242 Morten P. Porsild. 



planes (cf. Fig. 11. m). Several, and perhaps all, harpoons 

 for thrusting ; 4 pieces. 

 VIII. Without lateral barbs, toggling butt lateral, unsymmetrical. 

 Cf. the hinder end of Fig. 11, с ; 2 pieces. 

 IX. A rather unusual form, somewhat different from all forms 

 actually known to me. One old specimen, having had, how- 

 ever, an iron blade. 



After having examined this collection, I thought it would be interesting 

 to see the harpoon forms which are in use at the present time at the same 

 settlement, and seized the opportunity of doing so during one or two stormy 

 days when all the kayaks were at home. I investigated some 60 kayaks 

 with their accessories — it is one of the places where the kayak culture 

 stands as high as in the southern part of the west coast. The investigation 

 showed that the majority of the harpoon forms belonged to groups I — IV, 

 but that within these limits the same rich variety occurred as in the col- 

 lection from Hunde Eiland, so that here, also, no two identical forms occurred. 

 In comparison with the conditions as they are known to me from other 

 settlements hereabouts it struck me that the number of harpoons with lateral 

 barbs was relatively large. The fact is, that in other places these harpoons 

 are rare or totally absent, and type IV is the dominant one. But recently 

 Mr. Karl Olrik of Kodebay, district of Jakobshavn (whom Steensby quotes 

 as an authority on the history of the drift rudder), has in the Greenland 

 periodical Avangnarmioq, 1914, No. 4, recommended his countrymen to retain 

 it, and has, at the same time, drawn their attention to a new form which 

 he thinks is not sufficiently known in North Greenland, and not at all in 

 South Greenland. In the new form, instead of lateral barbs on the bone- 

 piece, there is a small lateral barb on the iron blade itself. Mr. Karl 

 Olrik first saw it some time "between 1870 and 1880" with a man from 

 Nûgâq in the district of Ritenbenk, but he does not know who invented it, 

 or how old it is ; but he thinks it originally came from that district. 



The object of this new form is as follows: — It is becoming more and 

 more common to shoot the seal before it is harpooned. But as seals float 

 only when in a certain state of nutrition a seal is often lost because the 

 hunter does not succeed in reaching it quickly enough to attach it firmly to 

 the harpoon. As a last resource the hunter trie? to harpoon the sinking 

 seal through the water, but as, in this case, the projections on the shaft 

 ofier great resistance, especially the ermmgnaq-iovm. the throw does not reach 

 far, and is not very efiective. But if the hunter succeeds in getting a 

 barb, be it ever so small, into a dead seal, he can thereby draw it up. 

 If the seal is only wounded, then of course, in tossing about, it frees itself 

 from the small barb, but then it must come to the surface to blow, where- 

 upon it may be harpooned more efiectively, so that the harpoon toggles. 



To page 153. 



As one of the advantages of the East Greenland double bladder Thal- 

 BITZER (p. 455) mentions that it "can keep two seals up, the other only 

 one." But as is well-known the large bladder is not used to keep the dead 

 seal afloat ; for that purpose even the smallest towing bladder is sufficient, the 

 specific gravity of the seal being only very shghtly greater than that of the 

 water. The resistance offered by the bladder to the wounded diving seal is 

 simply dependent upon its volume, and the combined volume of an East 



