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Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2014

https://archive.org/details/netsilikeskimossOOrasm

REPORT OF THE FIFTH THULE EXPEDITION 1921—24

THE DANISH EXPEDITION TO ARCTIC NORTH AMERICA IN CHARGE OF KNUD RASMUSSEN, ph d. VOL. VIII. NO. 1-2

THE NETSILIK ESKIMOS

SOCIAL LIFE AND SPIRITUAL CULTURE

/

RY

/

KNUD RASMUSSEN

GYLDENDALSKE BOGHANDEL, NORDISK COPENHAGEN 1931

FORLAG

Edited with the Supi)ort of the Ministry of Education. Translation Expenses defrayed by the Rask-Ørsted Fund.

Translated by W. E. Calvcrl from the Danish original.

Copyright 1931 by Gyldentlalske Koghandel, Nordisk Forlag, Copenhagen

PRINTED IN DENMARK GYLDENDALS F O R L A G S T R Y K K E R I COPENHAGEN

Introduction.

The material for the following delineation of the Netsilingmiut and the Utkuhikjalingmiut was collected during the period from April to the beginning of November 1923. These seven months, however, by no means represent a time of uninterrupted labour, for much of it had to be spent on travelling from village to village and also on hunting trips for the purpose of procuring food for ourselves and our dogs. What is more, these hunts occupied much more of my time than I had originally intended, because for five months unforeseen circum- stances compelled me to do without the (ireenlander, Qavigarssuaq, who had otherwise accompanied us as special hunter to my expedition.

On the other hand, in the course of this wandering life 1 learned to know the people in a more intimate manner than if, well supplied with provisions, I had been able to spend the same amount of time in tent-camps employed in writing down my observations to the ex- clusion of all else.

It is a matter of course that 1 owe gratitude to my predecessors in these regions, specially Roald Amundsen and Godfred Hansen.

As in the foregoing Volume VII I have elected to allow the various experiences I had on my journeys to form a part of the ethnographical descriptions. It is probable that many details ought properly to have been grouped separately; and indeed I am aware that in adopting this method 1 am committing a breach of current practice. I have deter- mined to do so, however, rather than break the continuance of the narrative merely for the purpose of building up a dry and schematical grouping which, in many cases, would not form a collective and exhaustive whole anyhow.

The phonetic spelling used is as follows:*)

a: as in French "aller".

ai: as in English "high",

au: as in English "how",

a: as in English "hat".

a: before r and q, as in English "far",

b: as in English "boy".

*) See also Dr. Kaj Hirket-Smith's : Five Hundred Eskimo Words. Vol. III. No. :{.

h: a labialized sound between b and v. d: as in English "had", e: as in French "été".

e: an e before r and q, articulated back in the mouth.

f : a bilabial sound between f and v. g: as in English "begin", g: as in German "regen". X: as in German "ich". h: as in English "half".

i: as in French "ici".

i: an i before r and q, articulated back in the mouth, j: as y in English "yard", k: as c in French "cas".

q: a sound far back in the mouth, behind the root of the tongue,

almost as when hawking. Peculiar to all Eskimo dialects. 1: as in English "long". l: unvoiced 1. m: as in English "man", n: as in English "no".

r|: corresponds to ng, as in English "king", o: as French "eau".

o: before r and q, as in English "for".

p: as in English "poor".

r: almost as in English "sister".

k: almost as ch in Scotch "loch".

s: as in English "sing".

J: almost resembles sh, as in English "shilling", 3: a sound between s and j, as in French "je". t: as in French "été".

c: a sound almost as a mingling of t and s. u: as in English "poor", v: as in English "love", w : like the English w :

A dot after a sound means that it is long, for instance a", ni' etc.; an apostrophe ' after a syllable signifies the glottal stop or stress, for instance har'wapto-rmiut q^q^'tAq, etc.

In working up the philological material I have in this as in the previous volume had a skilled, interested and patient collaborator in the Rev. Hother Ostermann.

Hundested, December 1930.

THE NETSILINGMIUT

VIII. No. 1

1

I.

Eskimo life: Descriptions and autobiographies.

Our first meeting with the Netsilingmiut from Pelly Bay.

Rae Isthmus, which constitutes the narrow hinterland between Repulse Bay and Committee Bay, lies far beyond the sledge trails of white traders and was first visited by the Englishman John Rae, who discovered the country in 1846 and mapped it.

But for centuries this singular tongue of land has been a favourite and much frequented hunting ground for the Eskimos, especially be- fore fire-arms were introduced, because the exceptional natural con- ditions there were very favourable for acquiring the means of subsi- stence. Spring and autumn enormous herds of caribou travel over thi.s narrow land, where it is a most easy matter to hunt them as soon as they are driven along the fences of cairns down towards the many stone-built hiding places. In the abundant water-courses and small lakes there is a wealth of trout, and especially in the autumn these are taken with the leister in the streams and, later on, fished from the ice covering of the lakes with both hook and leister. And in addition there is good sealing in Repulse Bay and the mouth of (kimmittee Bay.

In earlier times, when the great migrations in search of food took place, Rae Isthmus has also been one of the main traffic arteries judging from the innumerable tent rings, cairns, stone fences and hunters' hides that are scattered about wherever one goes. These ancient highways of man and beast are not forgotten even now, and two young men, Taparte and Anarqåq, who with Helge Bangsted drove a few reserve sledges on this first part of our overland journey, knew every stone in the country and were never in two minds as to the mountain passes and the river courses we should follow.

In number we were as few as possible. It was the great sledge jour- ney north about America that we had started on, and I was to be accompanied only by two Eskimos from the Thule district, Qåvigar- ssuaq and his female cousin Arnarulunguaq. Our outfit, too, had been

8

made as spartan as this long journey demands. We had two six-metre sledges of the Hudson Bay type, fitted with mud-and-ice shoeing, each drawn by twelve dogs and carrying a load of about five hundred kilo- grammes. Almost two-thirds of this consisted of dog feed, the remainder tea, coffee, sugar, flour, tobacco, trade goods for bartering ethnographic collections, clothing, ritles, and ammunition sufficient for a year.

Over Rae Isthmus the trail was in splendid condition; wherever we came we found firm, light snow; all that worried us was the wind; blowing snow from the north and giving considerable trouble to both man and dog. Like all travellers who set out on long journeys we started with short day stages in order to spare the dogs, and were sat- isfied if we could camp after traversing a distance of thirty-five kilo- metres.

The trail led us through beautiful and changing scenery, in which lakes and streams continuously appeared and gave way to low knolls of gneiss. We had left the sea ice in Repulse Bay on the twentieth of March nineteen twenty-three and on the twenty-second had already passed North Pole Lake, enclosed by hills of a hundred to a hundred and fifty metres' height. The terrain, which had hitherto been stony and bare, suddenly became more luxuriant as it were. We came out on to wide plains with smooth slopes, where grass and dwarf willow emerged through the snow, and the going was now so splendid that the heavy loads were drawn with ease.

Already the caribou had here and there started out on their spring wanderings and were nervously grazing onwards in small herds from the south. We saw five frightened cows starting about on a lake, but made no move to stalk them, as for the present we had meat enough.

About noon on the twenty-third we turned off from the river we had so far been driving on and set a course west-northwest. The camp- ing ground we left behind is called Saputit, or trout weir; great stone dams are built across the flow of the stream, with here and there basins in which the trout are trapped and speared with the leister. Now we were only about ten kilometres from Committee Bay, but preferred to run a little further overland, as the smooth terrain, despite a few obstacles, presents better possibilities of making progress than the packed-up ice of the sea.

We had scarcely left the river camp, however, when the ground became very hilly: at intervals sand and stones appeared above the snow, and we had to toil up through several mountain passes - — a matter of difficulty with the heavy loads.

On the twenty-fifth of March we reached a large mountain that is called Kitdlavåt: the jagged mountain, a very common name for mountain forms of this kind, here as well as in Greenland. We were

100 95 90

100 95

Survey map of the various group-names within the Netsilingmiut area. 'X" marks the places where there are ancient house ruins. 1) Kangerdluk. 2) Eta. 3) Qoqa. 4) Eqahingniiul. 5) Kangerlugssuaq. (j) Qingmertoq. 7) Naparutalik. 8) Paglag- fik. 9) Qorngoq. 10) Qissulik. 11) Sarfaq.

9

forced to make our way through a rocky pass, which took us the most of the day. There was nothing else for it, unfortunately. We had to unload the sledges and convey the haggage on our backs. Spread- ing skins over the stones we drew the sledges over them and so saved the brittle ice shoeing, otherwise it would jump off like glass in the intense cold as soon as it touched a stone.

Towards evening we succeeded in reaching the river Siingorssilp Kunga, whence we were at last to try to get out to Committee Bay almost at Point Swanston. But we decided that before doing so we would hunt a day or two, because the dogs needed rest, and also be- cause we wanted more fresh meat for both man and dog and thus save the pemmican we had with us. Recent caribou tracks in the snow across our trail during the past day or so had tempted us to make this arrangement. Otherwise the fauna did not seem to be particularly varied at this season. All we had observed so far was a pair of ravens, signs of wolves and wolverines, and the track of a single hare; but there had been a number of fox tracks.

Now we were over the mountains that form the interior of Rae Isthmus and down on the low, clayey moraine land that runs like a fringe along Committee Bay. On every hand were peculiar little emi- nences of clay of varying form, just like a landscape in miniature, with here and there needle-like peaks reaching a height of ten to twenty metres. In this moraine landscape we found numbers of "fos- sils", i. e. calcareous chalk concretions that in the course of time have been formed in clay deposited by lime-charged water that has oozed down; their shapes were many and curious, like small fossilized lish, and as a matter of fact Taparte told us the following amusing tale that is connected with this area:

"Here once lived the giant Inugpasugssuk, who used to catch sal- mon down in a precipitous ravine at the head of Pelly Bay. The ravine is called Kitingujait (commonly used of a fissure with steep rocky sides with a stream running through it).

"Sometimes Inugpasugssuk would go hunting seal by wading out into the sea and killing them with a stick. Once he waded out in Pelly Bay to catch seals, but before this he moved all the people living by the low shores up on to the highest islands in the world. Inugpasug ssuk was very eager when hunting, and once he fell; as he slipped he shovelled the water aside with one hand so violently that a wave rose and washed in over the land. This big wave washed shoals of small fish on to the shore; there were sea scorpions, cod, flounders, sand- skippers, sticklebacks, in fact all the small animals of the sea, and when the wave had dropped back again, all these fish remained on the land and in time turned to stone. These are the fossils lying about

10

everywhere, and we call them tArqutit, because they are used as wick trimmers for our blubber lamps."

Before starting to hunt the caribou we ascended a hill for the pur- pose of obtaining a view over the country. A little way from our camp we came across three tent rings made of gigantic stones, and with their local knowledge our two companions were able to tell us that they originated from the first people that lived in the country, the Tunrit as they were called. The largest of the tent rings measured four metres across from one end of the platform to the other, and four and a half metres from the back of the platform to the place where the tent door had once been; the other two were rather smaller, quite circular, with a diameter of three metres.

From the top of the hill we directed our glasses out over the many smiling valleys that lie between low rises and clay slopes round the delta of the Sungorssup Kunga, and it was not long before we focussed upon two large herds of caribou peacefully grazing on the almost snow-bare hill sides. We moved our camp a few kilometres further down, and by the time night had fallen our hunting had given the good bag of ten caribou. This kill came in very well, for our climb up the hill had made us aware that we would have to spend several days carrying our baggage down to the foot of the ice over the bare plain, whose surface was nothing but clay and stones.

And then on the twenty-eighth of March, with a tremendous snow storm blowing, we had our first encounter with people. We had just agreed that it was no use breaking camp when Anarqåq, who was out mending the snow hut, suddenly removed the block of snow that closed the doorway and shouted in to us that he had seen men.

In these parts the Eskimos always consider it a matter of grave import to meet strangers. You never know whether they are friends or enemies, and consequently both Anarqåq and Taparte seemed very excited at the situation, although they are both former Netsilingmiut who had immigrated to Repulse Bay and who were now about to meet their old kinsmen.

Never have I got into my clothes more quickly to throw myself out into a snow storm. True enough: two stoutly built men were slowly approaching the snow hut, but when at a distance of three or four hundred metres, they stopped and stood there. 1 went towards them at once and, in order that they would realise that we were friends, went unarmed, although they themselves were apparently armed to the teeth, carrying long snow knives and seal harpoons. They were very nervous at meeting a white man in these parts, and their aston- ishment increased to bewilderment when 1 spoke to them in their own tongue, saying:

11

"You can pui your weapons away! We are peaceful people who have come to visit your country".

To this the older of the two men answered:

"We are just ordinary people, and you need expect no harm from us. Our snow huts are a little way from here, and when we saw your snow huts today at a place where we knew none of our own people were camping, we came up to see whom it was!"

Then we went up to our snow hut and the two men, who at first had heen very embarrassed and shy, soon had their good humour and their smiles going. They were father and son. The father's name was Orpingalik (he with the willow twig), the son's Kanajoq (the sea scor- pion). They were very curious to know all about us and the object of our journey. Their meeting again with Taparte and Anarqåq, whom they had once met many years before, was very cordial. But naturally they were especially interested in the two Greenlanders, whose lan- guage was the same as their own, although their country was so far away that the distance could scarcely be realised. And as soon as their curiosity had been satisfied they had no reluctance to tell us what it was that had sent them out on a long journey. They were on their way to Repulse Bay, to buy new guns with the seventy-odd fox furs they had with them; for last year they had been wrecked while cross- ing a river and had not only lost all their possessions, but the cata- strophe had claimed the life of one of Orpingalik's sons. They related the details:

On a journey into the inferior Orpingalik was ferrying their pro- perty over a wide, swift river together with his youngest son Inugjaq (he who will become a man). As a ferry they were using an icefloe. The current was very strong, and suddenly it caught the floe, one side being forced down so deep into the river that it overturned. Father and son were immediately sucked down into the stream.

When Orpingalik at length came to himself he was lying on the bank, half in the water, with his head knocking against a stone. The pain brought him to his senses, and a glance at the sun told him that he must have lain unconscious a long time. All at once the catastrophe became vividly clear to him and he began to look for his son, whom he found a little way further down the river. He carried him up to the bank and tried to call him to life with a magic song. It was not long before a caterpillar crawled up on the face of the corpse and began to go round its mouth, round and round. Not long afterwards the son began to breathe very faintly, and then other small creatures of the earth crawled on to his face, and this was a sign that he would come to life again. But in his joy Orpingalik went home to his tent and brought his wife to help him, taking with him a sleeping skin

12

lo lay their son on while working lo revive him. But hardly had the skin touched the son when he ceased hreathing, and it was impossible to pul lite into him again. Later on it turned out that the reason wliy the magic words had lost their power was, that in the sleeping skin there was a patch that had once been touched by a menstruating woman, and her uncleanness had made the magic words powerless and killed the son.

Despite the snowstorm it was decided that we should break camp at once and move down to their snow huts. One is always eager to see new faces. And so we started off in terrific weather and, after three laborious hours' fighting against snow and gale we got down to the camping ground at Committee Bay. They were living in two communicating snow huts and were cosy and comfortable in spite of the weather. Three blubber lamps heated the huts and the plat- forms were thick with fine new caribou skins. On the side platform caribou meat and salmon were thawing. And, by the way, there seemed to prevail the most cordial relations here between man and dog, for the dogs were allowed to stay in the house, and some pups had even found a place on the platform.

They were unusually smart and handsome people, who in many ways differed from the ordinary Eskimo type. They were tall and well-built with features more resembling Indians than Eskimos; their great, broad smile and their frank and amenable manner alone were thoroughly characteristic of all people of this race. Nor was it long before we became very good friends.

In the camp were the following: Orpingalik and his wife Uvlunuaq (the little day), a daughter Qarmatsiaq (the little shelter of snow- blocks), a full-grown son Nigtajoq (the clear sky), his wife Iluitsoq (the whole one) and their daughter Tiinoq (caribou fat), and finally, the aforementioned son Kanajoq and his young wife Aviliajuk (the little wife whom one borrows from another). ^

Though they had very few dogs the immediate impression one gained of them was that they were people who were skilled travellers. There were only four dogs for a total of eight people, so that their trade journeys were not merely walking trips; most of the members of the family, at any rate the males, put their shoulders to the traces. For provisions they had quantities of frozen trout and caribou meat, and any amount of blubber both for satisfying the wants of the inner man and for illumination purposes. These big loads had in fact made it necessary for them to make supply depots here and there before starting out on the journey, so that they had had to traverse the same stretch several times. In fact they had driven four times each way over Simpson Peninsula.

Our Greenland dog-team ready to start from Vansittart Island. Note the fan-shape span, with all traces the same length.

Our other dog team, from Hudson Bay, spanned according to the custom in that region with a leader and traces of unequal length.

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We met as if we had known one another for years, and an en- counter l)etween old friends could not have been more cordial. Chilled salmon and hunks of caribou meat were put out for us, and while we ate and made ourselves comfortable together with the women in the warmth of the house, the men lost no time in building a large and roomy snow house for our use. Nigtajoq was the master builder, and he handled the big heavy blocks of snow with amazing facility, with the result that in less than an hour there was a fine house ready for our occupation. Now we not only had shelter from the weather, but. when the blubber lamp had been lighted, and the platform skins and sleeping bags arranged, we had a really cosy winter house in which we actually spent eight eventful days. That attentive man Nigtajoq, who had large ideas about comfort himself, had even joined up our entrance passage with a little outhouse which proved to be a simple but practically arranged latrine.

Orpingalik, a shaman in high esteem, was an interesting man. well at home in the old traditions of his tribe, not only intelligent but having a fertile wit. As a hunter he stood high, and from the re- spect shown him I could see that he was a big man among his people. In fact I was told later, when I arrived among the Arviligjuarmiut at Pelly Bay, that he was a strong and deadly archer and the quickest kayakman of them all when the caribou herds were being pursued at the places where they crossed the lakes and rivers.

Our baggage had been left at the place whence we had started out to hunt caribou, and, the trail being in a terrible condition, we spent several days bringing it down to the coast. While my companions were occupied in doing so I had plenty of opportunities of working together with Orpingalik. Before settling down in earnest among the Netsilingmiut it was of great importance for me to know how many they knew of the tales I had already written down among the Iglul- ingmiut. Thanks to Orpingalik's rapidity of apprehension I was able to go through almost a hundred different tales in the course of a week. In addition he gave me the words of several magic songs, I paying for them with some of those I had got from the Iglulingmiut. It was considered that these transactions were quite legitimate, for as they were made through the agency of a white man they could not, it was thought, offend the spirits. Translating magic words is a most difficult matter, because they often consist of untranslatable com- pounds of words, or fragments that are supposed to have their strength in their mysteriousness or in the very manner in which the words are coupled together. But as every magic word has its particular mission, it is considered quite immaterial whether it is understood by humans or not — as long as the spirits know what it is one wants, a caribou.

Vol. VIII. Nr. 1 2

14

a seal, or maybe a cure tor a sickness. Nevertheless, Orpingalik's magic words were easier to understand than they usually are, and therefore I am including them here under the description of the man himself, regardless of the fact that later on in the original texts they will be rendered in literal translation.

In communicating them to me Orpingalik uttered them in a whisper, but most distinctly and with emphasis on every word. His speech was slow, often with short pauses between the words. I have endeavoured to show the pauses by means of a new line of verse. Here are some magic words used for the purpose of ensuring a successful hunt to men who are in strange country. When I had received them Orpingalik declared that these secret words which we owned in fel- lowship almost made us brothers. The spirits of life would regard us as one, as it were, and treat us the same if only we closely observed all the taboo that life required.

