26 



measured 28 feet in length and 5 feet in breadth, being devid- 

 ed by low curtains into 8 stalls, the size being proportioned 

 to the number of persons in each family. The whole room 

 including the stalls was 28 feet long and 15 feet broad, the 

 greatest height being 6| feet. The reader may imagine what 

 had to be performed in this room offering the only refuge to 

 38 persons during the darkness of the Arctic winter, sleeping, 

 cooking and eating, working as well as merry making, dancing 

 and singing! And yet no quarrel disturbs the peace, there is 

 no dispute about the use of the narrow space. Scolding or 

 even unkind words are considered a misdemeanour, if not pro- 

 duced under the legal form of process, namely the nith-song. 



It is obvious that this order and domestic peace supposes 

 two conditions: in the first place TRADITIONAL RULES OR LAWS, 

 and secondly LEADERS WHO KNOW TO ENFORCE THESE REGU- 

 LATIONS. In contrast to what has been most generally assumed, 

 we learn by the statement of our explorers that every house or 

 station has its chief or patriarch whom the others obey with 

 every mark of veneration. Very likely his orders on account 

 of their gentle form may have been generally hardly observable 

 to strangers, but on certain occasions, f. i. when the moving 

 from tents into the house took place he acted as a commander 

 very much after the habits of civilised society. Furthermore a 

 case of severe punishment was witnessed when a young man 

 was turned out of the house in the middle of winter. It is 

 evident that between being suddenly abandoned in this way 

 without shelter in the depth of an Arctic winter and the disagre- 

 ableness of being shamed by a song in an assembly, several 

 degrees of punishment may be imagined sufficient to deter 

 malicious individuals from ordinary offences or disturbances of 

 order and peace. It must be added, that the position as chief 

 of the house has no relation to that of angakok though both 

 dignities may occasionally be united. 



Throughout DANISH WESTGREENLAND the ancient organisation 



