340 W. Thalbitzer 



Ammassalik provide excellent seal and bear hunting and would 

 have been an attraction for them had there been no special reason 

 to keep them back. To the south they often made long journeys. 

 Graah's information thus has some interest as evidence, that the 

 hostility has led to the dissimulation of the Eskimo and their con- 

 cealment of their neighbours' existence. 



Although Walløe had heard about the ammassät locality on the 

 east coast, the name Ammassalik itself had not yet reached the 

 Europeans, or at any rate was not recorded in the literature. Graah 

 was the first who gave a series of Eskimo place names from the 

 east coast in his journal and on his chart, but no name north of 

 Sermilik. Haifa century had still to pass before the principal group 

 of inhabitants of this coast were discovered. But previous to this 

 event the name of the place and its population had been briefly 

 mentioned in H. Rink's "Danish Greenland" ^). This was due to 

 information received in 1861 by U. Rosing, assistant manager at the 

 southernmost Danish station on the west coast. I may cite here 

 Rink's brief abstract of Rosing's account about East Greenland: 



"The island of Aluk is situated where the coast of the mainland 

 turns to the northward: here natives from the west coast sometimes meet 

 and barter with their heathen countrymen. From there it took seventeen 

 days' journej^ b}' kayak to reach the northernmost inhabited place called 

 Angmagsalik. 



From this remote station only once, in 1860, an umiak arrived at Pam- 

 iagdhik, but the stay of the travellers was so short that onlj' scanty informa- 

 tion could be acquired about it. The boat-owner, named Samik, seemed 

 to be a smart, intelligent fellow. He had lost his toes and the tips of most 

 of his fingers; from the appearance of the stumps the mutilation had been 

 caused by some act of violence. He was an expert kayaker, nevertheless, 

 threw his javelin with his left hand, and was just able to grasp the paddle 

 with his stumpj^ fingers. Angmagsalik was said to be very populous; some 

 years earlier, thirteen umiaks had gone from there to the north, but onlj'^ 

 three of them having returned, the others were supposed to have been 

 wrecked, the coast further north being very steep and dangerous. The next 

 hamlet was Umivik, four days' journey to the south, containing ten houses, 

 and then Igdlutuarsuk, with thirteen houses. The latter was situated on a 

 fjord, from the interior of which a great many icebergs issue. From there 

 to Cape Farewell fifteen inhabited places were met with, most of them only 

 containing one or two houses. The whole number of inhabited houses on 

 the coast tract in question was 53, besides those of Angmagsalik. According 

 to these statements. Rosing estimated the whole number of inhabitants, the 

 latter place included, at between 800 and 1,000. They chase the bears by 

 aid of their dogs, and sometimes stab them in their dens in the snow. Dog- 

 sledging is practised everywhere ahnost exactly in the same way as in the 

 northern part of the west coast. The ancient modes of catching seals which 

 we have mentioned as almost entirely abandoned on the west coast are also 

 slill made use of there, and al Angmagsalik some harpoons were still made 



') Rink, Danish Greenland (1877| pp. :]'il— 324. 



