252 HISTORY AND ETHNOLOGY. 



gimetes, &c. Of the eastern Esquimaux, the Greenlanders claim special 

 notice. 



The Greenlanders. 



The southernmost section of Greenland lies at the northern extremity 

 of the temperate zone ; the remainder, however, is situated within the 

 polar circle : in the former, therefore, vegetables, potatoes, and oats may- 

 be cultivated, while they cannot be raised in the latter. The east coast 

 of Greenland, for a great distance down, is beset by perpetual ice ; an 

 extent of 300 miles of the southern part of the west coast (New Greenland), 

 however, is free from ice for eight months in the year, and hence at this 

 season is much frequented by Danish fishermen, on which account it is 

 the region best known. The mountains of the interior ascend to a height 

 of more than 4000 feet, and are covered w4th perpetual snow and ice. 

 The Greenlanders belong to the most innocuous of savages ; and theft, 

 drunkenness, brawls, or homicide, are things of very rare occurrence 

 among them ; but again they have certainly little susceptibility for civiliza- 

 tion, great as is the solicitude of the Danish government in regard to the 

 matter. Only a hundred years ago, they lived in the deepest superstition 

 and total ignorance. Their religious traditions were a jumble of ridiculous 

 fables, by which their sorcerers, or Angekoks, profited in their jugglings. 

 Members of families display great attachment towards each other. The 

 Greenlanders inhabit only the coast and coast islands ; living, in winter, 

 in miserable huts made of stones, earth, and turf; in summer, in tents 

 of doubled seal and reindeer skins, in which everything is arranged with 

 a much greater regard to neatness than is shown in the winter dwell- 

 ings. Wealthy persons dress in blue cloth ; but as a general rule, both 

 sexes are clad in skins of seals, reindeer, and sea birds, the last furnishing 

 the fur shirts ; the two first, the coat, trowsers, stockings, and shoes. The 

 dress of the women differs from that of the men only in the coat, which is 

 wider and has a hood at the back, in which they carry their children about 

 with them perfectly naked. Older children they sometimes place in the 

 boots, which are wide and stiffened with whalebone. They fasten their 

 long hair in a roll on the crown ; the men wear theirs short. 



The principal talent of a Greenlander consists in catching seals ; in 

 which it is of the utmost importance that he should understand the art of 

 navigating his boat (Kajak). These boats are constructed of laths and 

 whalebone, and coated with seal skins, leaving an opening in the middle 

 of the deck just large enough to admit the body of the fisherman ; so that 

 when he takes his seat, the edge of the hole fits tight around his body over 

 the hips, and permits no water to penetrate. At his side he places his 

 various javelins or harpoons, securing them between the thongs fastened 

 across the kajak ; in front of him is his roll of line, and behind him an air- 

 buoy, made of a small seal skin, which is attached to the harpoon. His 

 pantik, or oar, has blades about four inches wide at both ends, which are 

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