Ethnographical collections from East (îreenland. 541 



blubber bags (p. 504) ^). They are eaten as a kind of dessert with 

 l)lubber or blood. As already mentioned, the root of angelica is a 

 favourite stimulating delicacy, a quid as strong as mustard. 



Different species of sea-weed are eagerly looked for between the 

 sea-ice and the beach, when the starvation-period sets in towards 

 the end of the winter. One day in March I saw the sealers them- 

 selves return with newly gathered sea-weed from a flowing current 

 at the other side of the ice-field of the fjord '^). 



So far Qiwingataaq's cookery book. I have compared it with 

 the merry and good description of the West Greenlanders' cooking 

 given by Fridtjof Nansen ') and find that hers also leaves a trust- 

 worthy and nearly complete impression. That Qiwingataaq does 

 not speak of reindeer and hares may naturally be explained by the 

 absence of these animals at Ammassalik. She does not dwell on 

 the half- rotten slightly decomposed meat (mikiak) eaten in the un- 

 frozen condition, but I know from experience that this dish is also 

 served in East Greenland; mikiakkarpoa means 'I eat raw meat in 

 process of decomposition.' Nansen points out quite rightly that the 

 Eskimo are by no means so easily contented as to food as they are 

 generally considered to be. Their taste perceptions are undoubtedly 

 very differentiated not to say refined within the material their countrj'^ 

 can offer them. During long times of the year they have a surplus 

 of meat of all kinds, and if for a time the marine animals fail to 

 appear, so that they must feed on birds (ptarmigan etc.), they im- 

 mediately complain about the starvation period. 



Finally, I may describe a menu from West Greenland from the 

 middle of the 18th century. It is related by Dalager, who was the 

 storekeeper for the merchants in the southernmost regions and lived 

 in intimate touch with the natives^). He was once invited to a treat 

 (feast) by a rich Greenlander together with two angakut; they had 

 been promised whale-tail, which only meant that this was the main 

 dish of the treat, and that some 9 other dishes were also to be 

 served; these were the following: 1, small dried herrings (i.e. cap- 

 lins), 2, dried seal-meat, 3, boiled seal-meat, 4, half-rotten seal-meat (mi- 

 kiak), 5, boiled auks, 6, a piece of raw whale-tail (!), 7, dried salmon, 

 8, dried reindeer-meat, 9 and 10 black-crowberries and vegetables, 

 mixed with blubber or fish-oil and the contents of the intestines of 



^) The edible herbs are : Jaiännerin (Angelica, tortérw'mât (houseleek), toquttän 

 (the root of the latter), nunän (dandelion), nucukkut (sorrel), quttoijalin (dwarf- 

 willow?), ulänneelät, iUHormeetat etc. 



^) Some species of edible sea-weed may be mentioned : misarnat (sea- wrack?), mi- 

 sarqati'?), imertikkat (red-weed), sarpeel"'ät (wild-man's weed, the West Green- 

 land uisik), suttuittin (also kipilacät), anaatak^aq (also attiwitce), nujaalukajee etc. 



■■) Nansen (1891) pp. 81—87. Dalager (1752) p. 56. 



