293 



different settlements are accustomed , in the autumn or by 

 moonlight, to go out on sledges to the margin of the ice at the 

 groups of islands in the mouths of the fjords and hunt tlie 

 walrus on the newly formed ice. Inside the fjords there are 

 only the fjord-seals. These are first hunted when the winter 

 has set in, one of two methods being employed according as 

 the ice is smooth and bare or covered by a layer of snow. 



When the ice is smooth, the hunting is carried on in the 

 manner known already from Umanaks P'jord in West Greenland, 

 as described by Rink4 In this method the hunter covers his 

 feet with hairy skin and can thus walk noiselessly on the 

 smooth ice, which he cannot do on a rough or snow-covered 

 surface that crackles as he goes along. If the hunter possesses 

 acute hearing, which can distinguish the sound and direction 

 of the breathing seal, and a sharp eye to delect the breathing 

 hole in the ice, he can silently run up and strike the harpoon 

 into the seal, just at the moment when it has sunk its head 

 and is about to leave the hole. In striking at this moment he 

 manages to do so in the neck or in the soft parts behind the 

 head, and not in the harder, more resisting part of the latter, 

 so that the harpoon penetrates deep and remains fast; the 

 seal is thus attached to the line which the hunter holds fast. 

 After some lime the seal must come up again to breathe, but 

 is met by the lance and is in the end hauled up on the ice ; 

 during the struggle the hole must as a rule be made some- 

 what larger. This smooth-ice hunting can give a considerable 

 yield in the beginning of winter, especially when a large num- 

 ber of hunters lake part so that a watch can be set at all the 

 breathing-holes over a large area. Peary ^ describes it in the 

 first days of November 1894. "The natives are making the 

 most of the new ice in the Sound (i. e. the waters between 



^ H. Rink: Grönland, geografisk og statistisk beskrevet. København 



1852—57, Vol. I. 

 "' Northward etc., Vol.11, pp. 402— 403; cf. Knud Kasmussen, i.e., p. 242. 



