132 G. Holm. 



sak, and two children. There were thus nineteen people in all, 

 grouped into four families with five hunters. 



There was no hunting, and all the provisions were consumed. 

 When the famine became severe, Kunit went to Kingerarjuit (near 

 Kujanilik) to fetch assistance; but his return was cut off. The first 

 to die were Kunit' s parents, who were cast into the sea. Kutuluk's 

 cousin went to Sermilik to fetch assistance, but froze to death on 

 his way back; people said this happened because the angakok Aug- 

 palugtok had robbed him of his soul. When spring approached, 

 the people were in great extremity. The walls were covered with 

 ice. They had not even any blubber left, so that they became ema- 

 ciated with hunger and cold, and the people died one after the 

 other. In April the survivors had to resort to eating the corpses of 

 the dead, in order to keep themselves alive. Altogether thirteen 

 people were eaten. They were boiled with the aid of blubber, which 

 was scraped up outside the house in the blubber pits. The only ones 

 who lived through the winter in this place were Keligasak and her 

 daughter Aitsiva. Keligasak had joined in eating her husband, eight 

 of her children, and four grand-children. At the time when the in- 

 habitants of the fjord went out to hunt angmagsat, the two sur- 

 vivors were fetched away by Kunit. 



In all parts of the Angmagsalik district famine prevailed during 

 that winter. All the dogs were killed, except a couple at Norajik and 

 a couple at Sermilik. 



At Nunakitit during the same winter at least fifteen people 

 perished of hunger and disease. The angakok Augo with his grown-up 

 son went away, leaving his two wives and four children behind 

 him, before the famine became extreme. Of the other inhabitants 

 only one woman survived the calamity. She was fetched away in 

 the spring in an umiak. Two men who tried to go over the ice to 

 the opposite side of the fjord froze to death on the waj\ Some of 

 the others went to the sea-shore, and threw themselves into the sea. 

 One of Avgo's wives went outside the house, where she died. The 

 rest died in the house, where their skeletons still lay when we vis- 

 ited the spot. Their supply of blubber had not yet run short, nay 

 people actually declare that a seal or two was caught now and then, 

 but that disease came on the top of famine, and consummated the 

 destruction of the people. 



Kutuluk was living at that time at Umiuik (on the Angmagsalik 

 fjord). There too they nearly starved to death; but just in the nick 

 of time his wife caught a bear'), and later on Kutuluk caught 



'j People зал' that tlie man, woman, or child who first 'catches sight of a hear' 

 that is being killed : 'catches a bear'. 



