Ethnographical collections from East Greenland. 405 



halvø^). Thostrup finally remarks that bear traps were not found 

 by the Danmark Expedition ^). The question regarding the actual 

 use of such traps is yet open for further investigation. 



Reindeer hunting (p. 56) has also been carried on formerly in 

 this district, with the bow and arrow just as in West Greenland. 

 According to Hans Egede's account of this hunting and his illustra- 

 tion to the text^), the hunting was carried on in summer, taking 

 the form of a regular battue, in which the animals were herded 

 together by a chain of men, women and children and forced to go 

 in a definite direction "towards narrow paths and passages" by 

 means of the chain and rows of poles or sticks with sods stuck on 

 the top. Close to a narrow passage (in Egede's illustration) an 

 archer is seen, concealed behind a stone and aiming with his arrow 

 at the animals which are approaching. The hunting has undoubt- 

 edly been carried on in quite a similar manner on the large island 

 Kulusuk (Cape Dan) at the entrance of Ammassalik Fjord. At the 

 one end of a fertile plan, which reaches down to a large inland 

 lake, there is a narrow strait or pass between hills, where we find 

 the remains of the Taalin, a wall or fence of upraised stones con- 

 nected with a shooting cover, for use in reindeer hunting (cf. Holm 

 p. 57 and my photograph fig. 394). The word is the name for the 

 place on Kulusuk and is found as place name at several localities in 

 West Greenland (here called talut), where similar walls occur*). In 

 the middle of the wall I have seen there is an opening like a gate, 

 through which the hunted animals have been obliged to take flight. 

 Before the end of the wall are the remains of a rectangular cover 

 in which the waiting hunter has lain concealed. I was shown, how 

 the animals usually came, from the high slopes in the east, on their 

 way down to the grassy heath and the inland lake. A large detached 

 rock lies out on the heath and behind this a man on the watch 

 conceals himself and signals to the archer in the shooting cover, 

 when he sees the animals approaching. Now only a small part of 

 the wall remains, a row of stones ca. 2 to 3 feet broad. The stones 

 are comparatively small with no trace of sods between them. Old 

 men believed they could remember, that in their childhood it had 

 a greater height and it is said to have even been so high earlier 



1) Amdrup (1902) p. 240. 



2) Thostrup (1911) pp. 198-199. 



3) Hans Egede (1741) pp. 33—34 and Plate to p. 33. Fabricius (1810) p. 239. 



*) For example at Kangikitsok in Ilua Fjord furthest south on the west coast; 

 see Holm in "Medd. om Grønland" VI (1894) p. 137. — The shooting walls are 

 also mentioned in tales, see e. g. No. 23 and No. 39 here. They are often men- 

 tioned outside of Greenland, e. g. in Baffin Land by Boas (1888) pp. 501 — 502. 

 Cf. Steensby (1905) pp. 54, 67, 82, 86, 109, 115, 179 etc. 



