Ethnographical collections from East Greenland. 



379 



I took the measurements of two umiaks ^) (the length measured 

 outside along the bottom, the height inside from stem to keel). 



Length 



Umeerinneq's umiak 910 m. 



Keersagaq's — 8-15 - 



Greatest breadth 

 above below 



1-47 m. 0-92 m. 



1-59 - 0-91 - 



Height 



0-71 m. 

 0-58 - 



The umiak is rowed only by women, 

 one (or two) on each seat and each with only 

 one oar^). Two kinds of strokes are disting- 

 uished, one for slow, the other for fast 

 rowing. The steerer is sometimes a man, 

 more often a woman. 



A sail is not known to have been used 

 at Ammassalik, but in West Greenland I 

 have often seen women's boats with a sail. 

 Hans Egede mentions this also for his 

 time^): "In these boats they also use a sail, 

 made of gut-skin, and can move quickly 

 from place to place in this manner. The 

 mast is stepped far forwards at the bow. 

 As the sail is broad up at the yard and 

 narrow dowai at the sheets and as the 

 boats are frail and 



cranky, easily upset, _ -- 



they can only sail 

 before the wind 

 (and not against the 

 wind)". 



The Eskimo in 

 Baffin Land also 



Fig. 82. 



Part of an umiak (miniature) from Angmagsalik. 

 (W. T. priv. coll.). 



1) Graah (1832) p. 141 mentions the general small size of the East Greenland 

 umiaks. — When G. Holm in 1880 was carrying out archaeological investigations 

 on the west coast, he measured an umiak, coming from the east coast, Inuk's boat 

 from Tingmiarmiut (623|4 N. Lat.): Length 2842 ft. (8-94 m.), greatest breadth at the 

 bottom 31I2 ft. (0-94 m.), do. at top 41/4 ft. (1-33 m.), height 2^/4 ft. (0-71 m.). "Med- 

 delelser om Grønland" VI, p. 69. Cf. here p. 43 and p. 186. 



-) Glahn (1784) p. 279 mentions, however, that at the whale-hunting on the west 

 coast the men also roAved the women's boat sometimes. "But they do not row 

 with the usual oars, nor with the back to the boAv (like the women) but with 

 small hand-oars (angût) and the face turned forward". 



^) H. Egede (1729) p. 35 and (1741) p. 62. A sail on the women's boat is seen in 

 an illustration in Cranz (1770) PI. VI and in a drawing by a Greenlander (Nr. 26) 

 in Kaladlit assilialiait (Godthaab 1860) and in another illustration in Kaladlit 

 okaluktualliait (Godthaab 1861) vol. 3, PI. I. 



