Ethnological Sketch of the Angmagsalik Eskimo. 137 



which the angakiit had imbued them, that all assistance must be 

 paid for, if the sick person is to recover. When a man who had 

 been driving in a sledge fell through the ice and we helped him 

 out of the water, we were received at his home as if we had done 

 something heroic. 



The mutual hospitality of the natives knows no bounds. It is not 

 counted as a virtue by them, but as a stern duty. They are hospit- 

 able to all without exception, and always share with one another, 

 even with strangers, till they have reached the end of their supplies. 

 Even if the inhabitants of two different places do not cherish amicable 

 feelings towards each other, there is nothing to prevent them going 

 to stay with one another and partaking of one another's provisions. 



Calumny. — Even before our arrival at Angmagsalik, the other 

 East Greenlanders told us that there were only bad men that lived 

 there, that they were importunate and told lies and stole. We did 

 not suppose this to be anything more than idle talk, the motive 

 of which was to detain us in the place where we were. When we 

 came to Tasiusarsik on the Angmagsalik fjord, the inhabitants there 

 informed us without being asked, that the people on the opposite 

 side of the fjord were bad men; for we had spoken of overwinter- 

 ing at Kulusuk. Afterwards when we spoke with the inhabitants 

 of the other places on the fjord, they said that in their place there 

 were only good people, but that the people we had not yet seen 

 were bad. At last it ended by there being only good men on 

 the Angmagsalik fjord, and that the bad were dead or had gone 

 to Sermiligak. Afterwards when we got to know the inhabitants 

 better, we saw that it was very common for one to slander the 

 other, while at the same time they endeavoured to present them- 

 selves in the best possible light. 



The hated Avgo came from Sermiligak over the ice to 

 Angmagsalik in order to trade with us. On his way he was 

 obliged to spend some time at Kumarmiut, where he had to leave 

 one of his wives, who was ill. Here there lived a divorced woman 

 with her ten-years-old son and the family of his sick wife's former 

 husband, who had been murdered two or three years ago in the 

 kaiak by Maratuk. Afterwards he had to spend a whole month 

 at Kangarsik, where they all hated him. In both places he him- 

 self, his two wives, and a step-son were hospitably treated, but 

 after his departure both sides slandered one another. Avgo's hosts 

 heard that he had told people that he had to look on while they 

 were eating, without receiving anything himself. In their turn his 

 hosts came to us and informed us that Avgo had stolen from us 



