The Material Culture of the Eskimo in West Greenland. 179 



Greenlanders to whom I have shown it doubt its having been an ice 

 net for just such hunting as this. The upper rope which is of thin rawhide- 

 Hne without floats also speaks in favour of this. 



The net is made of strings which are not twisted. In each string 

 there are from 20 — 30 fibres. By soaking a couple of knots (Fig. 29) 

 in warm water with a little alkali added it was seen that the net had 

 been knotted with knots quite identical to those which are in use at 

 the present day; it is therefore made from one long continuous piece 

 of line. That net which Parry found is described as "a curious kind 

 of net having large open meshes of about two inches diameter, and 

 entirely composed of small, strong hoops or rings of whalebone firmly 

 lashed together with thongs of the same material." The measure indi- 

 cated, "two inches," is certainly absurdly small for a seal net if it is not 

 a misprint, which the expression "large open meshes" might suggest. 

 The method in which it is knotted is, as will be seen, much more primi- 

 tive than the Greenland method. As regards the net in the museum 

 in Copenhagen, I have not been able to find any information regarding 

 its size or the method of its knotting. 



Shooting Screens. 



As mentioned above under "methods of hunting on ice" for aorneq 

 a small sledge was often used, to which was fixed the shaft of the thrust- 

 ing harpoon and on the sledge was fastened a small screen, {tâlutaq, 351) 

 behind which the hunter could conceal himself. The Greenland tradi- 

 tion says that the idea of this trick is supposed to have originated from 

 watching the Polar bear, which, so the natives insist, sometimes pushes 

 a piece of ice in front of it when it wants to steal upon a seal. Before 

 colonization the screen naturally consisted of thin white skin, now thin 

 linen is always used for the purpose. 



When, with the introduction of the rifle aorneq fell into disuse, 

 and was succeeded by îitorneq, the sledge had to be re-fashioned for the 

 use of the rifle. This, however, scarcely took place all at once. In E. 

 K. Kane: Arctic Explorations, I, p. 243, a figure is given which is 

 supposed to represent Hans Hendrik, the Greenlander, with shooting 

 sledge and screen. Perhaps the figure has been drawn later, from memory, 

 or else the sledge has been improvised, because, as shown in the figure, 

 it is very unpractical. The form which a sledge with a screen now has 

 seems to be fairly perfect, and is everywhere essentially the same, the 

 small deviations which occur being due to the personal skill or taste of the 

 owner. 



The shooting screen must be capable of giving sufficient cover, of 

 being easily pushed forward in a creeping position, of providing a 

 good rest for the rifle at any time, and finally of being easily taken 

 to pieces, so that it can be packed together in a small space on the 

 dog sledge. 



