92 H. P. STeENsBY. 
West Greenlanders, and especially, among the Eskimo around Point Barrow. 
In Greenland the whale hunting was the only occasion when men would 
condescend to row the umiak. H.C. Guann writes “Even then they do 
not row with the umiak oars, or with their backs to the bow, but with 
small hand-paddles, and with their faces turned to the fore end of the 
boat” !. This record provides, in addition, the important ethnographical 
information that the umiaks, as commonly used, were not propelled with 
paddles, but were rowed with heavy oars, as was the case, for instance, 
at Point Barrow. Sails were also used on the umiaks. 
The region north of Holsteinsborg, where it so happens that the west- 
ice, or the westerly ice-laden current of Davis Strait, strikes against the 
land, is, moreover, the only place on the west coast of Greenland where the 
walruses occur in great abundance. With the Eskimo, however, walrus. 
hunting has only played an occasional réle, similar to that of the Polar- 
bear hunting, which is only carried on at the northernmost and southern- 
most parts of the west coast. 
When mentioning seal hunting one mentions the Greenlander’s chief 
means of subsistence, and the means which provides the community with 
food; clothes, covering for tents and boats, and fuel. With the Greenlanders 
seal hunting ranks as the work of a man, and that from which he 
acquires honour by carrying it out to perfection. The only hunting which, 
in the heart of the Eskimo, has been able to compete with seal hunting, 
and even to out-do it, is reindeer hunting. Even Cranz? observed that 
reindeer meat was their favourite food, which they obtained, however, in 
such comparatively small quantities that almost all of it was consumed 
during the chase. This is verified by Lars DauacEeR® from the district near 
Godthaab, where the reindeer is the animal chiefly hunted, “to get which a 
Greenlander sets all else aside”. Nowadays reindeer hunting is only a mere 
ghost of what it used to be in former days. Reindeer are still to be found 
in several places.in North and South Greenland, but only in small numbers, 
the herds having diminished greatly, after the introduction of firearms. _ It 
has become quite extinct in the district of Junianehaab, although the Eskimo, 
as late as the beginning of the 18th century, there carried on the hunting 
of reindeer to a considerable extent. It was found there, also, in the time 
of the Norse men, and in the Sagas there is mention of an island where it 
could be hunted only by permission of the bishop. Even in the first half 
of the 18th century the hunting of reindeer played an important and regular 
role with the Eskimo; as every summer they dispersed inland for the purpose 
of hunting. And the inhabitants of the southern part of the coast travelled 
in their umiaks up to the region around Godthaab to take part in the 
hunt. The first missionaries objected very much, however, to this hunting; 
’ GLAHN, p. 279. 
* Cranz, Vol. I, p. 189. 
® DALAGER, p. 19. 