Hunting prayer for a hunter in strange country.

I am ashamed,

I feel afraid and perplexed.

My grandmother sent me out.

Sent me out to search.

1 am on an errand

After the dear game.

After the dear foxes.

But alack! I am in fear and perplexed.

I am ashamed,

I am afraid and perplexed.

My great-grandmother and grandmother

Sent me out to search.

I go their errand

After the dear game.

After the dear caribou.

But alack! I am ashamed.

And feel afraid and perplexed.

A poor man's prayer to the spirits.

In winter, when there is only little blubber oil in the lamps, and people are anxious lest they go out altogether, the hunter can make a new catch by repeating the following words early in the morning when day is just dawning:

You, fatherless and motherless, You, dear little orphan, Give me

Kamiks of caribou.

15

Bring me a gift,

An animal, one of those

That provide nice blood-soup.

An animal from the sea depths

And not from the plains of earth.

You, little orphan.

Bring me a gift.

This is only used for seals. If people are hunting caribou they say:

Wild caribou, land louse, long-legs.

With the great ears.

And the rough hairs on your neck.

Flee not from me.

Here 1 bring skins for soles,

Here 1 bring moss for wicks,

Jiist come gladly

Hither to me, hither to me.

But Orpingalik was not alone a famous shaman; he was also a poet. His imagination was a luxuriant one, and he had a very sensitive mind; he was always singing when he had nothing else to do, and he called his songs "comrades in solitude", or he would say that his songs were his breath, so necessary were they to him, to such an extent were they part and parcel of himself.

A fragment of one of his songs is reproduced below. It was com- posed under the influence of the fit of despondency that once came over him when he could not regain his strength and vigour after a long illness.

My breath.

1 will sing a song, A little song of myself. Sick I have lain since autumn And have turned weak as a child. Unaya, Unaya.

Sorrowful, I would that

My wife were gone to another hou.se

To a man

Who can be her refuge. Secure and firm as the thick winter ice. Sorrowful, 1 would she were gone To a better protector. Now that I have no strength myself To rise from my bed. Unaya, Unaya.

Do you know your fate?

Now I lie faint and cannot rise.

And only my memories are strong.

2*

16

One day I asked Orpingalik how many songs he actually had composed. He replied:

"How many songs I have 1 cannot tell you. I keep no count of such things. There are so many occasions in one's life when a joy or a sorrow is felt in such a way that the desire comes to sing; and so I only know that 1 have many songs. All my being is song, and I sing as I draw breath".

Orpingalik was not the only singer at his village, however. On the whole, song seemed to be indispensable to these people. They sing at all times of the day. The women not only hum their husbands' songs, but some of them are of their own fashioning. Orpingalik taught me one of his wife's songs. He never called her by name, but always "my little sister". They had a son Igsivalitaq (the frostbitten one) ; a year or two before this son had murdered a hunting companion in a fit of temper, and now he lived an outlaw in the mountains round Pelly Bay, fearing that the Mounted Police, of whom he had heard tell, would come for him. And so his mother had made the following song through sorrow over her son's fate. To make it more comprehen- sible it is reproduced a little freely here, an entirely literal translation being given among the original texts.

Uvlunuaq's song.

Eyaya — eya. I recognize A bit of a song

And take it to me like a fellow being. Eyaya — eya.

Should I be ashamed At the child I once carried With me in my back-pouch, Because I heard of his flight From the haunts of man? Eyaya — eya.

Truly I am ashamed:

But only because he had not

A mother who was blameless as the blue sky,

Wise and without foolishness.

Now people's talk will educate him

And gossip complete the education.

I should perhaps be ashamed,

I, who bore a child

Who was not to be my refuge;

Instead, I envy those

Who have a crowd of friends behind them. Waving on the ice,

When after festive leave-taking they journey out.

17

Oh, 1 remember a winter,

We left the island "The squinting eye";

The weather was mild.

And the leet sank, gently creaking, into the thawing snow. I was then as a tame animal among men; But when the message came or the killing and the flight, Then I staggered.

Like one unable to get a foothold.

It is not its form, but the substance and thoughts that make this song a primitive human document.

At Pelly Bay, Orpingalik told us, we would meet many people, and in order that we might make a long sojourn among them we bought quite a lot of dog feed of him, in particular a large salmon cache and a number of caribou that were to be found dow^n by the river that runs out into the head of Pelly Bay. But if we were to find all this meat — which we paid for on the spot — we would later on require to get into touch with Igsivalitaq. 1 knew this would be no easy matter as he had gone into hiding far from the regular trail, so we obtained a very detailed description of the neighbourhood and made up our minds to go and visit the fugitive. Father, mother and brothers eagerly assured us that we need not be apprehensive about anything happening to us if only we went unarmed up to his snow hut. It was not such a light task, however. For the first, it was not so easy to find a white snowhut hidden among snow drifts in a white landscape; for the second, it was no unadulterated pleasure to have to go unarmed to meet a murderer who is, one knows, armed with both gun and harpoon; all the same, we decided to make the venture, and had no cause to regret it.

On the fifth of April we all broke camp and continued our ways after an emotional farewell, Orpingalik and his family to Repulse Bay, we on towards the west. We had all grown fond of one another, and it was really quite hard to part. While staying in the camp Nigta- joq's wife had given birth to a child, and as both mother and child were still considered to be unclean they were not allowed to leave the snowhut by the usual exit. To us it was something quite new to see how a small hole was cut in the snowhut wall, and how the young mother crawled through it with her child on her back. Then they started out on their trade journey, the men in draught harness with the dogs, the women ahead of them; having an infant Nigtajoq's wife was not permitted to walk in the others' footprints; nor was she to walk alone, for if she did there would be a danger that an evil spirit would kill her and the child. And so together with Orpingalik's adolescent sister she walked along a little further inland with her

18

baby which, only a few days old, now entered upon its first travels. A little way from us the whole caravan stopped, turned towards us and waved their hands, Nigtajocj crying with a loud voice:

"tamabta to-rnAqArAbIa iqErLasa!" which means: "May we all travel without evil spirits in our train!"

Igsivalitaq, the outlaw.

"That meat you bought is going to cost you dear", said Anarqåq when we set off, and by this he meant our decision to look up Igsivali- taq when we had got across Simpson Peninsula. Neither he nor Taparte were very enthusiastic at the thought, more particularly Taparte, who was now married to the widow of the man whom Ig- sivalitaq had killed.

We were now following the coast over Cape Weynton, whose Eskimo name is Ujaratsiait (the slightly stony one) to Cape Beaufort; there we left Committee Bay, which is called Akule (the delta bay, or the bay into which many rivers empty) and turned in over Simpson Peninsula, making for the head of Pelly Bay. The going was bad, deep snow with a crust that the sledges cut through heavily. The Eskimos call this peninsula Satoq (the flat one), and the enormous snow-covered plain is monotonous, as if one were in the midst of the inland ice; at only very few places did we pass small gneiss hills, and our guides told us that the two highest of these, Umiujaq (that which resembles a tent flap) and Pinguarjuk (the little hill with the rounded top) may be seen from the snowhouse camps out on the ice in Pelly Bay.

On the eighth of April we had almost arrived at the mouth of the great and wide river that was our present goal, and had built a snow- hut near a precipitous mountain pass that is called Kitinguja.

We had no trouble in finding the salmon; they were just alongside the place where we had built our hut. We were greatly surprised at the size of the cache, for it turned out that we had purchased about a hundred saltwater trout with a total weight of almost three hundred kilogrammes. And besides this fish the bargain included two bearded seals and four caribou, which would be pointed out to us by Igsivali- taq. Now we could afford to feed the dogs well on these fine salmon, cook as much as we wanted to eat for ourselves, and then have a good sleep before setting out on our man-killer hunt next morning. Cautious Orpingalik had counselled us to be only two when we began looking for his son; if we all went he would discover us at a distance and take us to be enemies.

And so in fine sunshine I drove out on this exciting adventure.

19

with Anarqåq as my companion. We got right over the river delta, where tremendous cUfTs of clay had formed themselves like an am- phitheatre of mighty effect in this flat landscape. From there we ran, across country, over wide plains, peering for footprints in the new white snow. At length the dogs got the scent; off we went at a flying gallop over a lake, a small snow hut became visible on the shore, and in a few minutes we were there. We stopped the dogs a short distance from the hut, eager to put an end to the tension that was naturally associated with this first meeting. But to our disappointment we saw fresh sledge tracks running northwards. Igsivalitaq had ap- parently heard our dogs the day before, because the tracks showed that he had fled with his wife and foster son at about the same time that we came down to the river. The feeding of two teams of dogs is no quiet matter! We examined the deserted snow hut and found that the fugitives had only taken the bare necessities with them — even the precious blubber-bag with the oil for the lamps had been left behind. They seemed to have been a long time at this camp; behind the hut we found big blocks of snow of the kind that Eskimos use for target shooting with the bow and arrow. Anarqåq found an old bow and some arrows on the platform inside the hut and at once started to demonstrate how Igsivalitaq may have practised. The many footprints leading to and from the target showed us that the man we were looking for had not neglected the opportunity of training eye and arm. But we had no time to waste and, when the first dis- appointment had dispersed, we turned the dogs on to the fresh trail and set off after our quarry, who could not be far away. Soon the trail led down to the bay ice and, when we had gone some distance, we caught sight of two black dots far ahead, like two ravens on a hummock of ice. We got nearer and saw that it was two men, who had long since observed us. Now and then they jumped down from their lookout post and ran to and fro between it and the snow hut, which we could also discern. There seemed to be a nervousness in the air. Anarqåq drew out big snow knives from their covers and stuck them into the sledge load so that they would be ready at hand. When I laughed at his cautiousness he said:

"Better to be prepared. Igsivalitaq is a man, a proper man, and if he gets the idea that we have been sent out by the police to look for him, he will attack in order to forestall us".

The dogs, having got the scent for the second time that day and obviously not intending to be disappointed again, now exerted them- selves to the limit of their strength. We quickly closed in upon the two men and, when about a kilometre away, one of them came running towards us. ■

20

"It is his adoptive son", said Anarqaq, "Igsivalitaq apparently wants to see how he will be treated and is sending him out as a truce-bearer."

With the speed at which we were travelling, however, there was no question of any parleying; the dogs would not stop, and I succeeded in slackening the rush just so much that 1 could leap over to the young man and ask him to get up on to the sledge so that we might arrive as quickly as possible. We were just able to throw ourselves on the sledges when the dogs with an impatient howl again sprang forv^'ard, and a moment later we had come to the snow hut, where Igsivalitaq still stood sentry on the top of a high hummock of ice. As soon as the dogs stopped I went towards him, smiling, and ad- dressed him by the very same words that his father had greeted me with a few days before:

"We are only quite ordinary people who think of no evil".

Igsivalitaq answered with the same greeting and apparently felt surprised at the unceremonious entry we had made on the scene, where a few seconds before he had probably thought of fighting for his liberty and his life. He uttered a loud cry of gladness, and almost at the same time his wife came out from the snow hut and blended her shouts of joy with ours.

I told Igsivalitaq that I had just met his father and brothers and that it was they who had directed me to his hiding place. The enor- mous strain under which he had been labouring now relieved itself in excessive, almost silly joy, and when he realised who I was, and what I wanted, he at once invited us into his house and overwhelmed us with his hospitality. Dried caribou meat and fat he brought out, and while we lighted the primus to make tea, his wife Talitsoq (the armless one) cooked salmon over their blubber lamp.

It was some time before our host quietened down again; for some minutes he was quite breathless with emotion, but when we had talked together a while and he realised that through his parents I knew all about him, he evidently wished to explain to me the cause of his preferring to keep far away from people. I had not been an hour in his house before he related the following of his own accord:

"Others have told you why I live by myself; now I would rather tell you the whole story myself.

"About two years ago I was living not far from Repulse Bay, hunting caribou and seal and at the same time in order to be near to the places where I could buy guns and ammunition from white men.

"In this new country I had a hunting companion, and we often had contests. We were equally fast, equally skilful at hunting, but

21

he was the stronger. We were always alone when we practised our sports, and my companion, who could not run so far as 1 can, made use of every opportunity to let me know that he was not afraid of me. And so it happened one day that to prove his superiority he rubbed his muck on me, and that was an insult I could not forget. When a man does that in our country it is an insult that means that he has an inclination to kill one. The treatment I had received tormented me so much that I could not tell anyone about it. Hatred grew up in me, and every time I met my old companion out caribou hunting it was as if I loathed myself; thoughts that I could not control came up in me, and so one day when we were alone together up in the mountains I shot him.

"That's all, and I have nothing else to tell. The man 1 killed was married, and according to the customs of my country I could marry his wife, but I did not. Taparte, whom I hear you have with you. took her to wife.

"Now if there had been no white men in our country the dead man's relatives would take vengeance upon me, and I would not be afraid of that; but now I was told that white men would come up from Chesterfield and take me away to punish me in the white man's way. White men were masters in our country and they would take me home to their own land, where everything would be wild and strange to me. So I grew afraid and came back to my old country and now^ live in the mountain regions where no white man has ever been before.

"When you came a little while ago I thought you belonged to the white men whom the Aivilingmiut call Police. I thought you were coming for me, and if I was to be taken away against my will I would rather die; so I had sharpened all my weapons to be ready, and as you see, my file is still lying there. You came as friends instead, and you must know that as long as you are with us everything I have is yours too."

This account shows the difficulties that have to be overcome when without any preparation a foreign culture has to be laid upon a primi- tive nation. 1 discussed the case with Igsivalitaq at great length and advised him particularly not to run away from the Mounted Police or attempt any resistance if they should take him by surprise; for in my opinion he could not be punished according to customs and sta- tutes of which he was ignorant. Still, I explained to him as well as 1 could the Sixth Commandment ; people should be tolerant and sociable and do no harm to each other. But the effect of my words was weakened to some extent because via Repulse Bay he had heard a trader's account of the Great War.

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The next day we moved our property from the salmon cache down to IgsivaHtaq's snow hut and, after havmg again replenished our supply of dog feed with carihou and bearded seal from Orpingalik's stores, we drove out to a snow-hut camp of Arviligjuarmiut, which we found a little way out on the fjord.

The Arviligjuarmiut.

How they supply all their requirements from their own country, and their first meeting with white men.

Arviligjuaq (the big one with the whales) is a term applied to the whole of Pelly Bay and has its origin in some mountain formations that, from a distance, have an outline like whales on the surface of the water. The natives themselves say that these formations have given rise to the name, as no whales ever come to these waters owing to the ice conditions.

The Arviligjuarmiut, as the people call themselves, are connected with the Netsilingmiut tribal group by relationship and intermarrying, and yet they isolate themselves from them, inasmuch as they always prefer to have land between Lord Mayor's Bay and Committee Bay. That winter the group numbered no more than fifty-four men, women and children, whose names will be given when collectively describing the group later on. At this time of the year they were living on sealing, split up into three settlements — two on the ice in Pelly Bay itself and the third on the west coast of Simpson Peninsula at the so-called Satoq, out towards Committee Bay.

Hunting conditions in the district seemed to be extremely good, and people told me with pride that there they knew nothing of hunger and times of distress such as the Netsilingmiut west of Boothia Isth- mus suffered. The reason was that the hunting year was evenly divided between caribou, musk oxen, seals and trout. If one occupation failed, they always had another to fall back upon.

They had a number of summer localities to choose from. Kuggup Timå, comprising the whole of the basin of the river at the head of Pelly Bay itself; Satoq, or Simpson Peninsula, and Sine, which is the name of the west coast of the fjord close to Beecher River. At all these places they hunted the caribou with bow and arrow, preferably in among the gneiss hills of the river basin, where there was good stalking cover. They had no particularly organized hunt, because there were no crossing places at rivers or lakes to which the animals could be driven; nor did they usually employ beaters for driving the caribou towards built-up stone hiding places where the bowmen

23

could lie in wait. But they knew these methods, having heard them mentioned by tribes on the coasts of Queen Maud and Victoria Land.

In winter, when it was cold and snow covered the country, it was very difficult to hunt game with the bow and arrow; for, in order to be certain of hitting to kill, the hunter had to be so near that he could shoot his arrow at a range of ten to twenty metres. In cold weather the snow creaks, and sounds carry far between the hills; the caribou are exceedingly watchful and shy and never move about in big herds, only singly or, at the most, two or three together. Consequently, all caribou hunting necessarily took place in summer. At that season they appeared in herds and were therefore much more reckless, and the hunters were able to steal bare-footed — and thus quite soundlessly — up to them. Indeed there were some who even stalked the animals stark naked, with not a stitch of clothing on. In some mountain dis- tricts the caribou were in the habit of following definite paths, and there the hunter could wait day and night until they came along. A man that hunts with bow and arrow must above all be patient, and therefore he often actually took supplies of food with him to the place where he concealed himself so that, if necessary, he was prepared to sleep there until his quarry appeared. This method of hunting was used when the caribou were fat and when their skin was most suitable for winter clothing. One had not to be greedy when hunting, but always economical. It was seldom that a hunter got more than he required for himself, his wife and children, and if it happened that he had a surplus, it was the custom to give away what was not required to friends who had been less fortunate. It was usually reckoned that a man required about fifteen skins for his needs as to outer jacket, inner jacket, trousers, kamiks, stockings, mittens and sleeping skins; but as it was the custom to have clothing of skins with different coats of hair — thicker and thinner — the good hunters who wished to be well supplied could not be content with just that number.

Very often the Arviligjuarmiut moved to other places for a sum- mer and winter or two at a time. On those occasions they usually went to the summer localities on the west side of Lord Mayor's Bay, where on Boothia Isthmus there were very good crossing places for caribou, and they could be killed there by the score with the spear from the kayak. There was especially one locality, Sarfaq by name (the current hole) in one of the westerly coves in Lord Mayor's Bay, that was famous as a caribou crossing place in autumn. The people who frequented these northwesterly parts of the tribe's hunting grounds were called Kitamiut (those who live farthest west; the word

24

can also mean: those who live farthest out to sea, and in this case out in the extreme parts of the (iulf of Boothia).

On the place chosen for the summer depended their habitat for the whole year, for they were seldom able to travel long distances when the country was bare of snow, even if the dogs were used as beasts of burden by putting pack-saddles on them. But as a matter of fact this was not necessary, for round about the summer localities they made the caches of supplies that were to feed them during the winter if there was no fishing in the rivers and lakes, and where con- ditions for sealing were unfavourable for one reason or another.

As far as possible they always aimed at siting their main camp in the neighbourhood of one of the many rivers where fish abound. Trout were always more abundant and in their best condition in autumn, at the beginning of September, just when the ice began to form; consequently the stores of fish one could accumulate remained fresh throughout the winter. Fish caught in summer were split and dried; they were called pit) sit. They were familiar with the use of fish-hooks with a line of plaited sinew, but almost exclusively used the leister at the river bends or in "weirs", into which the shoals could be driven by damming the flow of the river with stones.

If caribou hunting and trout fishing had given good results they spent the whole of the dark period at the caches, and could cure all the caribou skins and make the winter clothing at their leisure. This was the women's busiest time and, if meat were plentiful, the men's holiday. They did nothing except eat, sleep, and hold song-feasts. Besides, there was an excuse for this idleness in the circumstance that the strict taboo to which the women were subjected in the period when working with caribou skins made it dangerous to go hunting.

