Ethnological Sketch of the Angmagsalik Eskimo. Ц 



On the 30th September we returned to Tasiusarsik. The building 

 work was carried on vigorously, so that we were able to move in 

 on the 3rd October, when the house was approaching to completion. 

 A raging snow-storm made it extremely unpleasant to live in tents. 



Later on in the autumn we made a journey over to the 

 opposite side of the fjord, partly in order to make geographical 

 surveyings and visit the inhabited places there, partly in order to 

 furnish ourselves with timber from an abandoned house. The 

 latter was at Nanakitit, one of the many small islands off Kulusuk. 

 The house had not been inhabited since 1881 - 1882, when many people 

 had died in it; their bodies still lay both in the house and outside 

 it on the beach. In the house there was a good deal of heavy 

 timber, of which, having obtained permission from the nearest 

 heir, we took as much as we could conveniently carry in the 

 umiak. 



We had fine weather on this excursion; but, as there was no 

 vestige of ice outside the coast, there was a heavy swell and high 

 breakers. This was the last of our excursions in 1884. The umiak 

 was carried right to the house and placed with the bottom upwards 

 on four heavy posts, on to which it was lashed in order to be used 

 as a provision-chamber and drying-room during the winter. 



We had obtained by purchase from the natives supplies of 

 winter provisions, consisting of 13 bags of blubber, 12 packets of 

 dried meat (each packet from one seal) and twelve whole seals. 

 Moreover, we obtained promises of several things, which were after- 

 wards in the course of the winter brought us on sledges. Immediately 

 after our arrival at Angmagsalik, we obtained a good deal of salmon 

 and bear's flesh, but later on, ptarmigan was the only food we had 

 to relieve the monotony of seal's flesh. It was not till towards the 

 spring that we occasionally had mussels, sand-gapers, sea-snails 

 and shrimps, eider ducks, gulls and narwhal-ma^a/c (skin). 



As to fish, we had, except for salmon in the autumn, and 

 angmasat^) in the spring, only some rose-fishes. 



Twenty minutes' walk from our house was one of the houses 

 of the natives, inhabited by 38 persons. All through the winter, as 

 long as the hunting prospects were bad, we received frequent visits 

 from these natives. Their visits to us as well as our visits to them 

 gave us an excellent opportunity of becoming acquainted with their 

 mode of life, customs, religion, the language and tales of the 

 people, so much the more as our excellent interpreter was soon 

 conversant in the language. Even if the weather was ever so bad, 



^) Mallotiis villosiis, or caplin (capelan). 



