Ethnological Sketch of the Angmagsalik Eskimo. 55 



The people of Angmagsalik are not acquainted with net or 

 hook fishing. We brought a number of fish-hooks with us up to 

 Angmagsalik to barter with, but the natives set no store by them 

 at all. When we showed them how to use the hooks, they were 

 certainl}^ astonished, but as we were not fortunate enough to catch 

 anything, or rather, as the sea up there was not suited for hook 

 fishing, they did not attempt to imitate us. However, we distributed 

 all our hooks among them, so time will show whether they get to 

 adopt this way of fishing^). 



For taking mussles a mussle scraper is used (fig. 174). 



The following animals are also hunted, though they are of 

 minor importance. 



Hunting other animals. — Foxes are caught in traps built of 

 small stones, having at one end a trap-door consisting of a large 

 flat stone, sliding between other stones. The trap-door is kept open 

 by means of a rawhide thong, which passes over the roof of the 

 trap and goes down into the trap by the back wall. A strap in 

 the end of the thong is put on a stick, on which the bait is 

 placed and which is inserted in the back wall. When the fox goes 

 in the trap and seizes the bait, the thong runs off the stick and the 

 stone falls down. In this way the fox is caught alive. 



Ptarmigan are caught in snares fixed to the end of long, very 

 thin poles. The snare is brought by the hunter over the head of 

 the ptarmigan, the noose is drawn, and the bird is caught. 



Ravens are caught in traps like the fox traps; sometimes 

 they are shot with a cross-bow. The latter are very neatly 

 made of wood and seal thong. The arrow has a bone head^) 

 (fig. 180). 



Gulls come to the coast early in the spring, about the begin- 

 ning of April, and are said then to be very fat, for they come 

 from the sea-ice where they have eaten the after-brood, when the 

 crested seals have had young. They are caught with a little piece 

 of bone, which is pointed at both ends and attached in the middle 

 to a line (fig. 175). A piece of blubber is then put on as a bait so 

 as to keep one end of the bone close up to the line. When the gull 



1) Both the West Greenlanders and the Western Eskimo at Point Barrow know 

 and practise hook-fishing. Old primitive fish-hooks have been found among 

 the West Greenlanders, a fact which indicates that they have long been ac- 

 quainted with this method of fishing. The fish-hooks of the Point Barrow 

 Eskimo on the other hand seem to be of more recent origin. 



2) Otho Fabricius states (Videnskabernes Selskabs Skrifter 1811 and 1812, p. 242), 

 that cross-bows of exactly the same kind were used for catching birds on the 

 West coast of Greenland. 