When sealing, the method chiefly followed was breathing-hole hunting, and really might already be commenced in November if meat or blubber were wanting. If they did so, all the sewing work of the women would have to be concluded beforehand. But in years when caribou hunting and trout fishing had been successful they rarely started sealing until the beginning of March.

The Arviligjuarmiut, whose country lies right beyond the beaten tracks of whalers and traders, have from the very beginning ac- customed themselves to managing with the material the country gives them for tools, domestic utensils and weapons. Of course they often had to make long journeys to the territories of strange tribes, and the great shortage of timber in particular sometimes drove them out on toilsome and protracted "foreign travels".

The only material available in their own area was the soft soap- stone that is found in the interior, south of Pelly Bay, not far from

25

the tributary country of the great river. Of this tliev made lamps and cooking pots.

There was scarcely any wood at all. On account of the soft drift ice that is always lying out in the Gulf of Boothia the drift-wood never got into the fjord. Consequently they taught themselves to do without it as far as ever they could; long, slender harpoon shafts were fashioned out of caribou antler straightened out in hot water and joined together, piece by piece, until the proper length was ob- tained. They made tent poles in the same manner if they could not collect sufficient pieces of wood to join together to a suitable size.

The tents were made of pieced sealskin, and this tent sheet was called iktAq. When summer was over and they had no further use for the tent, they made sledge runners of it, for only the fewest pro- cured sledges of wood. The method of turning a tent into a sledge was this: the skins were placed in a lake and, when they had become thoroughly soaked, they were folded together a number of times and allowed to freeze in the shape of a sledge runner. Musk-ox skin was employed in the same manner. These runners of frozen skin were reinforced by laying trout or slices of meat in between the folds and allowing the whole to freeze into a firm block. In spring, when mild weather came and the sledges thawed and fell apart, the dogs were fed on the tent skins, while the owners themselves ate what was in them. Even the shoeing on these sledges was made as usual of peat-mud and ice. The cross slats were of antler tied together. I have often had the opportunity of seeing these peculiar sledges in use and saw that several hundred kilogrammes could be carried on them with ease, at any rate in the coldest winter time. They could not be used later than the end of the month of April, as then the power of the sun began to be too great. Therefore in May they constructed another kind of "sledges", this time consisting of the skin of a bear or a bearded seal. The load was laid inside the skin, which was tied up like a huge bundle and the hair, which of course was on the outside, glided easily over the snow. As a rule the snow is soft as soon as the sun begins to warm, so that the hair easily lasted whole of the spring season.

Another thing that caused a lot of trouble before they got hold of the white man's iron was sewing needles; these they made by splitting the hard wing bones of gulls or other birds, which had not to be too small. For sewing caribou-skin clothes these needles had to be very fine and thin; but for the thick soles that had to be sewn on to the watertight sealskin kamiks they had to be more like an eyeletteer in order to pierce the thick hard skin. With these thick sew- ing needles they used plaited caribou sinew which, when split, had the

26

excellent property that the stitches tightened of themselves as soon as the boots became wet.

For knives they used a whitish-yellow flint that was called havio- TArnAq. It was also used for ulos, the women's own knife. Often they had to be content with small, sharp flakes that were let into a horn handle to serve as a cutting edge. This si)ecial flint had to be brought far away from the regions about Back River. A harder flint, called kuki^jAq, likewise let into a piece of wood or antler, was used for drilling; it was so hard that it could bore holes in the light havio- rArnAq flint, which was also used for arrow heads, harpoon heads and the like. The drills themselves were worked in the usual way by means of a mouthpiece and a bow.

Fire was ignited with iriuErit, which was found near the sea at Arfertiitsiaq, west of Lord Mayor's Bay. They struck sparks, which fell on to cotton-grass or moss that had been prepared with fish oil so that it was inflammable.

For harpoon heads they often used antler with a blade of the hard tibia of the bear.

A very common household utensil was a large scoop or bowl, made of musk-ox horn and used both for drinking soup and for serving meat.

Thus with admirable ingenuity they succeeded in overcoming every difficulty; nevertheless, the most skilful hunters, who were able to accumulate large stores of meat, liked to undertake long jour- neys for the purpose of bartering for the precious things they longed for. Originally there were two trade routes to bring them in touch with distant tribes, from whom they could obtain either iron or wood for payment. One extended over the Rae Isthmus and Repulse Bay right down to Chesterfield where, before the later trading posts were established, they bartered knives from people who had been at Churchill, where a post had already been set up by the Hudson's Bay Company in 1717 — 18. The other route was via Back River to Saningajo]), the hinterland between Baker Lake and Lake Garry, and from there to Akilineq, the famous mountain range near Thelon River, which is referred to in greater detail in the description of the Caribou Eskimos, and where Eskimos from the interior and from Hudson Bay and the Arctic coast held great trade fairs. Their prin- cipal purchases there were timber for sledges and kayaks.

They were a hardy people who thought nothing of starting out on long sledge journeys, which might last years, simply to procure a luxury that they could very well do without. But on the other hand there was a sort of halo about the man who owned a knife or a

27

sledge of wood, and the woman who could sew her husband's clothing with a needle of iron or steel was the envy of all her sisters.

And then in the year 1829 it happened that a large ship suddenly hove in sight in Lord Mayor's Bay and lay up for the winter not far from the settlement of Sarfaq in Felix Harbour, which later re- ceived the name of Qavdlunårsiorfik (the place where one met white men). It was the Englishman John Ross's Polar expedition, and his wintering there in the northern district of the Arviligjuarmiut was to be of the very greatest significance to the implement-culture of these people; for to this very day they fetch iron from one of the expedition's other winter harbours, Victoria Harbour, whose Eskimo name is Qilanartut (literally: a joyful foretaste of something nice to come later; more freely it means: the beach of joyful hopes).

It is the general belief that the wrecked ships of the Franklin expedi- tion have been of great service to the Eskimos of the Northwest Pas- sage and particularly remedied their lack of wood and iron for a long time. It is a fact, however, that Franklin's ships were crushed by the ice, even if at first they were found by the Eskimos, still un- damaged but abandoned by their crews. I will revert later to the traditions that still live among the Netsilingmiut about this expedition, and will at this point simply state that the Franklin ships have never provided the Eskimos with much material. On the other hand the population right from Committee Bay to Hudson Bay and to Back River, from King William's Land to Kent Peninsula, have had imple- ments of wood and iron that could definitely be traced back to the John Ross Expedition.

The Arviligjuarmiut still had many recollections of their first meeting with white men, and the sober manner in which they told of these experiences, now almost a hundred years old, is good evidence of how reliable the Eskimos can be as narrators if only they have to do with people that understand them. I emphasize this here be- cause it is not uncommon that travellers assert that an Eskimo can be made to say almost anything. This quite unwarranted accusation is effectively discounted through the following accounts:

They tell that John Ross's ship was first seen early in the winter by a man named Aviluktoq, who was out sealing; when he caught sight of the great ship lying like a rock out in the middle of a small bay, his curiosity at first made him approach to see what it could be; for he had never noticed it before. But when he saw the ship's high masts he thought it was a great spirit and fled. All that evening and night the men considered what they should do, but as they were afraid that the big spirit might destroy them if they did not forestall

28

it, they set out next day to attack it, armed with harpoons and bows. Then they discovered that human tigurcs were walking about it, and they hid behind a block of ice lo see what sort of people these could be. They had heard of kinsmen who in far distant lands had met white men, but they themselves had never done so. However, the figures round the ship had also seen them and made their way over the ice towards the ice blocks behind which they were hiding. They saw at once that the strangers must be the famous white men of whom tliey had heard so much talk and who were said to have come from the offspring of a girl in their own country and a dog. All the Arviligjuarmiut now wished to show that they were not afraid, and came out from their place of concealment. The white men at once laid their weapons on the ice, and the Eskimos followed suit. The meeting was a cordial one, with both embraces and what each party took to be assurances of friendship, for of course they could not understand a word of each other's tongue. The Eskimos went along with this great, wonderful ship and received precious gifts such as nails, sewing needles and knives, in fact everything that they could not get in the country itself. And the white men seemed to have such an abundance of wood that they could even live in it — indeed, however incredible it may sound, they lived in a hollowed-out floating island of wood that was full of iron and everything else that was precious in their own country.

This was the first meeting. Later on they often came together and the Eskimos vied with each other in accompanying them on journeys and assisting them in a region that they knew inside out. They were very fond of going journeys with them. One of the big chiefs on the ship (the second in command James Ross) they called Aglugkaq (he who takes the long strides), for he always seemed to be in a hurry and was impatient to advance quickly on all his travels. Among the Arviligjuarmiut, who practically became related to the white men and oftenest accompanied them when travelling, they still remember the names of them; there were Iggiararssuk (little throat), Aglituktoq (the one who is unclean before the spirits), Niugitsoq (the good walker) and Ingnagssanajuk (the half-old).

When the strangers went away they left large quantities of wood, iron, nails, anchor chains, iron hoops and other valuables which to this day are used for knives, arrow heads, harpoon heads, salmon leisters, caribou lances, and hooks. Once a mast drifted ashore, and of it they made sledges, kayaks and harpoons. The mast was split up by first making saws of barrel hoops; this took the whole of the summer and autumn, but time was not of much consequence if only they were able to utilize the valuable wood.

Mountainous landscape at the head of Pelly Bay, with our snow hiil in the fore- ground. A splendid trout stream runs through the gully.

The sahnoii Iroul we hought of Orpingalik. The cache was close lo Ihe gully in the picture above. (See p. 17).

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Of the Franklin Expedition, too — although it was lost fai" from their own hunting grounds — they have interesting memories, but these will be recounted under King WilUam's Land together with other Franklin traditions.

Of other white men who have been within their territory they re- membered John Rae's visit in 1847. He was seen at the island of Qorvigjuaq (the great piss-pot) in Pelly Bay by Huluni (the wing), the father of Iggiarårssuk's wife. The intercourse was but short; Rae was in a hurry and they could not talk with him. That was the time when Rae was out on his lirst charting expedition from Gibson Cove in Repulse Bay, where he had arrived in a boat from York Factory. Rae's next visit, when he was out picking up news of the Franklin Expedition in 1854, was also remembered, and this despite the fact that on this occasion he merely passed the fjord. In exactly the same way they speak of Hall's visit in 1864, and as evidence they not only give the names of his Eskimo companions from Repulse Bay: his adoptive son Joe and the following Arviligjuarmiut: Arolaq (?), Iloråt- juk (the little trout) and Niuvitsiaq (the one who is always ready to make a bargain), but the names of the men from Pelly Bay who met them are preserved, viz. Qarpik (wolverine), Talerigtoq (strong arm) and Anatlaq (vigorous evacuation).

And finally there was Schwatka's wintering on King William's Land in 1879, in connection with which they also remember the names of his companions from Chesterfield and can even indicate Pingorsaq (the ridge) on the west side of King William's Land as the place where the expedition shot most caribou.

I must admit there is nothing particularly exciting about these experiences, but perhaps just because of that they provide good testi- mony of the good memories and trustworthiness of the Eskimos. These encounters with white men have been quite en passant, and there has not been time to learn to know the people they mention in the slightest; and yet so many, many years afterwards they preserve the traditions of their experiences with unembellished and sober reliability. If the particular reports of these expeditions are turned up the ancient verbal traditions \vi\\ be found to be in the best agreement with the books.

Our stay in Pelly Bay could only be of short duration, having regard to our journey to the west; but in the days from the thirteenth to the twentythird of April I had, as a matter of fact, obtained what I wanted. The infrequent contact of these people with the whites was the cause of their still having a great many interesting ethnographic curiosities, and these were acquired for our collections. I also secured a satisfactory insight into their material and intellectual culture and,

Vol. VIII. Nr. 1 3

30

when Ihc day ol' our loavc-taking arrived, it was with a keen feeling that I had really learned to know new people. The last day was cele- hrated with various sports, in which shooting arrows at snow figures fashioned in the form of men and women was extremely effective. 1 observed that while the arrow strikes with fatal force at a distance of about a hundred metres, accuracy was very slight at this range. Keal marksmanship was only shown at from twenty to thirty metres. Most of the men had firearms too, and this of course means a slacken- ing off in their archery. Still, all the musk ox-hunts last autumn at Lake Simpson, resulting in a bag of twenty to thirty animals, had been with the bow and arrow.

The evening was brought to a close in a very dramatic fashion. I received a visit from a man named Uvdloriasugssuk (the big star), who had come from his camp a day's journey to the northwest. He was a big, broad-shouldered man with a long, black beard, which gave him a peculiar wild appearance. His voice was like a deep rumbling, and when he spoke he expressed himself so slowly that every little word fell with great weight. He proved to be an miusually trustworthy man, with the best of reputations among his countrymen; and yet he had shot his own brother last winter. It was on that very subject that he wished to speak to me.

His countrymen, he explained, were often apt to have a bad con- science whenever they met white men; he was not one of these people, and even if he had the deepest respect for the white man, the latter was seen so rarely in this country that it was necessary to live one's life according to the customs and habits of its i)eople. He had had a brother Arnartåq (the new woman), who had a difficult and passionate temper. A year ago this brother had killed one of the men in the settle- ment while in a fit of temper, although there was no enmity between them at all. When he had these fits of anger he threatened everyone who came near to him, and he had also stabbed his wife with a knife several times, but without wounding her mortally. A man like that was dangerous to his surroundings, and therefore people had made up their minds that he should die. It was a village decision, to which was attached the peculiarity that people considered it natural for the brother, who was the oldest in the family, to execute the sentence. It had been very hard for Uvdloriasugssuk to do this; but, like the others, he had looked vipon it as his duty. And so one day he had gone in to his brother and explained what had been decided, and begged him to choose between knife, seal thong (hanging) or gun. His brother had elected to die by bullet and had then been shot without moving from where he was or exhibiting any sign of fear. It was this he wished to tell me; I thanked him for the trust he had put in me.

31

and had to concede to him that under those conditions in a village where mutual trust was bound to be a necessitj'. scarcely anything else could have been done.

We had spent a couple of hours discussing the many problems that may arise when a man lives the life of an Eskimo in freedom under his own responsibility, when we were interrupted in a manner least expected. It was my friend the shaman and spirit-drawer Anar- qåq, who came in to ask me to help him in his wooing for the executed man's widow, who had not married again. He added significantly that he had tried twice to court her, but had been rejected. After con- sulting with Uvdloriasugssuk 1 took the matter up with the coy woman, who bore the coquettish name of "the big lap". It was not the first time I had had a task of this kind among Eskimos, so that it was not a matter of difficulty for me to deal with it in a firm manner. I explained to the woman that she was no longer quite young and that therefore she had a duty to her little son — the apple of her eye. Anar- qåq was a young man who would be given a gun as soon as he had completed his journey with us, and I had no need to tell her that this was a circumstance well worth taking into consideration. Her family were decidedly in favour of the marriage, and as I believed it to be the best policy not to be too eager, I counselled the zealous suitor to control himself a little until everything was in order. Nor did our tactics fail; late in the evening Anarqåq received a visit in his snow hut, and with this the marriage was solemnized.

Next morning we departed on our various ways.

Igsivalitaq, who had been with us all the time, went with his wife and foster-son to the mountains south of the settlement. Though seal- ing was most profitable just then, he was not at his ease here on the highway where he might be surprised by the Mounted Police. No one knew where he would pitch his camp. The last thing he told us was that he intended to snare marmots, which with the warmth of the sun were now emerging from their winter lairs by the river banks.

Amulet collections at the Magnetic North Pole.

One day, while we lay in Pelly Bay east of Boothia Isthmus, two men came running out of the blizzard and suddenly stood in front of the snow hut. It was a terrible storm, in which nobody would be out, and these two men, coming here without sledge or dog, with only their great snow-knives in their hands, created such a surprise by their appearance out in that raw cold that they almost seemed to

32

lis like naked mcMi who had lost their way and now stood knocking a I the door of our snow hut for admission.

They crept inside tlie hut and got warmed through and, when Ihey had eaten their fill, their tongues were loosened. They were two brothers from the magnetic north pole, and they were out with a load of fox skins which they wanted to sell for two old guns to the people at Pelly Bay, who traded with Repulse Bay. The younger of the brothers was to continue the journey while the elder one, Qaqor- tingneq by name (he who has turned white), was going home at once. He had therefore temporarily left his two wives and a foster-son a little way from our camp.

We immediately decided to accompany him back to his country, and that the wives should be brought to our hut without delay. Two hours later the whole family was assembled, and the women proved to be both young and pretty. Evidently Qaqortingneq wanted to make a good impression upon us, at the same time wishing to emphasize the value of his wives as womankind. Therefore as soon as we asked what their names were, he seized the opportunity to tack the neces- sary information on to their names.

"This is Quertilik (she with a cataract in her eye), my most costly wife", he said. "I paid a sledge of wood for her".

We all felt most impressed at this unheard-of price, because we knew that sledges in these regions were usually of a more perishable material, Qaqortingneq obtained the effect he had aimed at, for now we quite disregarded his wife's beauty and reckoned with her value alone.

The slightly older wife Qiingaq (the smile) had been bought for a lump of lead and an old file; but, gallant as the man was, he added that her cheapness was the result of extraordinary circumstances; for on the very day she had been joined to him her former husband had died of hunger and she herself was helpless, having no one to provide for her.

It was now the turn of the foster-son to be introduced. He was called Angutisugssuk (the male) — a modestly smiling young man — and as far as he was concerned Qaqortingneq explained that he had been born a twin and had been adopted at birth. It was the custom to kill one of the twins, but in this case, in view of the fact that he was a boy, he had been sold for a kayak and a cooking pot.

The bargain over the fox skins was settled during the course of the night, and for a collection of variegated beads I succeeded in ob- taining a blue fox for our zoological specimens. Early next morning we packed up and shaped a course across Franklin Isthmus. We hunted our way slowly through the great river bed that runs between

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Pelly Bay on the east and Shepherd Bay on the west, our goal being a snow-hut camp of NetsiHk Eskimos living on the ice between King William's Land and Boothia Isthmus.

Our partnership with Qaqortingneq was sealed by our taking him and both his wives on our sledges, while his own sledge, which was drawn by five dogs, was supplemented by two of our dogs and driven by the foster-son Angutisugssuk.

We drove up over Kugarssuaq, a wide, river-like stream winding its way between high banks in a hilly landscape, among gneiss moun- tains two to three hundred metres high, up towards the lake Ariaq (Lake Simpson), whence it was our intention to head for Shepherd Bay just north of Murchison River. Althougli it was April, the first days were wintery and with a cutting wind, but soon the temperature rose to -f- 8 ^ C, and the snow hut gave place to the tent. We enjoyed the mild spring weather and still took things easy, concluding the short day journey with exciting caribou hunts. Day by day we saw the migrating animals in large and small herds of from five to twenty- five. The snow began to melt on the sunny side of the hills, and down on the river we already found water over the ice in some places, where we could lie down and slake the thirst that always torments the traveller in warm weather. When we got over the coast moun- tains the character of the landscape became that of a plateau which, on the route we followed, centered about Kugarssuaq in the form of gently sloping, stony rises. We passed the one remarkable hill in the neighbourhood of Simpson Lake; it is domed in form and at the middle is divided by a cleft which gives it the name of Iviangernat (the female breasts). Curiously enough, when a boy at Jakobshavn 1 went ptarmigan shooting daily to a hill of the same name.

