David Damas is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at McMaster University. He is a premier scholar of the Arctic and a leading authority on Innuit social structure. His major publications include Igluligmiut Kinship and Local Groupings and contributing editorship of The Smithsonian Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 5: Arctic. In 1975 he embarked on the first of four field trips in Pingelap atoll and Pohnpei Island in Micronesia. This research forms the basis for the present work.
