LIFE AND HISTORY OF THE ESKIMOS 



Etah are excellent for walrus hunting, and at the same time 

 this spot is one huge singing mountain where the Sea-kings 

 live. These are not to be found by Anoritoq, but as compensa- 

 tion there are there, besides walrus, excellent drives of nar- 

 whal. Wherever these are killed they put their stamp on the 

 indoor life of the winter. In both places there is excellent bear- 

 hunting to the north and west, and conditions of life here 

 correspond in every way to those in the south-west. There is 

 wind in abundance, not from the south-west, but from north 

 and north-east, and it often blows with enormous violence. 

 Contrary to the south-west wind, however, it sweeps the coast 

 clean of snow, and is therefore the wind one especially hopes 

 for at the time when the ships are expected. 



A WANDERING PEOPLE 



We have now dealt with camps within the district, but one 

 must not regard the Polar Eskimos as fixed settlers, for in all 

 the world one can scarcely find a people who lead a more 

 nomadic life. The stone houses built by ancestors long for- 

 gotten merely stand along the coast ; for, as the material is 

 stone, the tooth of time does not tear them. It requires only 

 a minor reparation before a stranger may move into such a 

 house when it has been aired all through spring and summer. 



No Polar Eskimo will live for more than a year or two in 

 one place ; then his longing to get into new conditions and to 

 hunt on new ground awakes. With every spring comes the 

 wander-lust, and when Nature itself shakes the yoke of winter 

 from its shoulders the desire arises to strike camp and follow 

 the many birds of migration which herald summer's arrival. 



The removal is in reality nothing but a change of houses on 

 a grand scale. Just as nobody owns the seal in the sea and the 

 reindeer on land, so it follows that nobody has a right to possess 

 a house. When Pualuna moves out of it to seek another place 

 it is no longer his, and if Maja chooses this place of abode he 

 may quite calmly move in. 



All the excitement that accompanies the decision that must 



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