At Simpson Lake we came across deserted snow huts and staging of snow on which three kayaks had been deposited. Inside the huts were musk-ox skins waiting to be taken away. Not only do the Arvilig- juarmiut hunt caribou in late summer and autumn in this neigh- bourhood, but the country roUnd about is famous among the Eskimos because it is the only region where it is profitable to methodically hunt the musk-ox, taking the hunters right up towards Hayes River on the north-east of Back River.

On the third of May w^e camped on the north of Murchison River and climbed a ridge in order to reconnoitre. We found ourselves in the midst of an enormous plain running out to Shepherd Bay. The monotonous, dazzlingly white surface makes an indelible impression of infiniteness; only here and there were a few isolated hills, small gneiss knolls jutting up like seal heads in a sea. Otherwise the broad, deep bed of the river is all the variation visible; high sandy clay

34

slopes follow the line as far as the eye can see, and the loose, newly- fallen snow was patterned everywhere with the spoor of caribou. Every day we shot a couple of them for ourselves and the dogs, and the evenings and nights we spent round the open camp fire which we fed with Cassiope whenever the weather was calm. We learned to know our new companions and, as we became their friends, glided imperceptibly into the life of the tribe.

Qaqoringneq is an intelligent man, a first-rate map drawer with a thorough local knowledge of the whole land territory of the Netsilik Eskimos, and, when we were alone and undisturbed, I utilized the time in pursuing my enquiries. His two young wives seemed to get on very well together and filled the camp with their chatter and merry outbursts of laughter. They became good friends at once with the two Greenlanders and it was touching to see them beautifying our tent and making it comfortable. Quite involuntarily we had all been smitten with a care-free feeling and thought it lovely to live just at the spot where we chanced to have encamped. Consequently it was almost with reluctance that we at last set off over the sea ice to find Qaqortingneq's fellow villagers, who had changed their hunting ground since he left for Pelly Bay. The great plain merges so smooth- ly into the sea ice that only a narrow crack in the snow announced that we were proceeding from land over the tidal fissure to Shepherd Bay. Not a hint of ice foot or any pack-ice marks the line between the coast and salt water.

At last, on the evening of the fifth of May, our dogs smelt some- thing, and Qaqortingneq demanded a halt at once. Then he leaped forward and caught sight of a long line of seal skulls laid on the ice, with the noses all pointing in a certain direction. We were ordered to make a wide detour round these skulls and, once well past them, he explained to us that in this region it is believed that the dwelling- place of the soul is the head, and that the soul has everlasting life, living again from hunt to hunt, so that a man may kill the same seal rhany times. And so, when one moves from an old camp to a new one, the skulls must be set out in a certain manner, the noses turning towards the new hunting ground; for then the seals can follow from place to place, and man will not suffer want.

To us this peculiar form of practical zoology was a compass show- ing the direction we had to follow to find the people we sought.

After an hour or two's run we came across the first shelter-walls on the new hunting ground. First a few footprints, then a bewildering number. In that blowy weather it was a great art, even for Qaqorting- neq, to find the proper direction, but none of us would give up — we manoeuvred from footprint to footprint in various directions, just

35

like ships tacking in a gale. The dogs became more and more bewild- ered by this apparently aimless changing of course after course, until about eleven o'clock they scented the village. For a whole hour they held the scent in their nostrils and at midnight we drove right up into the white village, where everything was fast asleep. Howling and terrified, the local mongrels fled from this invasion of heavily laden sledges and masterful, baying dogs.

Round about the village lay big blocks of snow, not in the form of a wall but like staging, on which outstretched sealskins were drying. Evidently the people at Kuggup-Panga (river mouth) needed no walls; but in front of the huts were big, sharp hunting implements and harpoons, stuck into the snow, and long snow-knives had been set up in the wall just over the door — all for keeping away the evil spirits. Despite the primitiveness of the village our impression was that of an organized community. Yet it was easy to see that white man's things were rare in this land; at any rate, we knew that no white man had been here since Roald Amundsen was in these regions more than twenty years before, and that the people who did not meet him were quite unfamiliar with our race. By this I mean all the young people of twenty-five years and under. Therefore it was only natural that I felt some anxiety as to the reception they would give me.

The thing was now to rouse up as many houses as possible at the same time. For the more men we pulled out of their sleep, the more helpers we would have to build a snow hut, and so Angutisugssuk and I crept at once into one of the nearest snow huts where his mother and stepfather lived.

"We've got white men visitors", shouted Angutisugssuk excitedly.

They seemed to sleep with an easy conscience, for he had to shout again before the snores became howls. Angutisugssuk's mother leaped up from a bundle of dirty skins, her greasy hair thick with caribou hair, knelt on the platform and bared her breast, whilst Angutisugssuk jumped over to her and kissed it. This was a son's greeting to his mother on returning from a distance. Amid this filthy dwelling this recognition of affinity — the son's homage to the maternal breast — was doubly affecting to me.

In the course of time 1 have become accu.stomed to much un- tidiness and filth, but here I opened my eyes. Over by the side plat- form close to the sleeping rugs lay a pile of seal meat and blubber, which seemed to shine again in all the greasy faces that appeared in the house. The lamp, which in spite of the abundance of blubber had been extinguished, was relighted, and only then did I really see the naked bodies. Here it was not dirt, it was layers, and the short-clipped hair was miry with train-oil.

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My first impression was lhat ears and brow at the roots of the hair and the neck were full of sores, but this too proved to be deposits of dirt. Still, our new acquaintance had to be commenced, and now everything was smiles and hospitality.

I had spoken long with them when suddenly they asked me where the white man was, and when I told them that they were speaking to him, they were inclined to disbelieve. A little boy — the amulet boy Tutaq — had to be wakened out of his infant slumber to see a being he had never seen before, and, while the seal meat was being put to boil over the lamp, we went out to unload the sledges. And I arrived just in time to witness the manner in which Nalungiaq (the infant) received her daughter Quertilik.

Out amidst the furious snowstorm she lifted up her clothes so that her breasts were bared, and little Quertilik did homage to her origin with a long, fervent kiss.

The whole village was now awake and a procession of all the women moved towards our sledges. To my astonishment they walked in single file and they all looked so grave that for a moment I was at a loss. Without uttering a word they walked at one another's heels round all our sledges and dogs, and then immediately discarded their gravity and formality to partake in the general rejoicings at our arrival.

Why did they do that? I was unable to refrain from enquiring, although I knew that one ought always to curb one's curiosity where religious ceremonies are concerned. I was given a strange explanation that well expresses the cautiousness of these people in the face of the enigmatical dangers of life.

Every stranger coming from a place far off cuts a trail in to the settlement he visits. This sledge trail, surrounded as it is by the tracks of dog and man, is like the wake behind good and evil. We humans must not rest content alone with what we can see; the air is full of mysterious and invisible spirits who may have joined company with us without our knowing it. It is therefore necessary that all the women at a settlement w^ho have gone through child-birth — and are therefore especially vulnerable to the attacks of spirits, should cut a circle round about sledges and dogs; this confuses the spirits, who remain inside this ring of footprints and thus lose the way to the settlement.

This ceremony over, all the men of the village offered their ser- vices for the building of snow huts, and with a display of great skill and much joking the house was erected in the time we others took to unload the sledges and stow away our baggage for the night. Scar- cely were we under our own roof when two gigantic seals were dragged up in front of the hut and cut up by the donors themselves.

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Everybody, both men and dogs, had to celebrate our arrival among "the people of the mouth of the great river".

It was quite early the next day, and we were still lying outstretched in our best sleep, when suddenly we were roused to wakefulness by Niaqunuaq's (the little head) overturning the block of snow that closed the doorway and leaping in. He was in a trance, spoke in a shrill fal- setto, and, taking up a position in front of Qaqortingneq, informed him in a singing, atfected tone that during the night he had been visited by his helping spirits, who told him that Qaqortingneq had eaten salmon entrails while travelling with us.

We had come from a place where great quantities of salmon had been caught, and all had noticed that we still had fresh frozen salmon on the sledges. No delicacy is appreciated more than raw, frozen sal- mon entrails, and so Niaqunuaq, who was a zealous shaman, could safely accuse our fellow-traveller of having olfended against his taboo; and salmon entrails are strictly taboo in the period when seals are being hunted at the breathing holes.

Gasping for breath Niaqunuaq jumped about on the beaten snow floor, weeping and threatening in turn. He knew it, he knew it! Qaqor- tingneq as usual had been careless, and now the hunters of the village would be unfortunate! He spoke in his own shaman tongue, which I only learned later, so it was not much of his sermon that I understood. Instead, I made use of the opportunity to get the primus going and the coffee pot set over the flame. My manæuvre was not without effect, for scarcely had the water begun to boil and the fragrance of the coffee reached Niaqunuaq's nostrils when, with a loud cry of woe, he broke off his seance. What he had said had only been out of love, and Qaqortingneq, who lay silent on the platform with the blush of gnaw- ing conscience over his face, was offered the chance of purchasing the absolution of his spirits by making a small present to their frail mouthpiece.

But it was not long before our good strong coffee seemed to have a tranquilizing effect on the shaman; he ceased talking in his high- pitched falsetto — to the relief of our ears — and when he left us after a stout breakfast he had been transformed into a homely old man who had simply let his tongue run loose and was not a bit shy of telling other folks what an interesting person he really was.

The rest of the day passed in paying visits from hut to hut. I soon perceived that this was a hunting camp pure and simple. There were in all twenty-three peoi)le, and for the moment they had no other thought than sealing, and — it would have been more con- venient for me to meet them later in the year when they had settled down on King William's Land. So 1 made up my mind instead to

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go out and collect amulets at the villages round about the magnetic north pole, where numbers of people were said to live.

First of all some arrangements had to be made for the coming spring. After the journey northwards I wanted to go to "Big Fish River", where the people had never been described and only seen by travellers passing through the region, the last occasion being Schwat- ka's expedition in 1879. I had also heard that members of a small tribe living right up by Bellot Strait (between Boothia Peninsula and Somerset Island) might be met with in the vicinity of King William's Land at the end of spring, and as I had to take into consideration that the ice covering the rivers running out into Queen Maud Gulf might break up quickly, I had to be equipped ready to pass the sum- mer wherever the work presented the best possibilities. The further east I travelled, the better would the people be known, and the closer would I be to the influence of civilization. Here in the heart of the Northwest Passage — in the world's most inaccessible region — I would have much better chances.

One should never be slow in recasting one's plans, and therefore the following arrangements were made during the course of the after- noon: the Greenlander Qåvigarssuaq was to drive forward together with a Netsilik to Kent Peninsula, where the Hudson's Bay Company has a post. The collections that we had made so far were to be freighted there on the good spring ice, and his return load was to consist of various things that I needed. In particular, a good many people round about here had guns, but no ammunition, and it was difficult to wotk with them without being able to help them with some of their necess- aries. Our stock of ammunition, intended for ourselves alone, had already been depleted on account of this fact. While I drove to the big snow-hut camp, Qåvigarssuaq would have the opportunity of giving his dogs a good rest, and also of feeding them up on the seals that he would hunt himself. At the same time Arnaruliinguaq would get our spring clothing ready so that we would be equipped to meet the sun and the summer heat.

The subject that I was mostly interested in for the time being was the study of the amulets of the Netsilik ; for I have never seen so many in use in any tribe as among these people.

On the eleventh of May my arrangements were all made; I took leave of my companions and headed north over Rae Strait. My com- panion was a man by the name of Alorneq (sole of the foot), a merry fellow whose gums were always dry with smiling.

There was no knowing in advance where we would find people; no one knows where people are in spring, when sealing is pursued at the breathing holes. For the present we would round Matty Island on

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the north side and go right up into Wellington Strait to find sledge tracks; only then could we begin to search. But it was hard to find the way up there and to keep a definite course. The compass was useless on account of the proximity of the magnetic north pole, and it was almost always impossible to distinguish the low country round the southeast coast of King William's Land and Franklin Isthmus from the sea ice, and the very few hills were always shrouded in thick snowy atmosphere. Without a landmark of any kind we drove for two days in the same direction; we obtained a slight glimpse of the southwest coast of Boothia Isthmus, and on the third day continued up through Ross Strait, where people were known to have been earlier on in the winter. There was a fresh northeaster blowing as we passed the north coast of Matty Island, and in Wellington Strait we began to keep a look out for bears, which not infrequently come here to catch seals.

White clouds drove quickly and ever-changing over our heads, and there, where the whole country is so tediously uniform and flat, we were interested to see all the fantastic pictures that the wind, the clouds and the sun painted over the vault of the heavens. Never do I remember having seen so many cloud fantasies; it was as if the sky were continually being decorated by a lightning artist who immediately erased what he had just created.

We were just opposite the magnetic north pole when we perceived some deserted snow huts. Here at last were the people we sought. We followed the trail and from time to time passed the pathetic settings of seal skulls that showed the way to the inhabited huts; first we came to five huts, then three, then to twelve, and to twelve again.

Alorneq was a tracker no less skilful than Qaqortingneq had been a few days before. His faculty of observation was marvellous. He recog- nized people from the way their snow huts were built, how they had slept on the platform, and from their footprints, and thus we knew, long before we had met them, whom it was we were looking for. At two o'clock in the morning we thought that both the dogs and we had earned a few hours' rest, and we had just time to build a hut before the storm that was looming even the day before broke over us.

At eleven o'clock the same morning we set to, and although we could scarcely see more than a yard or two ahead on account of the thickly falling snow we broke camp, as the wind was with us. It was to be a curious sort of sledge-drive, for the sledge was mostly ahead of the dogs creeping timidly forward over the ice, fearing to be blown away. Face, eyes, nose, mouth and hair were so encrusted with fine snow that we could barely see. Now and then we could find the trail by lying flat down and scraping the snow away. And when

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Alorneq ran ahead with his nose right down on the trail it took all my strength to keep dogs and sledge back. At precisely five o'clock the whole team snddenly disappeared from the surface of the ice and, when we took a closer look, we found that they had rushed into a house-passage, and we were in the middle of the very settlement that we had been trying for days to find.

In that storm, of course, no one noticed our arrival, but Alorneq went from door to door and bawled our names in every one of them; and then they all came crawling out of the warm drifts — glad, sur- prised, and overflowing with the helpfulness that one sorely needs on a day like that.

By means of a double construction of snow mounds we succeeded in building a snow hut, for we had first to raise high shelter-walls in order to handle the snow at all without its blowing away from us.

Now I was to commence making my big collection of amulets. But I realised that this was an undertaking that required the utmost caution. In the name of science 1 was to attempt to purchase from the natives all these innocent little sacred things that they wore, and I was to do it in such a manner that later on, when I had gone, they would have no occasion for blaming me for the misfortunes that might visit the settlement.

The religion of these people is based upon a constant fight against evil, invisible spirits who interfere in their daily life in a variety of ways, but especially by means of sickness and bad hunting. To pro- tect themselves against all these perils they have only their amulets in combination with their taboo and their magic formulas. I knew that my task was a most delicate one, and that everything would be spoiled if I advanced too precipitately. So I spent the whole of the first day carrying out the obligatory social duties, apparently without ulterior thoughts. I went from house to house and ate as many festive meals of frozen salmon, the contents of caribou stomachs, and seal meat as I could manage at all. There is not so much difference in people as is generally believed — to gain your neighbour's confidence you must eat with him. It was some time before they would ack- nowledge me as a white man, for they believed I was one of the Eskimo traders from Victoria Land. But for once I had use for white man's authority and told them at great length about the far-away country that I came from.

In the meantime I had got Alorneq to unpack all my trade goods in our snow hut. There were lovely, shining sewing needles — removed from the packets to look more imposing in bulk; there were knives, files, thimbles, nails, tobacco, matches — all those elementary trifles that are so natural to us, but of great value to people out of touch

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with civilization. I was pleased to notice that there was a "run" on the snowdrift where I had set up house, and 1 was sure that they had all come just to see my display.

1 brought the evening to a close in company with tlie oldest man in the village, a famous old shaman who had led a hard and venture- some life in the lee of the great respect in which he was held, but now was bent with age and toil. He was lying on his sleeping bench and smiled to me as I entered. There was a brilliance over his face that at first made me think he was sufTering from .some skin disease, but it soon turned out that he had washed himself in blubber oil for the occasion of the distinguished visit he was expecting. We discussed the gravest religious problems, and he was not long in realizing that I was just as well versed in the mysterious forces of life as he him- self. For preference 1 dwelt upon the miraculous powers of amulets, and was able to tell him of experiences quite novel to him, observed during my sojourn among distant tribes. Thus we parted in mutual esteem as colleagues of equal merit.

When 1 returned home late in the evening I found the place crowded with men and women. They had all brought trade goods; some of them had white fox skins, others wolverine skins, pieces of bear skin, seal skins and many other articles that were current among traders. There was a murmur of disappointment in the hut when 1 informed them at once that 1 was no trader in the ordinary sense.

I told them I had come to learn the habits and customs of strange tribes and that I had now come to visit them because I knew that they had the most powerful amulets of all Eskimo peoples. I explained that I came from a country that was so far away that all their taboos could be raised without the slightest risk where my person was con- cerned. And then I delivered a short and ceremonious address on amulets and their use, supporting my views — apart from referring to my conversation with their local oracle — on quotations by famous shamans in other lands whose names they now heard for the first time but which nevertheless added considerable weight to my words. 1 emphasized as strongly as I could that, in the opinion of their own shaman, the owner was not deprived of the protection of his amulet even if he lost it. The power of an amulet was magically attached to the person who had worn it since he was a child. Therefore my prin- cipal argument was based upon the circumstance that when a man lost an amulet, which disappeared and was of no further use at all, it still protected him, and therefore the same must be the case with the amulet that brought its owner a real advantage through trade. Nevertheless, 1 did not wish to wear the amulets myself; 1 had no use for their magic power, but simply the object and the history that was

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associated with it. And I only wished to lake them with me in order to show them to my countrymen.

It was evident that this form of trading took them unawares and was something quite new to them; but it was in vain that they proffered their pelts to me; I was inflexible and simply pointed to my stock with a careless remark that it was now up to them whether wo should trade next day or not. Then I asked our visitors to leave the hut, as both Alorneq and I were tired and needed rest. Through a peep-hole in the snow wall I could see how they all went in small groups down to the old shaman, whose confidence and sympathy I knew I had already won.

We slept long, and the day was well advanced before we removed the block of snow that is walled into the entrance at night when the inmates of a house wish to sleep. It is considered bad form to pay a call at a house before it is removed.

Alorneq and I made tea and ate seal meat, but despite the hospit- ably open entrance to our snow hut no one came. I had already begun to look upon my case as being hopeless when a young girl, who had discovered that I also had some beads, came to the doorway and seemed to hesitate to crawl inside. We called to her, and then she crept in through the passage with all the amulets she wore for the protection of her future son. Women rarely wear amulets for their own protection. The Eskimo view is that it is the man and not the women who has to fight the battle of life, and the natural conse- quence is that even little girls of five or six years wear amulets in- tended to protect the sons they will have some day; for the older an amulet is, the more powerful is it.

This young girl, whose name was Kuseq (the drop), handed me a small bag of skin in which she had placed all the amulets which up to a few moments ago she had worn in various places on her inner and outer jacket. I emptied the bag of its contents: insignificant and curious, mouldy objects that smelt horribly and bore not the slightest indication of the sacred, protecting power they represented. I drew a long, black swan's beak out of the bag and asked her what it was for. She was inexpressibly bashful and dear when she cast her eyes down and answered: "So that the first child I have may be a boy".

