Ethnographical collections from East Greenland. 525 



and he has the potential right of possession to the seal that may be 

 caught therein. If a sealer comes across a hole on the ice, to which 

 lead the tracks of another sealer, he passes it without trying to 

 hunt, but if he makes use of it unawares and catches the seal he 

 is liable to pay damages. If several kaiaks are at the same time 

 hunting a seal or walrus, he has the prior right to the animal who 

 first harpoons it, so that the bladder becomes attached to it. The 

 same rule applies to the capture of whales ^). On the other hand, a 

 bird becomes the property of the person who kills it. The skin of 

 a bear belongs to the person who first caught sight of it, whether 

 man or woman, old or young. The relatives of the man and woman 

 get certain parts of the captured animal. 



As common property are considered, for example, the salmon- 

 ponds (saputaatät) in lakes and mouths of rivers, because they have 

 been 'made by our ancestors,' Drift timber floating in on the outer 

 coasts or into the fjords with the sea-ice is the property of the 

 finder, whether man or woman, who then drags it so high upon 

 the beach that it is out of reach of the tidal water. Any one who 

 takes away the drift timber thus laid up is guilty of theft. The 

 timber in the houses is the property of the different individuals who 

 found it. On the other hand, the stone and turf in them are com- 

 mon property which is left behind in case of removal. I once met 

 a man who owned the greater part of the timber in the house 

 Avherein he lived but had no tent. That a number of people are 

 called housemates (itteqatiijéen), does not mean that they constantly 

 hold a house in common, but only that they have agreed during 

 the previous summer to live together during the coming winter (cf. 

 pp. 57 — 58)^). This word {itteqatiijeen) may be compared with an- 

 other expression of community, namely, the umiak-mates {umiaqa- 

 thjeen); if two men have an umiak in common they go during the 

 summer to the same tenting-places, each man taking with him his 

 tent and his family. 



Each man owns a sledge and several dogs (two to six); the 

 dogs are a common article of barter-^). A man seldom owns two 

 kaiaks; if so, he generally lets out one of them for payment. 



During my sledge journey in winter I came south of Sermilik 

 Fjord to Nappartuko's house near Qeqertaalaq (see p. 372). Here I 

 made inquiries as to who owned the furniture of the house. A part 



1) Cf. Holm; tale no. 15 (here p. 262); Glahn (1784) p. 278. 



-] At Ammassalik it is not of anj' importance that the people living together in a 

 winter house should be related. Unrelated families may live together and 

 brothers not seldom dwell in houses lying far from each other. 



3) Holm (1894) p. 69. 



