THE GREENLANDERS. 



BY FREDEKICK A. COOK, M.D. 



The aborigines of nearly all parts of the Arctic regions 

 know no other name for themselves than " Inuit/' the people. 

 We call them Eskimos, or Huskies, but these names are as 

 incorrect as the term Indians applied to our own wild prede- 

 cessors. I shall here consider only a branch of the Eskimo 

 stem, those who inhabit the Danish possessions of Greenland, 

 a race of aboriginies who have intermingled and intermar- 

 ried freely with Scandinavians for nearly two centuries. This 

 hopeless mixture has produced a hybrid population to which 

 we can properly give the name of Greenlanders. 



The Greenlanders are in every way inferior to the primi- 

 tive stock, isolated hordes of which still remain beyond Mel- 

 ville Bay and on the east coast. In round numbers, the 

 population is about 10,000, and for the past twenty-five years 

 it has not materially increased or decreased. 



Their present territory extends from Cape Farewell to the 

 base of Melville Bay, on the west coast, and from Cape Fare- 

 well to Angmasalik on the east coast. The topography of 

 Greenland is such that only the coastal fringe is habitable, 

 and since the inhabitants obtain food and clothing principally 

 from the denizens of the sea, their habitations are not fur 

 removed from the bleak and rocky shores of the relentless 

 Arctic seas. There are several large indentations along the 

 coast — arms of the sea, termed fiords — some a hundred or more 

 miles in length, the shores of which usually have a fair share 

 of population distributed over favored spots where game is 

 abundant. 