Then came a ptarmigan head, to which a ptarmigan foot was tied; that she said, meant that the boy would have the properties of a ptarmigan and become a fast and untiring runner when hunting caribou. A bear's tooth gave a powerful bite and good digestion; an ermine skin, with the skull tied to the skin of the head, meant strength and adroitness; a little flounder was protection against dangers when meeting strange tribes.

43

That was all she dared part with. She still had one or two, but wanted to retain them in case of accidents. In the meantime quite a number of young men and women had come in, and they now stood giggling around her and making her still more embarrassed. But their mocking smiles disappeared when they saw what she got in return; for we gave her not only beads sufficient to make a neck- lace, but two sewing needles and a shiny thimble. When she left me without quite successfully concealing her pleasure at the bargain she had made, and as all the others who had just laughed at her now disappeared headlong out of the hut, I knew that Kuseq's innocent little fall from grace was just the service I needed to make the others do the same.

For the next two hours there was such a run on my house that I really began to fear that the blocks of snow would be burst from their bond, and before bed-time I was able to announce "sold out" in my improvised shop; but in return I had several hundred amulets that were unique of their kind.

Among those that were considered to be of most value and re- curred most frequently the tern was the bold and unfailing fisher; the foot of a great northern diver, which made a man a skilful kayak rower; a raven's head and claws, which ensured good shares during a hunt, because the raven has the peculiarity of always being present where the quarry is brought down; teeth of a caribou, worn in the clothing, make a good caribou hunter; a bee with all its progeny sewn into a piece of skin and fastened to the hood gives a strong head; a fly, which gives invulnerability because a fly is difficult to hit, and a water-beetle, which gives strong temples. One of the few amulets that were intended for women was the scaly stripe on a salmon skin; it gave small and strong stitches when sewing.

Alorneq and I then packed the amulets away as carefully as we could, while all the information and explanations about them were entered in my diary; afterwards we made ready to depart at dawn, but certainly had not expected that the old shaman at the last moment would step in with all his authority as an oracle.

Darkness was just turning into the first white haze of morning when we heard the creaking of snow and voices; it was the old shaman who had got his son to push him over to our snow hut on a sledge and now wanted to speak to me. He came in, and while we partook of a simple meal he explained that, trusting to his impression of me, he had been among those who had induced their children and grandchildren to sell amulets to me. White men's goods were rare in those regions. But even if our theories regarding the amulets were

44

undoubtedly right, it nevertheless remained an incontrovertible fact that an amulet was an amulet, and that amulets were sacred property. According to all that I had told them of the long journeys I had made and the innumerable tribes of both white men and Eskimos I had visited, I must possess a special power over life that enabled me to do all this. The part of a man that has the greatest growing power was the hair, and therefore he suggested that in order to avert the anger of incalculable spirits I should give a lock of my hair to all those who had sold anndets to me.

1 recognised at once that the man was right, but on the other hand it was in the middle of the cold winter and of some inportance to me not to leave the settlement quite bald-headed. So we agreed that those who had given me the most valuable amulets should have some of my hair I explained to him — and he admitted the truth of it — that parts of one's clothing were also useful as amulets, and therefore, besides my hair I placed an old fur jacket and a shirt at their disposal. This completed all the formalities, and during the course of the fore- noon this old man, whose name was Itqilik, distributed my fur jacket and shirt in small pieces, we checking the list of the amulets received in my diary. It was only for the most powerful amulets that he gave them any of my hair, this process being carried out in the somewhat ungentle manner that he hacked off a tuft with a blunt hunting knife; scissors were unknown in the settlement.

When at last we emerged from these ceremonies my appearance was not exactly in conformity with civilized ideas of how a gentleman should look.

Finally at noon we succeeded in setting off to the accompaniment of cries of farewell from the villagers, and I knew that I had not only acquired a unique collection but that I was leaving friends who were convinced that I had given more than I had taken.

This reconnoitring journey, which in the light nights on the easily traversed spring ice enabled me to cover long distances in a short time, took me not only north of the magnetic north pole but also along the whole of the north and northwest side of King William's Land, so that I made a good survey of the hunting grounds of the Netsilingmiut in these regions. A few other snow-hut camps were visited, and at them all I concentrated on procuring a collection of amulets which will be described in greater detail later on.

It was already clear to me that it would mean much to my work if the greatest possible number of people would settle on King Wil- liam's Land in the event of my spending the summer there; and hap- pily, my new friends had minds so easily influenced that they made

Ni^'lajok. tlie IkuuIsoiik' son of Oipingnlik. from Polly Bay.

The shaman Niaqiinuaq from King William's Land. The brow-band, of the while belly skin of a caribou and decorated in front wilh beads, is a sign of his dig- nity as a shaman.

One of our baggage sledges loaded with specimens and trade-goods. It is of the Hudson Bay type, 6 m long, with a shoeing of mud and ice.

The same sledge, laden with ethnographic collections from King William's Land.

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no objection to cancelling all their previous arrangements for a whole year if only this brought them into the company of strangers who amused them. Although most of them should have gone over to Boothia Isthmus, they promised to come ashore at the various great fishing centres on King William's Land itself. Thus was fullfilled a desire of mine that I considered of great importance.

Seal hunting was now ended for that season. There was not much blubber to cache for the winter, it is true, but apparently they were not accustomed to having more. The ice had already started to be- come soft and watery, and as the caribou were now coming over Simpson Strait in earnest, the Eskimos had determined to leave the sea ice and set out for King William's Land. That these Netsilingmiut kept their promise in the most praiseworthy manner I was to learn later.

But before choosing my own summer quarters I had to make one more long journey over the last ice to the Inland Eskimos round Lake Franklin. 1 therefore had no time to lose.

On this excursion there were particularly two other types that have set themselves firmly in my memory.

First there was Ugpik (the owl), whom I met out on the ice one day not far from Matty Island; his son, young Apilårjuk (?), a boy of about twelve, had just harpooned a seal at a breathing hole, and they were now just eating its liver, a proceeding that always is of the utmost gravity. All the hunters kneel down in a circle round the seal while the one who caught it opens it just above the liver with a narrow little incision through skin and fat, just big enough for the removal of the liver and the cutting out of a piece of blubber. As soon as this is done the cut is closed again by means of the long slender wound pins which are always carried and which prevent the blood from running out of the wound and going to waste while the seal is being taken home to the camp. Alorneq and I were at once invited to participate in this ceremonious, almost religious feast and it made a most deep impression upon me. For there we were, quite close to the breathing hole, all on our knees in the wet snow, silently eating the seal's raw liver with small squares of white, swelling blubber; a strange hunting reminiscence that seemed to me like a thanksgiving and homage to the daily bread.

In this instance, where there were few hunters and meat in plenty, father and son retained most of the seal themselves. Otherwise if there are many hunting at the breathing holes the portion of the hunter is surprisingly small. It is almost as if the intention were that sometimes he must be content solely with the pleasure of securing his quarry. Often no more falls to him than the seal's head, some of

Vol. VIII. No. 1

46

llic ciilrails, a liltlc hack lal and Ihc skin wilii llic iiind IlipixTs. The lungs must never he ealcn unless in dire need.

Later on 1 h()Uf>id the l)()y's newly caufj;ht seal tor niy dogs, and this transaction is worth mentioning, tor the payment 1 had to give was so unusually high, especially having regard to the fact that here we were in the land of seals. The price demanded at first was a large, saw-toothed snow knife, hut 1 succeeded in getting the price reduced to a two-bladed pocket-knife — an expensive meal for my dogs all the same. One must remember what a most precious thing a knife is in this country where there were no trading posts; the price was set so high, however, because it was the catch of a young boy, a novice's first seal, and it was thought that it would please the soul of the animal to know that its meat had been purchased for so much and was thus set at such high value. Later on, when it became a seal again, it would quickly allow itself to be taken again by the same man, and yet again and again, as long as he lived. This was the in- teresting explanation of this bargain, which 1 had to accept on ac- count of my hungry dogs.

Ugpik was an intelligent and interesting man. 1 shall never forget how he trustingly acquainted me with all his thoughts, although this was our first meeting. His philosophy of life was to the effect that we human beings know so very little of life and its controlling forces that we have an imperative duty, not only to ourselves but also to those we hold dear, to live as carefully as possible; that is why we are furnished with all the amulets that can assist us through the diffi- culties of life, and that is why we must bear in mind all the demands made upon us by the taboo rules. We spent almost a whole sleepless night conversing, but unfortunately it was mostly I who had to do the talking, for Ugpik was extraordinarily eager for knowledge. Now that he had at last fallen in with a white man who could speak his own language, he wanted to know all about the lands which he only knew of as legends. And as a matter of fact I did the best I could to satisfy his wishes.

There were only a few snow huts in Ugpik's camp, and it was when about to leave next day that I had the other experience that I wish to relate. I was standing all ready to start by my sledge when an old halfblind woman leaning on a stick came up to me to ask for a sewing needle and a thimble. And the manner in which she framed her words was so characteristic of these people's facility of expres- sion that I wrote them down at once. They were:

"I have come out of my house to see a new person, a stranger, who is a grown man; I was born before all the others of my tribe, so the new people 1 otherwise see are always newly born.

4?

"My name is Arnagliaq (the one who was made a woman). I am so old that I have nothing to pay with, and yet I am a woman and need both sewing needle and thimble. If you give me these things I can only repay you with a wish. And that is: May you live long! But if I were to add another wish to these words, a wish that comes from the experience that niy age gives me, it is this: May you never be as old as I am!"

A few days afterwards I was back again at our own snow-hut camp at Kuggup Panga. On the twentyfifth of May 1 parted from Qåvigar- ssuaq, who according to arrangement went westwards to Kent Penin- sula to bring our collections to a safe place and also to buy ammuni- tion I myself, together with Arnaruliinguaq, drove up to Back River accompanied by the Netsilik Inutuk (the two that are too short), his wife Nålungiaq and her two half -grown sons Satlaqé (?) and Norqaut (.something for sticking an eye out with).

Spring had then come, and the snow on the ice was melting rapidly.

Summer life in King William's Land.

At Simpson Strait.

In the middle of June we were again back in King Williams Land after our journey to Back River, and pitched our camp near to the place where we had arranged to meet Qavigarssuaq. There we met our old companion from Pelly Bay, Qaqortingneq and his two young wives, who had received an addition in the person of Saqitaut (the one who makes one swing off the course). She was married to Qåvigarssuaq's companion to Kent, Usugleq (penis), but during his absence had been taken over for the time being by Qaqortingneq to- gether with her three children. As conditions of life and the struggle for existence are in these regions, it is necessary that a home is dis- solved when the husband goes away from his wife, and so she tempo- rarily enters another household as a concubine.

Besides Qaqortingneq there was a man named Itqilik who with his family had come from away up by Bellot Strait and North Somerset, where he had lived for several years. It was just these people that I was anxious to meet, and as I got to know at the same time that the whole, or at any rate most of the Netsilik tribe from the settlements between Adelaide Peninsula and Boothia Isthmus would collect in King William's Land as I had suggested, I finally made up my mind that I could do nothing wiser than spend the summer there. It had

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always been my desire to learn to know one or other of these Eskimo tribes thoroughly. The part of the country where I now was staying was the most isolated and most difficult of access of all Eskimo terri- tories, and I realized that I could not wish for a richer field of opera- tions. True, 1 was not in virgin country, for before me Schwatka. Roald Amundsen and Godfred Hansen had been in these latitudes; but as my excellent predecessors had quite other problems to solve than 1. there would be more than enough for me to do here. The ice was now melting, but it was my hope that Qåvigarssuaq would be able to slip through and come back to me before he was stopped by the rivers that run out into the western part of Queen Maud's Sea. For myself it did me good to get my wind again after the hurry and scurry of the past few months, and also to make my dispositions on a broader basis.

In over the country the spring thaw was at its culmination and the trails melting rapidly. As soon as I had rested after my journey I went for a walk to become closer acquainted with my immediate surroundings. The terrain ascended terrace-like from shore line to shore line, and the hollows between them formed innumerable nar- row lakes fed by numbers of brooks and the melting snow drifts. When one gets away from the sea and up over the first hills, the country is more like one great plain. Marsh, bog and sappy-green meadows of grass alternate with small lakes and rivers.

There was a peculiar feeling about this mild and melting spring landscape that made an impression upon me and, without being able to explain why, I had ever the presentiment that 1 would meet some- thing I had never before seen. Over the meadows there was the song of thousands of birds, one continuous tremulous tone of joy and life. I saw geese, ducks and eider ducks swimming about in all the lakes, and every time I approached they rose noisy and cackling, only to drop into the next lake. The swamps were full of w^ading birds build- ing their nests and laying eggs, and all these voices from thousands of birds joined into one great chorus singing that once again the earth lived. On a quiet sunny day like this there is no feeling of being in the world's most rigorous regions. It is not only the small birds that the eye sees. Now and then flocks of swans fly over low down to examine whether the big lakes are still under their covering of ice. Looking over the tundra one's attention is caught by small white busts on the little knolls that look like splashes of snow in the middle of all this green; they are snowy owls lying in wait for the lemmings. Out over Simpson Strait small dark patches are continually bobbing up; sometimes they are seals coming up out of their breathing holes to bask in the sun, or it may be a solitary caribou coming over from

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the mainland to find its way to its summer pastures. An inexplicable drift forces them northwards, and when they jump from the ice to land, they do not even give themselves time to eat but trot on inland towards the northeast coast of the island.

The snow was still lying in drifts in the shade of the rock clefts, but everywhere between the stones where it had melted red saxifraga was now in bloom and greeting the warmth as the first of all flowers to overcome the winter.

I had a couple of dogs with me, and they gambolled to their hearts' content over the plains and waded out into the lakes to cool themselves. The sky was clear, the sun was scorching, and there was haze over the meadows. Everything seemed to be growing, and even the stony ground gave promise of the summer that was coming. I turned over the meadows in a wide curve and walked along some of the nearest shore lines homewards to the camp. A few kilometres ofl' I suddenly came into a whole ruined village of ancient Eskimo stone houses. I had already heard from the Eskimos that there were such ruins on King William's Land, but this was the first time I had seen them. No permanent winter houses had previously been found in these regions and, in combination with the extensive archaeological excavations that Dr. Therkel Mathiassen had already made in the Hudson Bay area, it was of the greatest importance to have these examined. I could not have chosen a better summer camp. The site of the many house ruins was called Malerualik, and was just the place where the caribou assembled before they returned to the mainland again over the new winter ice across Simpson Strait. Just behind our present camp, which was called Kangerarfigluk (sometimes Kange- rarfigssuaq) there were also house ruins, but as there were most at Malerualik, we decided to move our tent over there.

But first I made an excursion to the island of Nunariarssuaq, lying almost on the boundary between Simpson Strait and Queen Maud Gulf. There a number of families had made a temporary camp on the way to the interior of King William's Land. En route I went over on to Adelaide Peninsula to hunt caribou. There, too, I received a very strong impression of waking summer; the ice on the lakes had begun to melt, there was already a wide strip of water along the shore between ice and beach, and we saw" many flocks of swans, which come there for the nesting season. Everywhere between lakes and low hills we found stone fences and hunters' hides, evidence of an active race that knows how to fight for its existence.

In a small cove the whole of the inner part of the bay is wreathed with high stone cairns. A large number of women once drifted out to sea on the ice from here, and in memory of every one a menhir,

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which was to be a homage to the soul of the deceased, was set up. This was my companion's explanation, and it surprised me to find this handsome form of memorial liere amcmg these people, where tliey do not even bury the dead but simply lay them on the ground.

At Nunariarssuaq there were six tents, some of caribou skin, others of seal skin, all of the conical form that otherwise is only met with among the Inland Eskimos, but which they maintain here is their original type of tent. They were amiable people and received me with great hospitality. I had not been there very long before they began to talk about their neighbours to the west, the Kithnermiut, whom they all seemed to fear. They were dangerous people, they told me, and they believed we would never again see Qåvigarssuaq and his companion; they had been murdered.

The ice still lay as far out as the eye could see, and apparently there was good sledge-going over Queen Maud Gulf. We knew nothing, however, of how soon the great rivers would start to run, and when I attempted to blame the early spring for the non-arrival of the sledges, they all shook their heads. But I did not share their anxiety in any way; for Qåvigarssuaq was a man who was usually able to look after himself, no matter what happened. Still, we were now close upon July, and for the first time I was compelled to reckon with the possibility that he might not come until autumn, and that consequently I would have to get food for Arnaruliinguaq and the dogs myself, as well as attend to much other work that required to be done. So I listened intent- ly to the accounts of the great quantities of salmon in the interior of King William's Land. One old man, Kuvdluitsoq (the thumbless one) had five caches from last summer's fishing and was willing to let me have them in exchange for powder. Unfortunately I had none to spare, unless Qåvigarssuaq returned. There was another man who ofTered me dog feed if only I would pay in ammunition. His name was Amajorssuk, a skilful hunter, always in good spirits though an in- valid. Ten years before, when the first guns had been introduced from Baker Lake, he had lost a leg through an accidental shot up at Back River; now he had made himself a kind of wooden leg, consisting of old cross slats of a sledge lashed together round the knee, with caribou skin as a cushion for the stump of his leg; the wooden leg itself ended in a very practical hoof made of musk-ox horn.

Once more I was forced to admire the ability of these people to meet adversity and could not help thinking of all the suffering this man had put up with before he had accustomed himself to follow the wanderings and journeys of his tribe — often through deep snow — with an artificial leg. He was now able to take part in all kinds of hunting and was even able to hold his own as a good caribou hunter.

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It was at Nunariarssuaq that for tho first time 1 had a real taste of the primitive manners of the NetsiUngmiut — in pure culture! There I was travelling without Arnarulunguaq, and therefore had to live the life of the village in everything. On my journeys I had hitherto always managed to have my own tent, partly because it gave me quieter conditions for working, and partly because I had hitherto deliberately avoided all that which, without wishing to be offensive towards the natives, one may call unappetizing piggishness. During my visit here I went from tent to tent and partook of the "public" meals that are eaten several times a day. At a time like this, when food was easily procured, all meals were common ones. In the lent where 1 usually slept a small boy or a pup played about on the platform skins, and on these "sheets" the boy and the pup let everything go, both "number one" and "number two". True, every time this happened the place was carefully scraped clean with a knife, but it was the same knife that was used to cut up our meat for cooking, and of course there was never any question of cleaning the knife. Afterwards the mother wiped the child with the sleeve of her fur jacket, finishing off with her hand, to thereupon hand pieces of meat rund to us with her fingers without first wiping them. After the meal the men all scraped their dirty, bloody fingers with their knife and then licked the knife clean, taking everything, including the filth from their hands. It is not easy to understand why all this dirt necessarily should conclude a meal and end in the mouth, but it did.

One type of "table manners" that was also difficult for me to get used to was that when the boiled meat was to be eaten, everybody sat round in a ring and let it pass from hand to hand, each one biting a piece off. Meat for cooking is never washed ofl' and its place is the floor; as a result it is often dirty and unsavoury; it is then expected of the eater that he will suck or eat it clean before handing it on to his neighbour; this manner of serving does not exactly whet the appetite of those who are accustomed to more refined surroundings.

There was another habit that cannot be said to be aesthetic either. When they blow their nose in their fingers, they always put the mucus into the mouth, although spitting it out later. If a man picks his nose, he invariably puts his fingers into his mouth afterwards. And finally, their spring and summer clothing is indescribably filthy and sodden with blubber. The natural reason for this is that in these regions economy must be practised in every department; one is forced to do so in a country where starvation is always lurking. For this reason the old winter clothing must be worn to shreds in spring and summer, as no one gets new clothing until aufuinn wlien the snow has fallen and snow houses can I)e builf. In spile of these old. worn-out

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clothes, which thus are carried on the body a whole year without a change, they have remarkably few lice; but those they have they eat.

