nd y the colour and the odour of the last dish must 
~ remove-that of a former one. They. lay their boiled 
‘meat in wooden dishes of fir wood, made by themselves, 
a ae never cleaned ; and first drink the soup, or eat 
it with spoons made of bones or wood. Their undressed 
meat Jieson the bare ground, or on an old seal-skin. 
They have no determined time for dinner or supper ; 
» but, when the men of the-liouse return with the game, 
which generally happens in the evening, part of the day's 
spoil is immediately boiled, and all the people who live 
in the neighbourhood are invited. 
» The men gettheir meal. first, sitting upon the. ground, 
round a large wooden dish, aud taking the meat. with 
their fingers.; _When this:is; over, the) women begin in 
- thé same stile, but at the opposite end of the house., If 
there be a European ‘guest, or any other stranger, the 
woman of the house takes a piece from the kettle, licks 
it clean. from blood and)scuai, and presents it to him with 
own hands. It would be considered a high degree 
of impoliteness to decline it. 6. es ay ; 
.. Their time of removing from their houses to their 
tents is not exactly fixed. It) takes place generally at 
the end of April, or in the middle of May, as the snow 
melts sooner or later ; and it frequently happens:that part 
of the badly supported roof of the house gives way and 
falls down, an accident which forces them. to remove to 
the summer place. . The tents are larger, and smaller, in 
portion to the size of the family and. its fortune, but 
rarely exceeding the length of 12 feetj and the breadth of 
40 feet... A wall one foot high is first made of stones and 
sods, on which they rest the poles, which form an acute 
angled. triangle with the ground.| The, poles are. then 
covered with seal-skin; and a curtain is placed before 
: the entrance, made from the intestines of the. whale, 
_. dolphin, or seal. .The bed-places are similar to those in 
~ their houses.. The tents are, like the houses, near, the 
shore, asthe sea supplies them with all their wants, and 
sments t¢ Seal provides them with all the necessaries of life. The 
sng, i21struments:to procure their food are very simple, but they 
are admirably adapted to their purpose. The principal 
of them.is the harpoon, called erneinek, and unnereek, 
which’is the largest of them all, being two yards and a 
halfin Iength. The second is the lance, called angoviak ; 
the third, a smaller lance, is called kapput : these three 
are generally used for seal-game, the first to attack, the 
two others to kill the animal. The first was also former- 
Jy used to attack the whale; but now the Greenlanders 
do it in the European manner, with large harpoons.. A 
fourth. instrument, called akligak, is a kind of javelin 
-with a head of iron, barbed, to prevent its becoming dis- 
-engaged from the animal. It is generally used when they 
»pursue their game.in company. For catching birds, they 
suse the ugit, or fowling-pike, headed with iron like the 
~ Jast, and furnished, towards the middle of the shaft, with 
three-notched forks made of bone, that one of these may 
reach the bird, if he escapes. the apex, which is of iron. 
For Jand-game. they formerly used the common Indian 
«bow, .with its arrows made of fir, and stiffened with si- 
news of animals, with a string likewise made of sinews ; 
but the use.of it was nearly abolished on their being pro- 
vided with guns, by the Europeans; although they were 
obliged, during the time of the late war, to resort. to 
their old method-of shooting, which succeeded very bad- 
Jy, from the want of that dexterity which they formerly 
possessed. . The Greenlanders being a very pacific people, 
hone of the dreadful inateunpeRiney war used by other In- 
GREENLAND. 
_rations. 
the house. 
hBS 
dians.are'foiand among them! , ‘Vhey »use for fishingf'tlie Greentand. 
same apparatus as other nations, the lines being generally —“v—~_ 
made of very thinly shaved thongs of whilebone fiy..)° 
Their canoes are of two different sorts; thé one lar, 
and open, the other small and covered, The: framing 
of both consists of slender pieccs of wood, covered on the 
outside with skins of seal sewed together... The. wooden 
framing is joined by thongs, cut from seal-skins, or by 
thinly shaved whalebone, This manner of putting them 
together, gives to the canoes so great a degree of flexi- 
Canges. 
bility, or rather elasticity, that they very seldom can goto 
pieces, even in the most boisterous sea. 
The large ca- 
noe, called umiak,, or the canoe for women, is generally 
twenty-four or thitty feet long, four or five feet wide, 
and, two or three feet,deep, terminating acutely at both 
ends. .The bottom is flat. It is used in summer to 
transport the whole family, and its utensils and tent, from 
one, place to another; and is in the evening always 
taken up on land, in order to be dried, repaired, and 
varnished on the outside with old thick rancid oil, called 
Minnek, to prevent, the water from penetrating the 
seams. . 
The other small canoe is called kajak,' and is only used 
by the. men; it is, sharp at both ends,.and_ its entire 
shape and appearance is not unlike a weaver’s shuttle. It 
is from four to five yards in length from one extremity 
to the other, about a foot and a half wide in the middle, 
and scareely one foot in depth, In its centre is a round 
hole, with a prominent ring of bone or wood, in which 
the man seats himself, and fastens the underpart of his 
frock round that ring, forming thus one body with his 
canoe. Upon his kajak he has his instruments, striking 
the sea alternately on both sides with a paddle called 
pautik, four fingers broad at each end, He can row in 
a very boisterous sea, and if overturned by the billows, 
he is able to raise himself again. .All their sea game is 
procured in these small boats, - The boy is employed by 
his father in his earliest age, that is, in his sixth or 
seventh year, to prepare himself to perform the business 
ofaman. The first sea-fowl caught by a boy gives oc- 
casion to a great festival, and dinner of the family, for the 
purpose of doing homage to the rising master of the house. 
Another kind of sea-aiusement, or rather ice-amusement, 
is used in winter, in the north of Greenland, from the 70th 
degree to the highest northern latitude, by means of sled- 
ges drawn by 6 to 12 dogs. The Greenlanders drive 
them over the frozen sea, a distance of 50 and sometimes 
more miles from the lands, to the rifts and clifts of the 
ice, and catch there the dolphins, sea-unicorns, and seals, 
which come there in great numbers to take air. The 
spoil is carried home by the assistance of the sledges. 
The velocity of the dogs is astonishing ; they may be 
driven 100 miles in 9 or 10 hours. 
The men take no charge of any of the domestic ope- 
The women must make clothes, boots, canoes, 
and tents, dress leather, clean and dry clothes and boots, 
gut and dismember the spoil, cook the meat, cut the pot- 
_stone-lamps, prepare oil and wicks, and build houses and 
tents, 
The girls are employed to this business from the 
time they are twelve years old. The boys are, from 
their first childhood, regarded as the future masters of 
The Greenlanders never. strike their child- 
ren, who are. very untractable until their sixth and se- 
venth year; afterwards they follow their parents very 
willingly, and shew with their increasing age a stil! 
more respectful behaviour towards them. _ 
