An Anthropogeographical Study of the Origin of the Eskimo Culture. 91 
out that the catching of seals in nets is now frequently preferred to the 
laborious old methods:—It-must be taken for granted that the present 
greater ‘employment of nets is due to Danish influence and the use of 
Danish nets; but_it is nevertheless probable that_ the Greenlanders, even 
before the-Danish time, caught seals in nets made of whalebone. _ 
The two smaller whales which always have been of great importance 
to the Greenlanders are the White Whale and the Narwhal. Both occur 
rarely in South Greenland, while in the northern bays they are of consider- 
able importance '. During summer they are hunted from kayaks in the same 
way as the larger species of seal. The same applies to the small dolphins 
and porpoises, provided the hunter seizes his opportunity, because they are 
usually too wary. The hunting of the great Balaenoidea, such as the Green- 
land whale and the Rorqual whale has now ceased, and the method has 
been forgotten. In former times it was carried on with great profit in the 
intermediate part of the coast around Holsteinborg, or in the same districts 
where, afterwards, the Danes carried on whale hunting®. From Angmagsalik 
G. Hotm, and afterwards Tua.pirzer, have collected many evidences of 
the fact that whale hunting has there been practised after the same 
method as on the west coast’. 
H. Ecepr, O. Fasrictus and H.C. Guann* have described the whale 
hunting of the West Greenlanders and the customs pertaining to it. Usually 
it was carried on jointly by 2—3 umiaks manned by 10—12 men. Fasricius 
writes that, in the first place, the bottom of the boat had a layer of 
inflated seal-bladders “to prevent it from sinking”. The method consisted, 
for the rest, in the hunter creeping in upon the whale, harpooning it, and 
afterwards approaching the emerging animal and thrusting into it a new 
harpoon with line and bladder-float. If the whale is killed and floats upon 
the water the hunters flense it, dressed in their so called ‘Springpels” 
(“cutting out” clothing) which comprises skin jacket, trousers and boots in 
one, and is so constructed that it can be drawn tight under the chin and 
at the wrists. Through a hole in the front the hunter creeps into it 
and then the “Springpels” is inflated with air and all the openings are 
laced up’. ; 
The customs observed with this method of hunting, and the rules 
according to which the spoil is divided among the hunters and the chance- 
partakers in the hunt, remind one strongly of the conditions among the 
Disco Bay during the “seventies” of the 19th century, that the rifle bag 
for the kayak was undoubtedly used for the first time in 1870 in Umanak 
Bay, and that the kayak rudder was invented in 1868 by a seal-hunter, 
Jens Reimer, who lived in Jakobshavn in Disco Bay. 
1 Rink, I, Vol. I, pp. 85 and 100; Vol. 2, p. 210. Rysere, p. 89. 
2 Rink, I, Vol. 3, p. 207. 
3M. 0. G., Vol. 39, pp. 56 and 403. 
4 GLAHN, pp. 273 sqq. 
5 A “Springpels” is found in the National Museum in Copenhagen. 