It may perhaps be thought that these observations on ideas of cleanliness are superfluous; I make them solely because among other Eskimos I have never found the notion of piggishness so completely and so naively lost as among the Netsilingmiut.

I remained at the camp a day or two in order to make a few arrangements for the summer. We now had to take into account that for the present we had no means of paying for anything, and it had already become clear to me that, with the exception of everything that the terms of company and hospitality imply, one got nothing without payment from the Netsilingmiut; even for conversations for scientific purposes they wanted payment. At first I felt put out at this arbitrary "something for something"; hut 1 became more patient when I realized that after all these people were certainly in the right. We are much too apt to rate their possessions at our own standard; a small trifle that to us seems of no value may perhaps be of im- portance to them. Old clothes that were to be cast off could not be secured for nothing for our collections; at first glance just such a thing as this might seem unreasonable; but when it is remembered that their taboo requires certain considerations as regards cast-ofT and worn-out clothing, it will be understood that there is a great difference between giving it away to strangers and laying it out for the spirits of the air some distance from the village as their religious precepts command. It is the same with most other things. But at first I thought different with regard to their demanding pay- ment for teaching me their traditions, their religious beliefs and old stories and songs; but this was because I did not notice that they only did so when I recorded their words in writing. For then it was not an exchange of thoughts, such as they were accustomed to between the strangers they usually met with among their own kinsmen. My writing them down made these things "something I would take home with me", perhaps as means of payment, and the art of writing — an art so inconceivable to them, one that could make flourishes and strokes to speak — made their simple words everlasting, or eternally talking, and this in their opinion must give them a new value. The thing I took home with me from the conversations that had been written down was thus, as one of them later on said, a kind of "preserved news" for people living far way, and when this clearly dawned upon me I had to concede that their views were not so entirely wrong. For ordinary conversations, when nothing was written down, there was never any question of their demanding anything; but in the long run it was a great strain on me to have to be ready

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to tell them things, and furthermore, the information I received from them naturally had its value in the very fact that it was written down.

However, all these worries were settled in this manner: those of whom 1 had special inquiries to make would for the present be content with promises of payment later on when Qavigarssuaq re- turned. We now had to practise the most thorough economy; even our ammunition was very limited because 1 had constantly had to pay for my ethnographic specimens with powder and shot, which were the trade goods mostly in demand. On the whole the absence of Qåvigarssuaq made it necessary in many ways that a fixed plan should be laid for the coming summer so that 1 should be able to utilize my time in ethnographical and archaeological work.

Inutuk, who had accompanied me to Back River, had already promised to stay with me together with his wife and two stepsons; but as we had seventeen dogs to keep alive besides ourselves, I engaged another young man whom I had met at Nunariarssuaq. His name was Qiipaq (the crack), and he was married to a young woman of the name of Kanajoq (the sea scorpion). Inutuk was so ready to help that he not only offered us the ammunition that he had received in payment from me for the journey to Back River, but also promised to use for our joint housekeeping all the ammunition he had bartered last spring from people who had been on trade journeys. On the other hand Qupaq, who was a skilful young hunter of 23 or 24, owned practically nothing, but had a gun; the agreement with him was therefore that he was to hunt with such anununition as I could procure and in return supply meat for our dogs. 1 was to have full control of their time and put them to any work 1 chose with the exception of the excavation of house ruins, which was taboo to them. In return for all this help I was to reward them liberally when 1 had the means. What we were most short of was lead, and Qiipaq, who had very nimble fingers and a fertile brain, made a bullet mould out of soapstone, and by its aid we could then cast my shot into bullets, as we considered we could not afford to shoot birds but would have to expend our powder on bigger game such as seals and caribou.

As soon as these dispositions were made I inspanned and travelled back to Kangerarfigluk. Besides Inutuk I now had the company of a young man named Inorajuk (the poor thing), who one summer while on a trade journey to the people of Victoria Land had been so un- fortunate as to lose his wife; she had been stolen from him. At first a young man named Nilak (fresh-water ice) in a fit of sentimentality had taken Inorajuk in. He was a good hunter, skilful with caribou, had ammunition, and thus was always a force in a household. But from the moment he lost his wife he had been placed in a very difficull

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position, like all grown men who have no women to help them, for he had to keep his clothing in order himself, and hesides, he had a little daughter of about seven years who also had to be tended. Polyandry is not uncommon here, but usually has an unfortunate outcome. Nilak's wife Simigaq (the cork) was a big, powerful woman who had given Inorajuk such a hearty welcome that Nilak had quickly become jealous; this he showed by scolding his wife at every op- portunity and sometimes even beating her, whilst towards Inorajuk he was sullen and hostile the day long and would not look to the side of the tent where Inorajuk and his little girl were. Experience in this tribe is, that once hatred and jealousy come between two men who have to share one woman's favour and labour, it ends in one of them murdering his rival. They suspect each other of har- bouring homicidal thoughts, and then one kills the other for fear of being made the victim himself. So it is not to be wondered at that Inorajuk under these circumstances preferred to leave Nilak's tent and for the present join company with us. In addition, he had asked me to try to get his wife back again when 1 travelled westwards, so for that reason too he wished to be in my neighbourhood just now.

When we left, old Kuvdluitsoq and his family also broke camp for the purpose of moving up to his salmon caches in the interior of King William's Land. They numbered eight people and three dogs, and had an imposing load of meat to transport. The old woman walked ahead of the dogs together with the children, and up on the sledge sat the youngest girl, enveloped in skins and lashed to the load. The others pulled with the dogs alongside the sledge, and slowly the procession moved over the dissolving ice.

There was nothing remarkable in this sight; it was merely an ordinary chapter of life here, and yet it affected me strongly as they disappeared into the fog. It was as if I had witnessed a fragment of a folk-wandering.

On the first of July Arnarulunguaq and I moved to Malerualik and at once started on the excavation of the Eskimo settlement. The few people who still remained with us looked with disapproval on our undertaking. They firmly believed that not only the dead, but also their effects should be left in peace.

All knew that it would be difficult to obtain food at this place, as there was no game here at this time of the year. Consequently, all sensible people hurried up to the fishing places inland, where trout fishing could soon begin. Still, for a few days longer we received visits from people who had just concluded the sealing season and now passed us on their way up country. They laughingly told us of the

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confusion that had prevailed when leaving the melting camping place. They had waited so long that the ice was almost impassable, and those in particular who had had sledges of frozen skins had been unable to convey their blubber bags ashore. Although these supplies of blubber were the result of the whole spring hunting and represented both comfort and heat in the snow huts at the latter end of autumn and the first weeks of winter, it was related by these care-free people almost as if it had been a comical experience. To me it is inconceivable that they had waited so long before moving ashore; but here again it is the taboo that must be respected, as all skins have to be prepared and dried out on the ice with the sole exception of those that are to be used for covering kayaks. Seeing that no one is allowed to go and live ashore until all tent skins and clothing skins are ready for use, the misfortune is perhaps more excusable that would appear at first sight. And again 1 must emphasize that if only one thoroughly understands all the motives of these people's actions, they are not so reckless as they seem.

On the fifth of July the last stragglers visited us, and thereafter we were entirely alone with the two families that had promised to share our luck. A salmon net that 1 had brought with me from Repulse Bay was set in an adjacent river, and throughout the summer we were afterwards able to take one, sometimes two or three large salt- water trout from it every day. It was welcome food, but unfortun- ately it did not go far with so many mouths to feed.

Inutuk and Qupaq were sent out sealing every single day with my dogs, while Arnaruliinguaq and I excavated in the house ruins. I had hoped that on the last of the ice we would get some utoq hunting, but it failed completely. There were surprisingly few seals in this district, and here about Simpson Strait, where the ice is quickly filled with deep lakes close to small cracks and breathing holes, the seals that creep up to bask in the sun are soon counted. It was in vain that we equipped the two hunters with our Greenland bearskin trousers and seal-skin coats to enable them to crawl better through the melt water when trying to get near a seal. For that kind of hunting their caribou skin clothing is quite useless, as it becomes soaked through immediately. Although the skins to some degree helped to keep them dry, their splashing through the pools could be heard far away, and the seals slid below the ice long before they could get within range. Only few seals were the result of these efforts, and we had just decided that we should all go over to a bay near Adelaide Peninsula to hunt, where it was thought there were not so many water holes, when finally all sealing had to be abandoned.

On the tenth of July we had our first and last great hunting day.

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Inutuk came home with three fjord seals, and in a lake close by Qupaq had caught no less than seventy trout. In summer, when the ice over the lake melts and big cracks form some way out from the shore, it may happen that enormous shoals of trout follow the edge of the ice at the few open places. This is called qE'r'LuJut. It is as if all the trout in the lake suddenly assemble and crowd to a single open place in the ice, and when this happens it is an easy matter to take them with the leister from the edge of the ice itself. This habit of the trout is well known, and for several days Qiipaq had been on the watch down at the lake; and at last luck had been with him and he had made this tremendous catch. It was a real feast day for the Eskimos, the dogs and ourselves. It was splendid to be able for once in a way to give the dogs as much to eat as they wanted and for us to go on eating without having to think of the morrow. It had long been raw and cold, we were chilled to the bone and at times life had been hard, but this day it was calm, and soft, gay colours from the sky livened up the hilly tundra.

All this loveliness was only short-lived, however. The next day there was a violent thunderstorm followed by pouring rain, with the result that the ice became so watery and cut across and across with deep channels that hunting the seal on it was no longer possible. Instead the two men went caribou hunting two or three days' journey inland. But even if the tally of their kill was beyond reproach, bring- ing the meat home was almost an impossibility.

On July 25th the situation became intolerable; despite all our efforts it was impossible to get food for the dogs as long as the ex- cavations tied us to a place where there was no game at all. There was not much difficulty in procuring the food we required ourselves, but the dogs were a problem. I made the experiment of sending them out with the hunters so as to be near when game was caught, but every time the dogs tore themselves loose and came back to us. They would not stay with others. So we had to make up our minds. We would have to journey inland to the places where all the others found means of subsistence. Happily, Arnaruliinguaq and I had pursued our labours so energetically that we could break off the work for a time with an easy conscience in order to move in to where there were people, food and dog-feed.

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Trout fishing and caribou hunting inland.

We were quite a caravan when we set off, eight people and seventeen dogs. We adopted the Eskimo method of travelling, intended for a period of absence of indefinite length, and therefore Inutuk and his wife superintended all the preparations. We took tent, sleeping skins, cooking gear and a lot of extra footwear. The dogs helped us to carry, and as it was the first time the Greenland dogs had to try what they could do as pack animals, we had a lot of trouble with them to begin with. It is no easy matter to make up a pack-saddle for a dog. The load is naturally laid over the dog's back in two halves, one on each side, and each portion must be of exactly the same weight. If one side is the merest trifle too heavy it pulls the lighter half over and the load is soon trailing on the ground. In addition, novices, unaccustomed to carrying, do everything they can to shake it off. Some lie on their backs and try to wriggle themselves free, while other more crafty animals simply wade out into a lake and lie down there. This means that every consideration must be given to dis- position and temper, for not everything is improved by being wet, and baggage of this description has therefore to be entrusted to dogs that are reliable.

Breaking camp is always a long process. Just as everything is apparently ready, there is a fight, everything gets into disorder, and one has to start from the beginning again. It is not surprising that during the first few days I regarded the help we received from our four-legged porters as being rather problematic. But once the dogs had grown accustomed to their new field of labour our troubles were simplified, and they then carried twenty-five to thirty kilogrammes with ease from morning till evening. In the transportation of meat this assistance is especially valuable, only one has to take care that when resting the dogs do not start eating the delicacies entrusted to them or their comrades. On the whole dogs differ greatly in dis- position. There was one little dog from away up at Upernivik, who was at once dubbed "the secretary". From the very first day that a load was laid over its back an almost nervous air of responsibility came over it, and all day long it remained carefully by my side, not daring to go a step unless it knew that I was quite close. Later on it was entrusted with the carrying of the various maps and diaries, which were of some weight, but which I had never dared to leave behind, and thus it came to fully deserve the name we had originally given it in fun.

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We proceeded inland, sometimes up over stony terraces, at other times across plains of high grass or tiring marsh, until we reached the head of Douglas Bay. There the rain became intolerable, and we encamped so that we might do some caribou hunting in some great, sappy bogs where through our glasses we had seen scattered groups of animals. For the first time I had an opportunity to admire the wonderful ability of the Netsilik in stalking game. It was plain that they were people that had been brought up with the bow and arrow, and accustomed to methods of hunting that made it necessary to disappear in the terrain for the purpose of getting as close as pos- sible. In this landscape, which often presented no chance of taking cover, they had every opportunity of displaying their art. They were like bloodhounds let loose upon their prey. They could run for hours making a most difficult circuit until the moment arrived when the animal could see them; in a second they lay outstretched as if sunk into the ground, and then they wriggled their way through the ter- rain like snakes, taking not the slightest heed of swamps, ponds or streams, from which they emerged soaked to the skin. Despite my powerful field-glass they often quite disappeared from my view at a distance of two or three kilometres, although I was following them and knew precisely where they should be. The first hunting day brought us five caribou, with the prospect of spending a day or two in the tent without cares, solely occupied in tending and feeding the dogs which had gone a little thin lately. We were going to have to travel the whole of the coming winter with the same team, and so it was necessary to keep every dog in the best possible condition. The Eskimos themselves spent most of their time eating all they could. The quantity of food they can hold when not on rations is incredible. The sound of chattering and laughter incessantly reached our ears from Inutuk's tent, bearing witness of the most perfect family life, and to us with our ideas it is difficult to comprehend that it really could be so. For Iniituk secured his present wife by murdering her husband Pujataq (the oily shining one). Nevertheless he and the murdered man's wife and her sons were on the most friendly terms with each other. This was so much the more remarkable, as it was the duty of these two boys to wreak blood vengeance upon him some day when they grew up. Imituk, by the way, came of a very respected family, and of his father it was said that after death his soul had gone up into the air as thunder and lightning.

Unhappily, caribou meat does not go very far as dog feed, so we soon had to move on again.

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The weather remained damp and cold. Throughout the whole of July there had been about two degrees above zero on an average. On the other hand we were not troubled with mosquitos. Only rarely did we see the sun, but magnificent, gorgeously coloured clouds in red and yellow sparkled away over the northern horizon. It was the height of summer, and yet the feeling of autumn was already over the meadows. No longer did we experience that sense of things grow- ing that was so overwhelming in its effect at the beginning of June. Bv day everything lay silent and deserted. The birds seemed to sleep, the caribou made use of the warmer hours to digest their food and to sleep, so that it was difficult to descry them. It was only towards evening that everything seemed to be imbued with life, for then the gay chirping of birds mingled with the wild shriek of tern and gull and only the great northern diver lay out on the lakes wailing his plaint over the fickle summer.

King William's Land is very monotonous to the eye. The plains seem to be endless, and as we never kept to any straight path but cut off to right or left after game, this impression of immensity grew upon us with every day that passed. The game was all that provided us with any variation and never for a moment did the Eskimos relax their constant look-out. When on the move they are incessantly wide awake. One is almost inclined to believe that they can pick up a scent, for not the least indication of life escapes their eye. One day we ran into a tremendous flock of wild geese that could not fly, this being their moulting season. But they could run at almost incredible speed over the plains to find a pond where they would be safe. We had to go carefully with our ammunition and therefore seized the oppor- tunity to catch about a score of them. We were all suffering from a craving for fatty food; .some rancid blubber we had in a seal-skin bag now had a marvellous taste as dripping for the fowl flesh, which was lean and dry. Fortunately providence has so arranged it that the taste of hungry man will adapt itself to the needs of the moment. Besides, Arnarulunguaq and I were quite devoid of the accustomed things that add zest to life: no tea, coflee, sugar or tobacco. Under conditions when one eats a great deal of raw meat and there is always a taste of fat or blubber in the mouth, life seems to lose some of its attraction, at any rate to a smoker, when one is unable to conclude a long day's march with a pipe. The only luxury we had was a small box of saccharine; we were fortunate enough to have found a sub- stitute for tea in dryas, which gives an infusion the colour of tea, but the flavour is a flat one.

On the first of August we had got as far as a big lake, Qeqer- taligårssuk, where we made up our minds to stay. The day's march

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had been across stony terrain and we were very sore-footed. Right alongside the spot where we pitched our camp we found an old cache of caribou meat — two years old I was told. We cleared the stones away and fed the dogs, for it is law in this country that as soon as a cache is more than a winter and a summer old, it falls to the one who has use for it. The meat was green with age, and when we made a cut in it, it was like the bursting of a boil, so full of great white maggots was it. To my horror my companions scooped out hand- fuls of the crawling things and ate them with evident relish. I criti- cised their taste, but they laughed at me and said, not illogically:

"You yourself like caribou meat, and what are these maggots but live caribou meat? They taste just the same as the meat and are re- freshing to the mouth."

Once more we had one of those wonderful but rare days when the air is calm. August was ushered in with a clear sky and a blood- red sunset that painted the whole landscape with colour.

"An old man or woman is dead, that is why the sky is red," said Iniituk.

Strangely enough, here it was just the opposite of what the Caribou Eskimos had taught us. Among them the sky turns red when a young man or woman dies.

We were just on the point of turning in for the night when Inutuk made the unpleasant discovery that he had forgotten his powder at our previous camping place. Accordingly he asked his wife to go and fetch it. Naturally enough she was not entirely enthusiastic at having to twice walk the long stretch we have traversed during the day before she could lie down and rest, and rather sulkily she started off. Two hours later she was back again, bathed in tears, saying that an evil spirit had pursued her. It had been so close to her that, although she could not see it, she could feel it inside her skin clothing. Iniituk was most hearty in his commiseration, got up from his bed in the tent and set off for the powder himself. It would never occur to him for a moment that the tale of the spirit might be a pretext to relieve her of the long and fatiguing trudge. We others decided to go hunting the while. The weather was not such as to encourage idleness, and we were now in a region where one rarely goes far without discovering caribou.

Out on the great lake before the tent a solitary swan glided anxi- ously about. I know of no creature that can ennoble its surroundings as this great bird with the proud bearing. The wild mountain lake and the deserted landscape assumed something of the mild atmo- sphere of a park, and we delighted in the sight of this white swan — for once without feeling the slightest wish to take its life.

The woman Ikualåq, who told us of her father's meeting with Franklin's men

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On the fifth of August we came to Amitsoq, the most famous of all (ishing places on King William's Land. During the past month or so I had heard so much about it and its praises sung so often that 1 was disappointed when I got there. The whole camp consisted of five modest tents, while Amitsoq itself was a most uninspiring, long lake, connected with another lake that was nameless by a small stream about 500 metres long and twelve to fifteen metres wide. That was all! Round about the land was flat and stony, the only variation being a few hills of about 100 — 200 metres height to the southwest. There was no means of surveying the environs from the place itself, and I remarked this immediately, as it had been my hope to put in some effective caribou hunting from it. The inhabitants of the settle- ment were all old acquaintances, and in fact the only encouraging feature. There was "the thumbless one" with his family, and the shaman Såmik, with whom 1 had lived at the snow-hut camp at Murchison River in the spring. I had once bought a seal skin from him and had forgotten to take it with me when I left, and since then he had trailed it about on all his travels in order to give it to me if we should chance to meet one more example of trustworthiness. Be- sides those 1 have named there were some young folks and one or two old women, about thirty souls in all.

