Ethnographical collections from East Greenland. 731 



Scoresby Sound; Ihe Uiarteq tale, tradition of musk-oxen etc). In any 

 case some of the forefathers of the present Ammassalikers have lived 

 far to the north, belonging to a tribe of Eskimo who have migrated 

 from the American side north round Greenland. Along the east 

 €oast, where the polar ice current always moves southwards, they 

 have from summer to summer always been trying the hunting and 

 sealing grounds which lay further south, increasing in numbers and 

 peopling the large fjords and ice-breaking islands, where the open 

 water most readily forms. In the interior northwards musk-ox and 

 further south reindeer, on the sea the seals and polar bears — these 

 were the friends they sought for. When they came to the southern 

 boundary of the musk-ox area, they found as in the north plenty 

 of bears and seals. On this side of Greenland the bears almost 

 always wander towards the north, it is said they begin at the south- 

 ernmost point of the coast and follow it northwards to the "land's 

 end"; then they bend outwards to the outermost edge of the ice-belt, 

 which the natives never go out to, and drift again with the ice south- 

 wards to their starting point, from which they repeat their migration 

 to the north. The Eskimo may have believed, that they were 

 journeying towards the home-region of the bears by going south- 

 wards. The bears increased in number, the reindeer increased, the 

 large seals and the whales had their breeding places at many lo- 

 calities. 



Ammassalik itself is a paradise in equal degree for the 

 Eskimo, bears and gods. Here they found a broad belt of land 

 free of glaciers, cut into by many sounds and fjords, where there 

 was more open water than they had known previously on this 

 coast, for the form of the coast here, first projecting then bending 

 inwards, makes this part more than any other a shelter against the 

 polar ice. Here on coming from the north the land changed its 

 character, it was an enticing place to live in. On the sunny side 

 of the deep fjords and sheltered valleys the edible herbs grew more 

 luxuriantly than in the north, angelica, stone-crop and sorrel 

 flourished and later in the summer the land was black with bil- 

 berries and crowberries. But even more important, in the mouths of 

 the fjords they found the breeding places of large seals and of these 

 there were still plenty as also of whales; further, it is still remembered, 

 that there were herds of reindeer on the large island at Cape Dan, 

 which they hunted with bow and arrow. The salmon are plentiful in 

 the rivers and the caplins (ammassät) are found here and only here. 

 Through the hardest times of winter the latter fish dried in the sun 

 and wind and eaten with a little blubber constitutes the daily bread 

 of the natives. 



