The jMaterial Culture of the Eskimo in West Greenland. 143 



Geisler, has more Danish than Eskimo blood in him, but he speaks 

 only the Eskimo language and lives and thinks as an Eskimo. He is 

 clever at all kinds of work in which an Eskimo hunter is expected to 

 be an expert; but, in addition, does not shrink from any kind of 

 European handicraft, not even the repairing of watches. His specialities 

 are ivory-carving and inlaying in wood, and the technique and patterns 

 employed are of his own invention. The majority of his tools are old- 

 fashioned Eskimo ones; for instance, he still uses a bow-drill. Ludvig 

 is also an excellent hunter of White Whale. Quite recently he has con- 

 structed an iron harpoon with hinged point to be discharged from an 

 old short-barelled muzzle-loading gun, exactly like the modern whaling 

 harpoons, the stem being bipartite, and the line fastened to a ring, etc. 

 It has been tried, and can be discharged to a greater distance than a 

 throwing harpoon can be thrown, but requires skill on the part of the 

 kayaker. It seems as if the only difficulty is to get a suitable line. 

 Rawhide lines are not long enough, and hemp lines do not run easily 

 enough from the line-rack. He intends to try a thin metal-wire. 



Though Ludvig Geisler's invention, concequently, is not quite 

 finished, I mention it here thinking it may be of interest in the future. 

 Many of the improvements in kayak and sledge made by the Geisler 

 family have gradually spread, and perhaps this new harpoon will also 

 prove a success. 



Harpoons for hunting Right Whales [Balœna inysticetus]. 



(Tükait arjangniutit). 



As is well known the West Greenlanders, before colonization, had 

 hunted big whales from umiaq like their ancestors in Cumberland 

 Sound and Alaska. The earlier authors describe the hunting rather ex- 

 haustively, for instance Egede (cited in extenso by Mason on p. 239). 

 Fabricius has described Megaptera boops hunting (Zoologiske Bidrag, 

 p. 63), but as regards Balæna-hxinimg he refers to Egede, as he himself 

 has not witnessed it. 



So far as I know, the special implements used for this kind of hunting 

 have never been mentioned from West Greenland;^ still less have they 

 been described. They have been collected, however, as in the Museum 

 für Völkerkunde in Leipzig I have seen whaling harpoons — collected 

 in West Greenland by the Moravian Brethren — quite similar to those 

 which I shall describe in the following pages; and, if I remember 

 rightly, I have also seen them in the National Museum in Copen- 

 hagen. Moreover, Thalbitzer has recently figured and described a 



^ Holm (p 84) describes the hunting of whales by East Greenlanders, and 

 says that for this "bone points two feet in length and stone points 8 inches in 

 length" were used as harpoons. Are not hereby meant foreshaft and harpoon 

 with stone edge, respectively? 



LI. . 12 



