406 W. Thalbitzer 



that it reached up to the chest of a full-grown man(?). On this 

 island the reindeer were probably exterminated a few generations 

 ago^), just as on Disko Island in West Greenland, where they must 

 have been exterminated about the year 1800^). 



The bow and arrow are only known by tradition at Ammas- 

 salik (p. 56); no bow or fragment of a bow has hitherto been re- 

 ceived by the ethnographic collections from this district of Green- 

 land, whereas there are numerous fragments of this weapon from the 

 northern regions of East Greenland (in Ryder's^) and Nathorst's col- 

 lections). In the Amdrup collection there is only a very small frag- 

 ment (of wood) of a bow from the northern part of the coast visited; 

 it is not known where it was taken. I shall not enter into a de- 

 tailed description of this weapon, therefore. In West Greenland it 

 was still used about the middle of the 18th century, chiefly, however, 

 for the capture of the land birds'^). As to the cross-bows, see end 

 of next chapter. 



Foxes (p. 55) are captured in stone traps. Several kinds are 

 mentioned: pusisaawtin or pulisaawtin in which the foxes are killed 

 by a falling stone (akimisaawtin) ; puttalin, in which the foxes are 

 taken alive; qimmia is the thong, which connects the bait {naajat- 

 saat) with the falling stone (miliija). At the "dead house" Amdrup 

 found an instrument, consisting of a square-shaped wooden block, 

 with a (broken) shaft fixed in a hole in the middle (fig. 179). The 

 Ammassalikers explained, that it is used to clean out the fox-traps 

 (as a chimney is cleaned). 



Gulls and ravens (cf. p. 55) are often caught in a kind of trap 

 built of snow, called teeorqaawiij or ittiwirjaq (plural ittuikkät), the 

 same word as is used to indicate the snow-huts, which the Eskimo 

 build to pass the night in on their journeys. This snow trap is so 



^) Graah obtained somewhat confused information regarding tlie occurrence of 

 reindeer in the north. From the island Aluili at 64° 17 N. lat. lie saw snow- 

 free land far to the north, and some of the natives explained, that it was 

 "large islands, which had grass and vegetation, though no large plains. One 

 of them said, that reindeer lived there, but the others denied this". Graah 

 (1832) p. 107. — Holm gives among the place-names on the coast north of Am- 

 massalik one belonging to a fjord Tugtilik which means 'having reindeer' (on 

 about 06° 20' lat. N., cf. the chart in "Meddelelser om Grønland" IX, PI. XVII) 

 and according to a tradition reindeer had been numerous up there at a former 

 time. Holm 1. с p. 224, and in this volume p. 111. 



■-; Hans Egede (1741) p. 33, footnote, states that "there is a quantity of reindeer on 

 Disko Island; now the}' have become rather scarce there as at several places" 

 (pp. 76 --78). But Giesecke records in his Journal (for September 1807). that 

 the reindeer on Disko Island have been exterminated. 



•') Ryder (1895) pp. 307-309. 



*) Glahn 1771) p. 230. Bahnson (1900) fig. 104. 



