Ethno<5raphical collections from East Greenland. 37 J 



ners, which thus cut deep into the snow. At the same time, the 

 space between the runners becomes filled with a heaped-up mass of 

 snow, which is held fast there partly by his feet and offers great 

 resistance in the glide downwards. If the slope is very steep, the 

 dogs are always either outspanned from the sledge or have the one 

 foreleg hitched up in the trace under the neck; otherwise they 

 continue pulling with increasing speed. Sometimes indeed both dogs 

 and sledge are half buried in the snow at the foot of a slope. In 

 the course of the winter the sledge routes improve as a rule, the 

 same track being followed between the settlements and hunting- 

 grounds from day to day until the way becomes level and smooth. 



These paths, which are effaced in the summer and are not to 

 be found on any chart, belong to the tradition of the family and 

 are known by old and young. A large number of them pass over 

 fjords and sounds: for example, from Taseesaq over to the island 

 Kulusuk and the islands north of this. Others follow the valleys 

 inland, over the ice of the inland lakes, as from Taseesaq over the 

 southern lake to Ikkatteq on the opposite side of the island or over 

 the larger lakes in the middle of the country to Immikeertaain and 

 Sarpaq to Sermilik Fjord, or further north in Ammassalik Fjord from 

 Kingorsuaq (Qiijertiwaq) to the head of Sermilik Fjord. The same 

 lines of communication are followed by women and children, who 

 must wander on foot, or by the men without sledges. If the snow 

 is not good for sledging, the natives now generally use skis, which 

 were unknown before the arrival of the Europeans, but were rapidly 

 adopted when found to be extremely practical in the deep, soft snow, 

 which often lies long into the winter ^). 



When I passed the winter there, there was still unpassable 

 snow for sledging in January. A great deal of snow had fallen, but 

 it had not yet frozen hard and sledging was impossible on land; 

 under the thick snow the sea-ice also was not yet solid. I had to 

 be content, therefore, with short turns on the sledge out on the 

 neighbouring fjord, where the ice was solid under the snow with train- 

 ing my new span of dogs there, but we went deep into the snow. 



^) If the snow is impracticable on foot, it may be suitable for skis. This was 

 probably learnt by the Ammassalik Eskimo already in 1893 — 94, when a Nor- 

 wegian whaler overwintered in Taseesaq and the Norwegian sailors showed the 

 Eskimo, how skiing was done in Norway. Noav every young man owns his 

 skis and ski-pole. He covers the underside of the skis with sealskin, with the 

 hair outwards (the southern West Greenlanders have the same device in skiing) ; 

 in this way he does not slip backwards when going up a steep slope. The skis 

 often help him out over brittle ice, where formerly he could not go. They are 

 perhaps the only, real advance, the Europeans have brought him. 



24* 