What they had to tell us was not very stimulating: few caribou, few salmon, no dog feed! We had come too early; fishing would not begin till after the fifteenth of August, to culminate towards the end of the month. Food had been short during the summer, and as they had heard nothing from me, the salmon caches I had counted upon in my mind were used up long ago. In the vicinity there were about a hundred and fifty people, but they had divided themselves over the various fishing places in order to have better chances. And I too had to spread my men in order to get any hunting at all, while I myself started to make records of the tales I heard.

During the past few days there had been a northerly gale with bright weather. Just after our arrival at the camp the wind quietened down and once again we had that dead calm that, alas, is so rare, with a crackling heat that enticed a few intrusive mosquitos from their haunts in the marshes. The beautiful weather was most re- freshing to us all and, despite the heat, the time was passed in games of all kinds on the flat ground at the side of the camp. In the raw, windy weather we had been chilled through during the whole of the past month, so it was most stimulating to see naked children running about and even bathing in the lakes.

Our sojourn at Amitsoq had to be restricted to eight days. We were lucky enough to bring down six caribou, and, as there was

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practically no meal a I the tishing place, \ve had to share it out as fairly as we could between ourselves, our dogs and our fellow-campers with their appetites for the tasty things of life. While there 1 was able to write down a large number of tales, and received besides a lot of interesting information about customs and observances.

It was not always easy for me to do this work, for of course the tales had to be written down at once and, as I have already related, it was considered natural that payment should be made for all in- formation that was to be preserved by means of the white man's writing. I remember that one day when old Kuvdluitssoq and 1 were to work together, he said to me:

"Well, I'll relate some tales; but a pocket-knife — I suppose I won't get that?"

In itself this was no immodest wish of course, but as it was the only pocket-knife I had at the time, it was not so easy after all; naturally he got the knife, and as a matter of fact my readiness to give as long as I had anything at all to give away, was later on to my advantage when all my helpers had to be content with promises; luckily they could all be redeemed, as the Hudson's Bay Company un- expectedly opened a branch on King William's Land before I left the island.

The main result of my visit there was, however, the strong and intimate impression I received of the summer joys of the Netsiling- miut. Life round my tent was so vigorous that I quite understood that a fishing place like that can become famous, even if it cannot always produce the hunting and collect all the people that are the first condition of festivity there as elsewhere. From fifteen to thirty trout were all that were caught every day, and as these were of medium size we lived no more than from hand to mouth. But it was summer, and even if we who came from Greenland, where one is so accustomed to fine, settled weather, thought it a bad, raw cold and windy summer, it was of course the kind of weather that these people were used to. To us it seemed to be always raining, and that clear weather was a rarity; our camp neighbours, who had just escaped from the snow storms of winter and spring, thought that the sun was always shining; the season made them care-free, and they all let themselves go, regardless of the fact that the good hunting they were hoping for had failed, at any rate for the present.

Never in my life have I seen such frolicsome and happy people, so gaily starving, so cheerfully freezing in miserable, ragged clothing. I will always remember Samik's brisk boys, who were just as sprightly on the playground as out in the cold waters of the stream, always terribly ragged with legs, thighs, arms and hands red and swollen

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with cold, but apparently insensitive to it. But of course they were no pauper boys; their father was a good hunter and a respected shaman; this was the life they were accustomed to, and their bad clothing which had hardened them was not the result of lack of skins, but of taboo.

All the tents were placed close together, and as this was the first time that I had been so intimate with the Netsilingmiut for several days at a stretch, there were not a few episodes in their daily life that 1 could not avoid observing. I was impressed by the fact that the men especially seemed to be quite devoid of modesty; they always relieved nature — both "number one" and "number two" — just outside their tent, evidently without caring whether people were about or not. Never in my life have I seen so many round and exposed posteriors as at Amitsoq, and what surprised me most was that no one seemed to think it other than natural.

The Netsilingmiut imagine the "Land of the Blessed" as a place where joy never dies and where every day it must manifest itself in play. It would seem that this ideal existence had already been realized in life at that fishing place, where every single day they played and carelessly noised and laughed for at least five or six hours — people of all ages and of both sexes. Their day formed itself almost as fol- lows: First the labour of procuring the daily food. This was restricted to ten minutes twice, sometimes three times a day; but even these ten minutes' work was to them a sport, with contests and larks to the accompanyment of cries and deafening laughter.

The fishes were caught down in the little stream that joined the two lakes together. A stone dam had been built in it, blocking it completely. Out in the middle was the qa^Jge, a round weir of stones forming a separate enclosure, ten metres long, parallel with the flow of the river, four metres wide measured at right-angles from the course of the river. This qa^Jge had an uk-UAq: a gateway in the end facing the lake froni which the river flo\ved. The trout that followed the stream and tried to get from the upper lake to the lower one had necessarily to pass through the uk-uAq into the qa^Jge, for both to -the right and to the left of the uk-uAq ran a stone w^all about ten metres long right into the banks of the river. These were called san'Erutit (those that run across the course of the river). The qa^Jge was furnished with a number of traps built of stones and roofed with large flat stones; they tapered off in- wards and had a length of two metres with an opening of barely half a metre wide. These traps, which were built close together outside the stone setting of the qa^Jge, were called situjArfe-t (those

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to glide down into); into each trap tliere was of course an opening from ttie qa^Jge itself.

The fish usually approached at midnight or early in the morning before sunrise, and sometimes in the afternoon when the sun was low. Only at these times did the Eskimos catch them and during tlie rest of the day fishing was strictly forbidden, for then the fish

san krutil -

situj»rlel

Graphic reproduction of a salmon weir drawn by Inutuk.

were to be left in peace. Everybody fished at the same time. No one had to approach the qa^Jge till the local "superintendent of fisheries" had shouted the signal over the ^yhole settlement: "Arqain-ialErpugut! Now we'll all go down!"

This cry was always greeted with joyous howls from all the tents, but nobody ever walked down to the river; it was always a wild race of men, women and children, from the most decrepit, hobbling and stumbling old veterans to the youngest fleet runners, some fully dressed, others half naked, most of them bare legged, despite the fact that the water was icy cold and the air more than chilly. They seemed to be oblivious to cold. They stopped a short distance from the river, where the leisters with their long shafts were deposited, and then four or five men stole forward, leister in

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hand, towards the lake whence the fish usually came. Cautiously they crept up to just outside the brink, careful lest their shadows should fall on the water. Twenty or thirty metres from the qa°Jge and the san*Erutit they suddenly rushed out into the river and then walked downstream, waving arms and leisters, wading towards the opening of the qa°|ge inside the stone walls of the san-Erutit, this stretch being called the kata' (the entrance passage); then one could see how the many fish that had accumulated shoaled hurriedly towards the qa^Jge; only here and there did one leap over the stone dam and continue on towards the other lake. Most of them ran betw^een the open uk-uAq into the qa°Jge. When there were no more fish in the river a man sprang to the uk uAq and closed it with a large flat stone, and then all the trout were shut up in the weir.

The closing of the uk uAq was the sign that the fishing could begin and, careless of the cold water or their clothes, wliich became saturated, the whole impatient flock of people tumbled into the river and into the qa^Jge, where they began to spear the fish that had collected in it. The fish dashed wildly about, in between the legs of the Eskimos, who stabbed away with their leisters w'ith no pretence at any system, the sole object being to be the one to catch the most fish, and it was always a riddle to me that in this scuffle, with the leisters incessantly darting in and out of the water, ap- parently at random, the people i)reserved their toes unscathed; there was never anyone that got so much as a scratch on leg or foot. Each fisher carried in his hand a qorqa"t: a long bone needle on a thong, with a toggle of wood at the other end. When a fish is caught the needle is stuck through it, preferably so as to break the backbone, then he goes on again, often trailing five or six fish be- hind him at the end of the thong.

It is not all the fish that are taken with the leister, for many of them slip into the traps and hide there; the salmon has the well- known peculiarity that it never turns in a trap and tries to get out the. way it came in; on the contrary, they press forward in the narrow part of the trap in order to get out in the direction they were pro- ceeding. Thus the fish that have got into the traps are doomed and are regarded as the private property of those who built the trap. There man and wife usually fish in company, one holding the leister at the entrance to the trap for safety's sake, while the other removes a stone at the inner end, whence the scared fish allows itself to be taken without resistance.

Later on in the summer season, or the beginning of autumn, there is often such a wealth of fish at Amitsoq that, in the course of four-

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teen days, every family can catch so much that they are able to make three or four caches of good, fat trout for the winter. Each cache represents between two and three hundred kilogrammes.

Trout caught at Amitsoq are all called nutibht, i. e. trout which summer and winter remain in the lakes and never go down to the sea. The species are the so-called Eqalukpe't, which seems to be the same as those caught in the bay at Malerualik, except that up there they are smaller and with a redder skin with dark red, sometimes almost dark brown ventral fin, and the se't, which is like the Eqaluk- pe't, but is smaller and more red in colour. The Eqaluiit also occurs there — said to be immature Eqalukpe't.

Some variation in the day's events was caused by many small, affecting customs. For instance it is a very important event, and one to be celebrated, when a small boy catches his first fish, thus I one day happened to see Pugutaq (the wooden tray) catch his first fish. The boy was no more than six years old, so that it was his mother that had to do most of the catching. He was too small to wade out in the river, so she had to carry him out to the qa^Jge. There he had to hold the leister himself, but had to be assisted in spearing the fish, and after- wards in pushing the qDrqa"t through it. But as soon as this was done she broke out into loud joyous cries and announced to the settlement that her son had made his first catch. Later on the day was celebrated with a great feast, consisting of all the trout possessed by the family. It was arranged in the usual manner, the women eating by themselves and the men likewise; they never eat together, as the men are afraid of bad hunting if they eat in company with unclean women, which might scare the animals away.

The fuel problem was a very difficult one at Amitsoq; Cassiope is very rare in the interior, so dryas has to be resorted to; but at this season, when it is in blossom, it is full of sap and does not ignite readily; they have to keep blowing incessantly if the fire is to burn, and this not only makes one short-winded but fills the eyes with smoke, especially as all cooking is done inside the tent which is not provided with any smoke hole. Another problem that has to be tackled when cooking is to be done is the very elementary one of striking fire, for as a rule there are no matches. The usual method was to strike pyrites against a piece of iron, taking care that the sparks fell upon some dry, slightly oily moss or cotton grass. As soon as a spark caught, one had to deftly blow at it until the grass or the moss glowed, whereafter a tuft of dried hay was ignited from it; but with all this a half hour easily goes before the fire is actually burning. Consequently, it is not surprising that the villagers all come to get a light from the one w^ho first gets his fire to burn. Taking all this into consideration it is not so strange that most food, both meat and fish,

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is eaten raw. I remember one day, after rain had fallen, it took Arna- rulunguaq five hours to cook a medium sized pot of fish and a small kettle of water over dryas. With Cassiope, however, which quickly flames up and gives off incomparably more heat, a similar meal takes less than an hour. Whereas raw meat is tasty, I never became quite accustomed to eat raw, freshly caught fish. One must have been brought up on it, not to feel sick at the nauseous, slimy taste of scales.

Like all other fishing places of importance, Amitsoq is regarded as "holy", just as are the wading and crossing places of the caribou. The reason is that these rivers and lakes provide indispensable stores for the dark period in the event of caribou hunting not yielding the necessary quantities. It is furthermore easy work, in which both women and children can help, and therefore it is necessary to do everything possible in order not to offend all the spirits that haunt the vicinity of these fishing places; Nulla juk, the great spirit of the sea, is believed to keep a very strict watch upon man's doings at a salmon river. The consequence is that fishing there is bound up with many special taboo rules, any breach of which may be fatal. Some of the most severe of these rules are, for instance, that no marrow bone must be broken, and people with a "sweet tooth" must never regale themselves with fresh caribou brains. If a caribou head is brought to a fishing place it must, as soon as the flesh is picked off, be carefully sunk in an adjoining brook where no fish are caught. The taboo rules had particular reference to women, however; they are strictly forbidden to do any kind of sewing in their tents, where by the way the men must not occupy themselves with their fishing gear either. There was absolute taboo against all sewing of animal skins, old or new. This was why the worn-out and dirty last-winter clothing hung in pitiable rags on them all; no holes must be patched, no tears mended. The only sewing allowed was the sewing or patching of kamik soles; but even then it was definitely prescribed that all material to be used for this purpose had to be fitted and cut out before leaving the coast. Once in the interior there must be no cutting of ordinary seal skin or bearded seal skin.

All the work that necessarily had to be done at a fishing place, i. e. the special sewing that is allowed and the repairing of fishing implements, had to be done away from the camp at a place that was called san'avik (the working place), some distance from river and lake, in the shelter of a large stone. Life there was always animated, there were always people, some working, others looking on. This was also the place where the gossips congregated, for it was from here that all spicy village news was set in circulation.

I have previously compared life at a fishing place with that in

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"the Land of the Rlossed". Everybody does just what he pleases and ahnost invariably that which amuses him or her at the moment. Onerous duties are for the long cold winter. "In summer people must flourish in exactly the same manner as the soil they live on," explained Samik one day. The form of pastime that is most in vogue is games, and even though these are to be dealt with separately later on. it is impossible to obtain any really vivid impression of life in summer if some of the favourite variations are not mentioned here too.

Naturally enough, the people usually chose the games that pro- vided both warmth and exercise, and hour after hour they would devote themselves to these simple and naive pleasures, oblivious to everything else.

A particular favourite was a cross between hide and catch. All the players stand in a circle, close together, with heads bent, while one conceals himself; when he is found he is pursued, and the first to touch his bare body must then hide, and the game begins all over again. Or they sit down in a long row while one walks along and kicks all the foot-soles of those seated; then he walks over their toes, next over their shins, and every time he has completed the round he butts them in the stomach. Finally he goes round behind them, tickles each one on the body with his foot and runs away, when all the others jump up and pursue him; when he is caught he must tear a tuft of hair from his coat and give it to the one who is now to take his place. Or they play "keeping silent", with firmly closed mouth. The one who laughs first is given a comical name which he must answer to for the rest of the day. Or they play bears and try to attack all the others who jump about, the one who is "on" having to crawl on all fours. There was also a ball game, in which as many as possible had to take part. They split up into twos and these partners try to throw the ball to each other. Every kind of trick is allowed; they fight with their opponents, trip them up and push from behind, with shrieks of laughter all the time, and once this game is properly started, old and young participating, it might well last the whole day and never seem to weary. Next day they would start again. Man and wife were oftenest partners, and I was forced to admire their pretty treatment of each other. I have rarely been among people where the men praised their women so much, while the women never tired of lauding the splendid qualities of their husbands.

A curious game, a particular favourite among the children, was to"nari^'o'jArtut (the spirit game), in which they imitated and parodied shaman seances and the general fear of evil spirits with a capital sense of humour. They held complete and true shaman seances, fought with imaginary enemies just as the grown-ups do; in fact they

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even used the same formulas that they had heard their parents utter when really in fear and danger. Although this game was absolute blasphemy the grown-up audience writhed with laughter, just as if they took a certain satisfaction in seeing the evil and inexorable gravity of life made the subject of farcical burlesque. Some hours later it might happen that an attack of illness, or perhaps a bad dream, would rally the grown ups to a seance during which they desperately sought to defend themselves against hidden enemies, with exactly the same means as the children had mocked in play. When 1 mentioned this remarkable circumstance to my friend Kuvdluitssoci. and enquired of him whether it was really prudent to mock the spirits, he answered with the greatest astonishment pictured in his face that the spirits really understood a joke.

On the twelfth of August I had with regret to leave this place, where every single day had given me new impressions of the enviable lightness of the primitive mind. If thoughtless abandonment to the moment were really a blessing, 1 had actually been in "the Land of the Blessed". The fishing was still poor, the caribou remained in quite other parts of the island, rain and wind were merciless, and often there was not sufficient to eat to satisfy one's hunger! But it was summer still; there was still a chance of their hunting luck turning; so why think about the morrow? And besides, an old tribal tradition said that the spirits never helped the anxious and dismayed!

For reasons of economy we had to split up into two parties when leaving. Inutuk and his family took half of my dogs and set off in the direction of Gjøa Harbour to hunt there, while Qupaq, his wife, Arnarulunguaq and I returned to Malerualik with a further addition to our party in the person of a young fellow. Orssorigtoq (the one who has good, tasty blubber on him).

Inutuk's journey to Gjøa Harbour gives a good impression of the many things the Netsilingmiut must take into consideration, even when making the least important arrangements.

When he had accompanied me to Back River that summer 1 had no idea that he was the only member of his family that owned a wooden sledge. His departure had placed the family in a state of great embarrassment, for they were unable to bring ashore the bags of blubber that had been accumulated in spring at the snow-hut camp on the ice. No one had mentioned these difficulties to me, and the consequence had been that Inutuk's stepfather Unaråluk had made a sledge of the wood in Inutuk's kayak. How the slender wooden skeleton of an Eskimo kayak could be converted into a sledge is a conundrum to me; but up there people are brought up to make the most of what they have.

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But compx-ehensibly enough the improvised sledge had not been able to stand the weight of all the heavy bags, so they had been forced to leave behind on the ice all the bags that belonged to Inutuk him- self, and these had been lost long ago. His kayak skin alone was saved and deposited at a place close to Gjøa Harbour. It was only now that I learned of all this. However, it was my intention to try to get a kayak made later on, so that in the manner of the Greenlanders we could hunt the seal in Simpson Strait when the ice disappeared; I had therefore asked Inutuk to fetch his kayak skins. He did not know where they had been cached and first had to seek out his stepfather, who was said to be at Eqalungmiut on the northeast coast of King William's Land. There he had found a piece of drift-wood, and was now spend- ing the summer with his primitive wedges splitting it up into sledge wood, kayak and tent poles, truly a laborious way of procuring working timber. Still, nobody counted the trouble for anything, all being solely occupied with the value of the find. And Inutuk gladly set out on a three weeks' journey in the hope of recovering some splinters of the driftwood so that next summer he might have a new kayak to replace the one that had been made into a sledge.

Summer was now so far advanced that I had reason to hope that a few wandering caribou would begin to appear right down at Male- rualik; and my hope was not disappointed.

On our way up to the fishing place we had during the last few days obtained more caribou than we had use for and, despite my suggestions, the meat had been rather carelessly cached. I had often reproached my companions for this, but they had both declared that "caribou are only difficult as along as they are alive and can leap away from one; killed caribou can always be got hold of again". Unfortunately, on the way back it proved that killed caribou also may walk once the foxes have scented them. Every cache we came to was eaten up. Half jokingly, half in earnest I reminded Qiipaq of my prophecies when the caches were made, but he answered with a smile that this time I was right, but another time I would be wrong. This reasoning, too, was typical, for in spite of all the difficulties they had to contend with, their care-free manner never deserted them, and in fact it was often as if accidents encouraged them to keep up their unconcerned air. Two days after I had moralized over the deplorable consequences of carelessness, fate would have it that Qiipaq lost a lump of lead that he had thoughtlessly placed loose in a load he was carrying. Again I came down upon him with a small dose of moral reflections, but this time he said nothing, as it would be impossible to look for the lost lead, which perhaps represented ten bullets for his rifle, and with our constant shortage of ammunition

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this was a very serious loss. But then it happened that the next day Qiipaq found a piece of lead, lost by another hunter, perhaps years before, but exactly twice as big as the one he had lost. I will never forget the sly twinkle in honest Qiipaq's eyes when he came to me and displayed his find, saying: "Last time you were right and I was wrong. Today it is I who am right. For had I not lost that piece of lead 1 am quite certain I would never have found this one, which is twice as big; some good spirits must have placed it in my w^ay be- cause I have been unlucky. Luck nearly always follows after mis- fortune. If this were not so, people would soon die out."

