Ethnographical collections from East Greenland. 



423 



two holes, which is fastened on a bone peg on the side of the shaft). 

 At the other end of the line there is a loose bone peg. This 

 arrangement presumably enables the hunter to keep hold of the 

 toggle head and the bone shaft, in case this breaks loose from the 

 wooden shaft after the animal has been wounded. The head of the 

 weapon, if not the animal, is then in 

 the hand of the hunter by means of 

 the line. 



Fig. 126 



Harpoon sledge for sealing 

 on the ice. (Amdrup coll.). 



The ice-hunting stool (fig^. 127 — 

 129) consists of a flat, crescent-shaped 

 seat resting on three legs, which are 

 fixed in diverging holes and thus rest 

 on a surface which is larger than the 

 seat itself. They are also held together by means of three flat, 

 wooden spars, which connect them below, fixed into longish grooves 

 in the sides of the legs. A further characteristic is the knob-like 

 elevation round about each hole on the under side of the seat, prob- 

 ably to increase the grip of 

 the hole on the leg of the 

 stool. 



The Ammassalik hunter 

 sits on this stool while wait- 

 for the pooh (breathing) of 

 the seal at the small snow 

 mound, which usually forms 

 on the ice round the breath- 

 ing hole. Before he settles 

 down, he first stamps on the 

 Under snow to make it hard, if it 



Fig. 127. Sealing stool. 



(Thalbitzer priv. coll.). Ч9. 



Fig. 128, 



side of the seat j^ ^^ ^jj ^ Further, he 



of the sealing , ел -i, 



stool (fig. 127). ™^s* '^^^P perfectly still, so 

 as not to frighten the animal. 

 For this reason, as also probably to keep the feet warm he wears 

 bear-skin shoes or sandals under his feet. 



Such a stool is called nikeqwaataq, which really means "some- 

 thing to stand on" (not sit on), identical etymologically with the 

 West Greenland nikorfautak (Kleinschmidt), nekorgwautak (Fabricius), 

 which again is connected with the verb nikorfawoq "stands up, stands 

 on the feet." This name indicates, that there has been a time, when 

 the stool was used for standing on. In reality it would correspond 

 with the use made by the Alaskan Eskimo of their ice-hunting stool. 



