An Anthropogeographical Study of the Origin of the Eskimo Culture. 93 
because, for a time, it took the Eskimo beyond their influence, and they 
frequently forgot the morals impressed on them in the course of the winter. 
Consequently, the missionaries tried with all their power to prevent it, and 
in the course of time the diminution of the reindeer showed itself to be their 
best ally, so that at any rate the long journeys outside particular districts 
have now ceased. As regards the methods of hunting reindeer, very little 
has been recorded. Bows and arrows were used, but were comparatively 
soon replaced by firearms. The oldest description of reindeer hunting is due 
to H. Ecene !; he writes that they “chase them [i. e. the reindeer] by Clap- 
hunting, setting upon them on all sides and surrounding them with all their 
Women and Children to force them into Defiles and Narrow Passages, where 
the Men armed lay in wait for them and kill them. And when they have 
not People enough to surround them, then they put up white Poles (to make 
up the number that is wanted) with Pieces of Turf to head them, which 
frightens the Deer and hinders it from escaping.” 
In the accompanying illustration the women are seen driving some rein- 
deer between two converging rows of stakes towards a pass, where the men 
are lying in wait with their bows. The method of driving the reinder herds 
into a lake or fjord, or that of lying in wait for them at fords or swimming 
places, whereat to kill them from a kayak has also been employed, and is 
mentioned in the literature”. The word “Nettoarsuk”, which signifies a place 
where to swim, and is known from some localities, probably dates from the 
times when this method of hunting was employed. 
Neither with the hunting of aquatic mammals or with the hunting of 
reindeer did fishing play its co-ordinate rôle. The food which fishing sup- 
plies to the Eskimo has always served them only as a reserve food in 
times of need, or also a supplementary means of livelihood. The introduc- 
tion of better European methods of fishing and fishing implements has not 
been able to effect any changes in this respect. 
The catching of salmon in fresh water is carried on with three-pronged 
salmon spears in the open streams during summer. But the art of building 
dams, which the salmon pass over during flood-tide, but behind they are 
retained during ebb-tide, thus becoming an easy prey, was also understood. 
While fresh-water fishing was homogeneous everywhere in Greenland, sea- 
fishing differed in North and South Greenland, as “Angmagsztten”, or the 
capelin, which is of real importance in South Greenland owing to its great 
abundance, is not caught further north than Disco Bay. The method of 
fishing is simple, the capelin, which goes in shoals, close in-shore being 
scooped up with a catcher. This fishing takes place during spring. In the 
north other kinds of salt-water fish were as a rule caught through holes in 
the ice, either with a line of whalebone, or with a line from the skin of 
the Bearded Seal. 
1 H. Heepe, ПТ, р. 62; cf. I, pp. 33 sqq. and 43. 
2 Cf. H. EGEDE, p. 33; FABRICIUS, I, p. 239. 
