Ethnographical collections from East Greenland. 335 



Farvel), an old woman gave me a more detailed account of the 

 nature of the eastern side than I previously had obtained. Some 

 time before, with several others she had been as far round Hukken 

 on the east side as the distance of the colony almost from Hukken 

 on the west side^), and natives were to be found everywhere, she 

 said. Those who lived on the west side of Hukken, she reported 

 were often accustomed to visit the natives on the east side, and the 

 latter those on the west side, to barter with one another; as no 

 ship can approach the eastern side for the ice, which lies off the 

 coast, the natives living there require various small articles of iron, 

 such as sewing needles and knives, which they barter from the 

 westerners in exchange for fox-skins and the like, which again are 

 sold to the ships when they come to these parts of the land." The 

 rest of her story referred to the ice, which drifts along the coast 

 from the north ^). 



The remark about the articles desired by the East Greenlanders 

 in exchange is a characteristic reminder of the fact, that the first 

 things which Egede presented to the Greenlanders on his arrival in 

 1721, were fish-hooks to the men, beads and sewing-needles to the 

 women. In this most probably he followed the general practice 

 begun by the Dutch traders with the natives. 



P. O. Walløe, the first to visit the east coast, passed the winter 

 of 1751 — 52 furthest south on the west coast ^). He met there a 

 group of East Greenlanders, who had come from the other side to 

 winter on this coast. They belonged to Ikkermiut on the east coast 

 (62° 15' N. lat.) and had been two summers and one winter on the^ 

 way from there. "They assured Walløe, that the whole of the east 

 coast was covered with ice with exception of some small pro- 

 montories and islands, on which the sparse population lived. There 

 were no other land animals than some few ptarmigan and bears ; 

 only at one place were caplins [ammassät] taken and these had to 

 be dried on tent-skins spread out on the ice. According to their 

 report, on the other hand, the crested seal and various other seals 

 occurred and the natives lived chiefly on these." 



^) i. e. about 4 degrees of latitude. 



'^) Hans Egede has not only given us the first information regarding the East 

 Greenlanders, but also the first regarding the most northern natives of the 

 west coast, at Cape York or Smith Sound, about 100 years before they were 

 discovered by Ross. In his '"Perlustration" (1741) p. 2 he gives a report from 

 Disko Bugt on the northernmost natives on the coast, who lived by a narrow 

 sound, which separates Greenland from America. — Poul Egede in his Journal 

 (1771) p. 239 also mentions these natives far north at 75°. 



3) See: Grønlands historiske Mindesmærker (1845) Vol. III, p. 744. 



