Ethnographical collections from East Greenland. 383 



As covering (pooa) of the wood-work white skins are used at 

 Ammassalik as a rule^), but the white colour is often dulled by the 

 skins being smeared over with boiled blubber to make them water- 

 tight. Two seal-skins to a kaiak are the rule. The seam runs in 

 the middle of the deck along the whole length of the boat. 



Two kaiaks are sometimes bound together {katiijaartin) in trans- 

 porting a heavy burden, dead bear or a woman ^). The stem of the 

 one is then laid alongside the middle of the other^ so that the right 

 side of its front part is pressed close against the left side of the 

 hind part of the other. Skin thongs are then slung round the united 

 parts of the boats and the load is placed in the middle, where the 

 breadth is greatest. 



On the East Greenland coast north of the Ammassalik district 

 no kaiak has hitherto been found, except for the one observed by 

 Clavering among the Eskimo met with at Clavering Island. Kaiaks 

 have been used everywhere naturally and many evidences have been 

 found of their use'^), but to the north the kaiak has probably not 

 been of so much importance as the sledge in the hunting life of 

 the natives. At Syttenkilometernæsset (72° 49' N. lat.) the Danmark 

 Expedition found three kaiak rests (supposed to be so) built of stone. 

 Otherwise drift-wood is used for the boat supports in Greenland, but 

 kaiak supports built of stone are known from Southampton Island 

 in Hudson Bay'^). 



The form of the stem varies from place to place. The kaiaks 

 of the Ammassalikers like those of the South- w^est Greenlanders have 

 nowadays straight stem projection. The kaiak of the Makenzie Eskimo 

 has a bent-up stem fore and aft^) and the same feature characterizes 

 the Aiwilik Eskimo's lake-kaiak*^). But the same Eskimo's sea-kaiak has 

 a straight stem, bent up stern projections, and the stem in the kaiak 

 of the Kinipetu Eskimo even looks as if it were bent a little down- 

 wards^). The Baffin Land Eskimo's kaiak is straight fore and aft as 

 also that of the Smith Sound Eskimo^) and the southern West Green- 



1) In West Greenland white skins are used as kaiak covering south of Godthaab 

 whilst black skins are usual for kaiaks in North Greenland. Cf. Glahn, "An- 

 mærkninger" (1771) pp. 254-255. Schultz-Lorentzen (1904) p. 311. 



2) The Ugjulik' Eskimo also bind together 2 or 3 kaiaks as a ferry (Amundsen (1907) 

 p. 326). — The Indians bind together their canoes; the Copper Indians sometimes 

 bind together two or four canoes by means of cross-poles, according to Hearne, 

 see Steensby (1905) pp. 96 and 169. 



3) Ryder (1895) pp. 306-307. Thalbitzer (1909) pp.373, 438—439, 465—466. 

 *) Boas (1907) PI. V, fig. 2. 



5) Petitot (1887) PI. VII (pp. 278-279). 



6) Boas (1901-1907) p. 76, fig. 105. 



'') Ellis (Voyage to Hudson's Bay, London 1758, German translation) PI. IX. 



8) Boas (1901 — 1907) pp. 9 to 13, and (1888) p. 487; Kroeber (1899) p, 273, fig. 3. 



