, this figure does not necessarily have the same social meaning as it might in a society with a higher rate of marriage.

In 1703 the average household size was 5.6 persons and remained between 6 and 7 until 1901 when it was 6.2. In 1950 it was 3.8 and in 1960 3.9.

There is no kindred-based land inheritance in Iceland. Personal decisions outweigh structural obligations. The historical-literary tradition records cases of contested inheritance, usually resolved by force in medieval times.

Modern Icelanders are very aware of issues of child rearing, child welfare, and education, and these issues sometimes become political. Public-health nurses make periodic house checks on newborns to ensure that they are staying on their growth curves and to help mothers with any problems they may encounter. Day care for preschool children is widely available in and near Reykjavik. In less metropolitan areas parents rely more on kin and friends for child care. Some rural and urban households have au pair girls to help with young children.

Iceland has been a stratified society without a state and a colony of Denmark, and it is now an independent republic with an elected president as ritual head of state, a multiparty system, a parliament, and a prime minister who is the effective head of state.

Iceland has a strongly egalitarian ideology and the distribution of income is more equal than in most other societies. Differences in economic status, however, have become greater in recent years under conservative economic policies. There are significant differences between male and female remuneration for similar work. There has never been any Icelandic royalty, though some people have been and remain in privileged positions relative to others. These differences are well documented and discussed, and they sometimes become political issues. Almost all workers belong to well-organized unions.

Since its establishment as a republic in 1944, Iceland has never had a majority government. It is governed by a coalition of several parties that range from the Left to the Right in their political rhetoric and policies.

The small size of Iceland and its population makes for greater accessibility than in larger, more populous societies. People know each other and know of each other. This closeness operates as a kind of social control and may be characterized as stifling or as close. Icelanders tend to be tolerant and nonfanatical. When someone says “it is not fair,” he or she gets an immediate hearing. The response is not “no one said life was fair.” Appeal to egalitarian ideals, concepts of justice and fairness, are given weight rather than disregarded. Discussions and debates, like the political parties, tend to be many-sided rather than two-sided.

The literary-historic tradition records many instances of conflict in medieval times. Today conflict tends to be verbal and legal rather than physical. Sometimes there are strikes. One definition of chaos is the interruption of normal middle-class patterns of life. There is no military. There is a small police force and coast guard. There is no national guard. When there are strikes, the policemen's union is as likely as any other to be on strike, so they are not used to break strikes. Since most people belong to unions, nonunion workers are not available to break strikes.

The Icelandic writer Sigrdur Nordal wrote, “We have been bad pagans for a century and bad Christians for ten.” Most modern Icelanders are confirmed in the Icelandic State Church, a major rite of passage. The church is tax-supported, but individuals who do not want to support the church may so indicate on their tax returns and their taxes are used for other purposes. Nonstandard quasireligious movements such as spiritism and folk concepts such as elves and prophetic dreams have some support and go in and out of fashion from time to time.

During early times, chieftains were also priests. As in many other primitive societies, their offices were both secular and sacred. After Christianity was introduced, clergy refused to abide by the rule of celibacy, bore arms, and entered feuds. The higher clergy functioned as another kind of chieftain.The clergy have social as well as religious roles.

Choral singing may be one of the most popular art forms in Iceland. Rural as well as urban areas support choirs. There is an active theater community, symphony orchestra, new music movement, and visual arts community. There are several art museums, some of which are dedicated to individual artists. There is a small film-making industry. There is a state television station, two state radio stations, and one commercial television station. Icelandic rock-and-roll bands come and go in national and international popularity. One of the problems they must face is whether to perform in the Icelandic language, thus maintaining a strong sense of Icelandic identity but limiting their appeal to the island, or to perform in English (e.g., the Sugarcubes), thus appealing to an international audience but losing some of their national identity. Iceland is a nation of poets and writers. The most internationally known writer is the Nobel Prize winner Halldor Laxness, who has written only in Ice landic. Before he won the Nobel Prize, Icelanders gave him a cool reception because of his challenges to long-held myths of egalitarianism and romantic ideas of independence.

Iceland has a modern and advanced healthcare system. All Icelanders participate in this system, and health care is available to all.

Documents referred to in this section are included in the eHRAF collection and are referenced by author, date of publication and eHRAF document number.

The Icelanders collection consists of 22 English language documents. The major time focus of the collection ranges from about the middle of the nineteenth century to the late twentieth, with a particular focus on the period of the l940s to the 1980s. There are no comprehensive studies in this collection giving a general over-all view of Icelandic ethnography. Most of the works are widely diversified in subject coverage, although there is emphasis on the economy, especially in regard to the marine fisheries and whaling. This information will be found in the following documents: Gísli Pálsson, 1991, no. 1; Durrenberger and Gísli Pálsson, 1989, no. 2; Brydon, 1996, no. 12; Níels Einarsson, 1996, no. 13; and Gísli Pálsson and Agnar Helgason, 1996, no. 14. The status of women and women's movements in Iceland are also topics given some attention in this collection and will be found in: Sigríður Dúna Kristmundsdóttir, 1989, no. 6; :Unnur Dís Skakptadótt ir, 1996, no. 15; and Inga Dóra Björnsdóttir, 1989, 1996, nos. 7 and 16. In conjunction with the last topic is the study of domestic violence in Iceland in Gurdin, 1996, no. 17. Other topics of interest in this collection are: ethnolinguistics, in Gísli Pálsson, 1989, no. 8; zooarchaeology, in Amorosi, 1989, no. 10; kinship, in Rich, 1989, no. 5; literacy and literacy practice in Sizemore and Walker, 1996, no. 20; and an analysis of the Icelandic sagas as works of fiction or historical fact, in Byock, 1992, no. 22.

For more detailed information on the content of the individual works in this collection, see the abstracts in the citations preceding each document.

This culture summary, with a slightly revised format, is from the article "Icelanders" by E. Paul Durrenberger in the Encyclopedia Of World Cultures, Vol. 4, 1992. Linda A. Bennett, ed. Boston, Mass.: G. K. Hall & Co. The synopsis and indexing notes were written by John Beierle in February 2003. We also thank E. Paul Durrenberger for his bibliographic advice.

• Ministry of Fisheries -- category 647

• Mountain Woman (Fjallkonan) -- a national symbol in Iceland representing Icelandic nature and culture -- categories 186, 776

• Red Stocking Movement -- a women's liberation movement -- category 668

• surgeon general -- category 647

• women's shelters -- categories 344, 747

Durrenberger, E. Paul, and Gisli Palsson, eds. (1989). The Anthropology of Iceland. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.

Gelsinger, Bruce E. (1981). Icelandic Enterprise: Commerce and Economy in the Middle Ages. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press.

Rich, George W. (1989). “Problems and Prospects in the Study of Icelandic Kinship.” In The Anthropology of Iceland, edited by E. Paul Durrenberger and Gisli Palsson, 53-118. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.

Tomasson, Richard F. (1980). Iceland: The First New Society. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.