An Anthropogeographical Study of the Origin of the Eskimo Culture. 89 
mode of living, of the aquatic mammals, so necessary for the Eskimo. Of 
the five essential seals, the Bearded seal, the Harbour seal, the Crested 
seal, the Greenland seal, and the Ringed seal, there are only two which 
form the Eskimo’s real means of support. The Harbour seal occur scat- 
tered, and a few only are killed'. The Bearded seal also occur in small 
numbers, and appear to be hunted chiefly at the south-west coast; it is of 
some importance, however, as its skin is in great demand on account 
of its durability?. The Crested seal is connected with the “Storis’ and 
arrives only at certain seasons of the year. The hunting of the Crested 
seal is of importance in the distriet of Julianehaab, where, according to 
RINK, it constitutes about one-third of the profits of the year”. Then there 
are the Ringed seal and the Greenland seal, which form the basis of the 
Eskimo existence: the Ringed seal in the north, and the Greenland seal 
in the south. Even FaBricIus! reports that the Ringed seal is most 
numerous in Disco Bay, Umanak Bay and in those northern fjords which 
are frozen over during the greater part of the year. RYBERG? writes, 
respecting the Ringed seal, that it is the one which is chiefly hunted in 
North Greenland. It is present in great numbers during the winter-time 
proper, and may be caught anywhere along the coast, and in the fjords. 
In South Greenland, also, it is present practically all the year round, but 
here it is not of the same importance to the community. 
As regards the hunting of seals the difference between north and south 
Greenland must not be sought in the circumstance that south of the district 
of Holsteinsborg new methods appear, but in the fact that some of the 
hunting methods from North Greenland cease to be used. The common 
method of hunting from a kayak with harpoon and throwing board is 
followed everywhere on the west coast; but while in North Greenland it 
can be practised only during a short time of the year, it is, so to speak, 
the only method which in South Greenland yields a considerable return. It 
is probable, partly, that this method was the only one originally used by 
the Eskimo for hunting Greenland Seals, and, partly, that the want of 
winter-ice in the southern regions has resulted in it here being impossible 
to employ the methods of hunting on ice. Consequently, the conditions 
are far more difficult in southern, than in northern Greenland, the hunting 
from a kayak in the open, stormy sea being subject to far greater casualties 
than is the hunting on ice. Failure to capture is far more frequent, and 
as the animal chiefly hunted, the Greenland Seal, is a migratory animal 
which in the course of the year twice leaves the coast, the inhabitants must 
be more provident than their country-men in the north, in whose waters 
1 WINGE, pp. 427 sqq. 
2 WINGE, р. 423; Fagricius, IV, рр. 143 and 151. 
3 RyBErc, р. 88; Rınk I, Vol. 3, р. 187; Wince, р. 449; Fasricius, IV, 
p. 130. 
4 Fasricius, IV, р. 82. 
5 RYBERG, р. 88. 