This fatalistic belief encompasses the whole Eskimo view of life, and that is what makes them so unconcerned.

As we again came nearer the coast we saw more and more caribou; unfortunately they were single individuals and so shy that often we had to spend half the day stalking them. Sometimes these hunts took us so far from the spot where we had left women, tents and dogs that it was quite difficult to find them again. In the interior one landscape is very much like another. As a rule there is a cairn at the top of the various ridges, but as these are also similar in appearance, it is risky to use them as landmarks. The Eskimos believe that all these were built by the Tunrit, and as a rule they indicate that there is a wide outlook from these cairn-heights. On August 14th we erected our tent on the top of one of these ridges, about fourteen kilometres from Pfeffer River and presumably about thirty or forty metres above sea level. Nevertheless I found a quantity of shells of Yoldia arctica, and not far away, about twenty kilometres from the sea, lay the skeleton of a whale so completely buried in the sand that only the jaws pro- jected.

We got down to our old camping ground at Malerualik on August 17th and found our stores in the best of order. As a rule, roving foxes, wolves and wolverines make it necessary to build high platforms, or cairns, for everything that is to be left even for short periods; but we had neither stones nor wood to do so, and therefore we had been anxious to see in what condition our collections would be. As soon as we had got the tent up and again furnished ourselves with all the small comforts we had had to do without on this trip, we had the cosy feeling of being home again now that — to use an Eskimo expression — "we were again surrounded by the smell of our own things". It was fine to see the sea again, its multitude of changing colours and im- pressions. All the ice had now gone, over Simpson Strait the water was as smooth as glass with a colour like molten lead; and the outlines of the many islets stood out black against the bright evening sky.

We had put nets out in the river immediately we arrived, and

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before we retired to rest Arnarulunguaq came in with two fat trout, which went into the pot at once. We had our fire outside, a big blaze fed with (iassiope, and could not make up our minds to go in. It was one of those rare evenings that remain in the memory, and it was given an additional tinge of romance by the sudden appearance of nine caribou led by an enormous bull leaping up from the little ridge near the tent. They kept to the plain just before us, turned in towards the interior, and before long disappeared in a cloud of dust just as suddenly as they had come. We felt as if we had seen an apparition, and the dogs, unable to control their disappointment at not having been allowed to hunt, did not settle down again until far into the night.

Autumn at Malerualik.

The very next day Arnarulunguaq and I resumed the excavation of the house ruins which will be described elsewhere; arrangements had been made to keep us constantly supplied with provisions and dog feed. I had now three first-class hunters at my disposal, as apart from Iniituk and Qupaq I had engaged the young fellow Orssorigtoq on most original terms. I had casually learned that Usugleq, Qåvigars- suaq's companion, had a small store of powder and lead cached on the island, and I informed the absent man's wife that I would take this over and that their adoptive son, who had a useless gun, could borrow one from me if he provided his own ammunition. They were to have the skins of all animals shot under this arrangement, whereas I was only to have a certain share of the meat. In this manner I had my dogs placed out in the care of three people, and while they hunted in the surrounding district, I could devote myself entirely to my own work for the rest of the summer.

Unfortunately, our excavating did not last long. Even on the twentyfifth of August we had a northwest storm with the first fall of snow; the ground was freezing up, and there was ice on all the ponds. But by that time twelve house ruins had already been ex- cavated and we had secured the material necessary for an appraise- ment of the new culture we had found.

Autumn was now inexorably upon us, and as I wished to make use of all the time remaining for making my notes in collaboration with the older members of the tribe before starting for the west, Arnarulunguaq and I decided to build a stone house of the Cape York type in North Greenland. I would be able to write twice as much in quiet surroundings in a warm house, and it would be well into October before we would have material for a snow hut. Consequently

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we started to build our stone liouse in tlie evening of the twentyninth: 1 carried the stones from the ruins while Arnarulunguaq, who was an expert in the erection of these houses, went on with the building work. In her country it is always the women who build the winter houses while the men are out on the autumn hvmt. 1 excavated a site in one of the ruins, and, as the summer's work had trained us up in handling stone, we worked so energetically that on the thirtyfirst we already had the stone walls finished and only needed to cut the turf that was to form a warm shell round about. Just then we had a visit from three old friends of last spring: Alorneq, Oqortoq and Itqilik from Bellot Strait. They were filled with wonder and horror at our working with stone just when the caribou were about to start trekking, but fortunately I had so much authority over them that their disgust turned to helpfulness. Before nightfall we had cut all the turf and the house was finished. As far as our poor abilities allowed we held the obligatory "roofing supper" and served our guests with caribou meat, salmon and dried meat, so that we had every opportunity of admiring their phenomenal appetite; I have never yet seen a Netsilik leave a piece of meat; it is the common saying that for a hungry man who has no need to go sparingly, two fat raw trout of medium size (about three kilogrammes) represent a meal.

Our conversation turned upon the prospects for the coming winter. For themselves they had a salmon river at Qoqa, about midway between our settlement and Gjøa Harbour. Caribou hunting had been fairly good all the summer and fishing was now at its height. Then we fell to wondering about what could have happened to Qåvigarssuaq. Oqortoq's wife was a most respected shaman, and two days ago she had found a piece of lead on the bank of a small stream. This lead, presumably lost by some caribou hunter, was taken to be a message from the spirits to their chosen ones, and the occasion had been used to hold a great seance, the outcome of which was that Qåvigarssuaq was said to be still on his way home and not far off; he had killed two bears on the way and had had many other difficulties to fight against, but the spirits had not wished to go into too many details about them.

These tidings sounded both probable and reassuring; but with the propensity for incredulity that is present in everybody, the prophecy was not generally accepted. It was the common belief that we would never again see Qåvigarssuaq, who was thought to have been murdered long ago by the Kitlinermiut together with his companion.

Hospitality is a law among all wayfaring people; it is Arnarulii- nguaq's duty to give the three men shelter for the night, despite the fact that the tent is overflowing with the collections of specimens we

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have stored in it. However, we managed to get some skins spread out and, as nobody cared to eat any more, we lay in a cluster staring at the little torch of moss and caribou fat that illuminated the tent. Our talk was becoming languid, when Itqilik suddenly began to tremble all over and started shamanizing. He had seen sparks coming from his inner coat, and it must have been because he had worked with soil and stone at a time when it was forbidden. So that I should not be saddled with the blame in the event of the caribou season being a bad one, 1 interrupted the seance and made a speech to our guests. I asserted that not only was 1 superior to all taboo, as 1 followed the customs of my own country, but those who helped me had nothing to fear either; our innocent house-building would not harm their hunting. Then the rushlight was blown out and the general signal for sleep given.

Next day the visitors left us after having inspected some caches that they had built near the camp last spring. On leaving they each presented me with a piece of tobacco that they had bought from me when we first met. I was touched at this gift, because I knew that they had given me exactly half of what they had themselves, and they were all impassioned smokers.

We would soon be right back to nature. Another supply that was beginning to run short was something so elementary as matches. The cause of this was that when buying amulets I always had to pay in "fire", and now we were feeling the pinch because the supply I had expected from Kent had not come. The daily ration was two matches; but Arnaruliinguaq solved the problem by always keeping turf from the house ruins aglow on the fireplace; as a rule this enabled us to keep the fire going from day to day. Fire, then, was procurable, even if we had to go right back to Stone Age methods; but a much greater menace was the shortage of ammunition now that we were in Sep- tember and at the threshold of winter.

In the afternoon I was visited by Qaqortingneq, who had his camp up in the mountains, a day's journey from us. He had heard that I had taken possession of Usugleq's wife's ammunition, and now came to demand his share of it, maintaining that she as his third wife was under his protection. Qaqortingneq held almost the dignity of chief among his countrymen, and was not only a skilful hunter but of an unusually fearless and independent nature; he had the whole tribe behind him, and naturally I had no desire to start any animosity between us; on the other hand it would be fatal if, situated as we were, I allowed him the slightest overhand. I admitted that his attitude was not illogical as long as the family of the absent one was with him, and therefore declared myself ready to immediately assume the

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care of the wife and three children, as I was unable to change my arrangements with regard to the ammunition. And so it was settled. But to prove how willing 1 was to treat with him now that he had proved compliant, I gave him a little ammunition on the same terms as my three other hunters, and we parted with real esteem for each other.

On the third of September we had the kind of weather that we had waited weeks for. It was a calm frost, sunshine and a clear sky, with a slight breeze from the west. Days like these are so rare up there that one always has a presentiment of something about to happen, and we determined to move up to the top of a ridge a few hours away from the camp and stay there about a week to collect fuel before snow fell. On that ridge was one of the few places where Cassiope grows, and Arnaruliinguaq would not need to spend several hours a day gathering the small quantity of fuel we needed for cook- ing. Just as we were about to set out, Inutuk came along with tw^o of my dogs, loaded with meat. He had scarcely put the loads down and tied up the dogs when a flock of animals passed close to the tent; off he went after them, and for the present we postponed our de- parture.

Afternoon was drawing on; Arnaruliinguaq and I were alone by the tent, both a little disappointed that the day was to end without a move. We sat gazing out over the water, when Arnaruliinguaq sudd- enly exclaimed in a voice that trembled with excitement:

"Oh! Look there! I thought the tide was out, and now there is a rock that I don't seem to know. Look, look, it's moving!"

She w^as pointing towards the flat point w-est of the island of Eta. Then we both distinctly saw a tiny canoe coming paddling towards us. In this country the kayak is only used on freshwater lakes, and no vessel is ever seen on the sea. There were two men in the canoe, and it could only be Qavigarssuaq and his companion. We had waited for them since June; every single day had we peered and looked out for them, and now that we had seen them at last, the effect was so great that our hearts almost stood still.

Through our field-glass we recognized them; it was really they. An hour later they had arrived. We rushed down towards them, long before they could land, glad to see them alive and well, but also anxious to know if they had brought us all that we needed so badly. Here, alas, disappointment was to temper the joy of reunion, for Qåvigarssuaq's first call to us was:

"Very little ammunition, no tobacco, no tea, coffee, sugar or flour! But," he added laughing, "we are alive and kicking, and that hasn't always been such a natural thing as you might think".

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The canoe scraped on Iho pebbles of the beach and Qavigarssuaq jumped ashore.

His report is soon retold: When they h'tt King William's Land at the end of May they encountered so much pack-ice along the coast of the mainland that they made their way over Lind's Island near Vic- toria Land, whence they put over to White Hear Point on the south coast of Queen Maud Gulf. Twice on their way down to Melbourne Is- land they had fallen in with Kitlinermiut, who had given them a very hostile reception. At first they only met the w^omen, the men, as it proved later, lying in ambush round about the village behind stones and snow drifts, ready to attack if they found occasion to do so. As a rule they quickly became good friends, but at one or two places they had been so ill-natured and secretive that they had thought it best not to sleep among them. In order not to be taken by surprise they used to tie their dogs up in a wide circle round about the tent, so that they would always be certain of being awakened, no matter from what direction anyone might come. Our scientific collections had been safely delivered to the representative of the Hudson's Bay C-ompany at Kent Peninsula, but the district fox hunting had been so profitable that all the goods in the store had been sold out. They had obtained just so much ammunition that they could make their way back again. The rivers running into Queen Maud (lulf had already been free of ice at the beginning of June, and therefore they had had to borrow a canoe in order to continue their way. All their dogs were left with Eskimos in the vicinity of Ellis River, where they had stayed for a month until the ice had broken up so much that they could paddle along by the coast. Everywhere they had seen crowds of caribou, and not far from Ellis River they had met a flock so en- ormous that it had taken three days to pass, and during all that time the land around them was alive and in uninterrupted motion with migrating animals. Later on during the summer, when the canoe journey could at last begin, the pack-ice had been so close in to the shore that it was only with the greatest difficulty that they had succeeded in making progress in the frail craft.

In spite of the depressing news we were of course only pleased at seeing them again, and I was especially pleased that I was no longer to be one man among entire strangers when the time came when lack of ammunition would make it even more difficult to survive in the struggle for the daily meat so that our dogs might be saved. If I lost my team 1 knew that the long sledge journey to Nome would be impossible.

Instead of a human figure they sometimes use a block of snow, with peat let in,

as a target.

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Caribou have their own fixed habits which every year tliey adhere to with such regularity that the time of the beginning and conclusion of their wanderings can be definitely indicated. The first snow fall in September generally gathers them in herds of from twenty-five to a hundred or more, and, gradually as the ice forms on the lakes, they move slowly down towards the coast at Simpson Strait until the in- creasing cold, wiiich as a rule covers the water with ice about the begin- ning of October, gives the signal for the great trek that fills the region round Malerualik with animals. A little way northwest of the ruins is a small island, Eta, out in the middle of the strait, which shortens their swim very considerably if they direct their course over it. In some mysterious manner the various herds seem to be in touch with each other; hardly has the first lot gone down to the coast to inspect their chances of making the crossing, when their relatives come from every part of the island, from the interior direct down to the coast, from the east along by the shore line towards the northwest, and finally up from the hills inside Cape Herschel down towards the beach this side of Eta. They keep to certain definite routes, and there- fore along by the beach and in the various mountain passes there are numbers of cairns and hides, showing how they were hunted with bow and arrow in the old days. Then the whole settlement had to be organized and hunt in company, and even if it was a slow process and did not yield much in the way of supplies, it has sufficed for generation after generation; the other aspect of it is that by this means they avoided the shambles that now mean danger to the stock wher- ever Eskimos get possession of modern rifles.

At Malerualik conditions are ideal for caribou hunting on a large scale, and now that all the men were equipped with firearms, the. result was looked forward to with great excitement; for as nobody had lived at the spot for many years, it was known that the caribou had congregated in large numbers.

All the people who had been scattered about the interior through- out the summer now came down to the coast and camped about us. Indeed they came right over from Adelaide Peninsula; the eleventh of September we were surprised by an invasion of lliviler- miut, who put over Simpson Strait on ferries of the most original kind. They consisted of caribou skins sewn together. They were about two skins in length and a good skin's width; they were stuffed with platform rugs and old clothing and then sewn up all round. Their carrying capacity was considerable, and they were used either in pairs fastened together or made fast to a kayak that had special stays, one of the wide skin bundles being on each side of the kayak. In this manner about thirty people had ferried themselves over the

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strait and now joined in as serious competitors to our hunting. Two of them were particularly prominent, a man named Nakasuk and his son Eqaluk; they both had two wives and were most skilful hunters. During the winter they had traded with Eskimos from Vic- toria Land and were comparatively well provided with ammunition.

On the fifteenth of September the settlement was in a panic, there now being over a hundred people. A shout resounded through the camp and, when we all rushed out, we saw the first great herd of caribou coming trotting down over the hills east of the settlement. At a distance they looked like an enormous force of cavalry advancing in lines of fifty to a hundred animals, bearing a fixed course towards the crossing place at Eta. All the men seized their guns and hunting bags, and a moment later they lay concealed here and there among the hummocks that the animals would have to pass. This was the first real caribou massacre of that autumn, and therefore they ap- proached unsuspiciously at the same quick trot down towards the shore, until a deafening volley of rifle fire suddenly checked them all. For a moment they stood as if rivetted to the spot, gazing bewildered here and there for the enemies they could not see, and this moment of indecision gave the hunters a good chance. Shot after shot cracked, animal after animal tumbled over among their terrorstricken com- panions, until the whole cavalcade split up into a number of small flocks as if by prearrangement and galloped back to the interior of the island.

Qåvigarssuaq and I had not taken part, because we had no more than about seventy-five rounds between us; we had to economize to the utmost with every single cartridge, and we dared not run the risk of being infected by the wildness that so easily seizes hunters when blazing away at game.

I should say that the spoils of that day's hunt numbered about fifty animals, and, judging by the drum fire that had been going on. at least five to seven rounds had been expended on each animal; for not only did the excitement upset their aim, but the competitive zeal caused many to fire at hopelessly long range. Both Qåvigarssuaq and I considered this to be a very poor result, having regard to the chances the hunters had had. But to the Eskimos themselves, who were still accustomed to reckoning according to bow and arrow, the score was "a large number of animals, killed in a few moments". In the old days a kill like that would perhaps have taken them months. In their enthusiasm over the firearm they took no account of the fact that before many years had passed the caribou would have chosen other paths that made a wide detour about their dwelling places.

During the first few days after the great advance very few animals

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appeared; it is some time before their fright disappears and they dare to come again in a body. But the hunters waited patiently, for they knew that the caribou had no other route than this.

So much snow had fallen by this time that the sledges could be used, and on the eighteenth, quite early in the morning, Qavigarssuaq and I went inland to hunt a good distance from our fellow villagers. It was magnificent weather, with the sun shining over the newly fallen snow, and a dazzling light blazed from sky and earth. As soon as we had got a little way inland we saw herds of caribou everywhere. They were uneasy; they knew that the time had come for them to rally for their long journey, and yet there were many that were reluctant to take leave of their summer grazing places. Old bulls with enormous heads, and timid cows with their calves at their heels moved incess- antly from flock to flock; perhaps they were holding a council of war, or trying to reason with the young ones. All that Qåvigarssuaq and I had to do was to select a flock that was so placed that we could get within range unobserved. The dogs were tied to a heap of stones, and long we feasted our eyes upon the unforgettable sight of these splendid animals; seen in the white autumn snow they are the most beautiful game imaginable.

When we drove home in the evening we had seven unskinned animals on our long sledge. We had picked out the fattest, and we knew that they all had a thick layer of fat over the rump. And caribou fat is the most economic food for travelling that can be desired.

On the twentyfirst of September we were to have the greatest sur- prise of that autumn.

I was on my way to the camp when suddenly there seemed to be a great stir among the folks. In a moment they were all out of their tents. Men, women and children, and they all cried:

"Oh — oh — oh"!

At first they were all so overcome that nobody moved. Then all at once movement came over them again and they ran down towards me, Niiinuaq, otherwise so calm, in the lead. I supposed that an unusually large herd of caribou was approaching and that they wanted to borrow my gun. I had already made my mind to refuse, for now we had to go carefully with the ammunition. Niunuaq got right up to me before he could collect himself sufficiently to open his mouth. Then with a great gesture he pointed over Simpson Strait in the direction of Eta, and shouted, without attempting to explain himself:

"Look there, look there! Well, but just look there!"

I turned and caught sight of a ship heading under full sail towards our camp! To all these young people standing speechless around me this was a great marvel. They had never seen a ship before. And just

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look, how it could float! Wherever could they have got all that wood from? And it swam over the water like a big bird, the sail spreading out from the hull like great white wings!

I myself was gripped by the strange emotion that sang out of all the many cries of wonder, and without caring who it was, and what they wanted, it struck me that on board that little ship all the am- munition we wanted was coming sailing towards lis — almost to the end of the world.

"Dannebrog" and the "Union Jack" ran up to the top of a pair of skis tied together near my Eskimo hut, and an hour later the strange ship lay at anchor in front of our settlement and a motor boat was throbbing shorewards with two white men on board. They introduced themselves as Peter Noi-berg from Hernøsand in Sweden, and Henry Bjørn from Præstø in Denmark.

So big, and yet so small is the world!

They were out to establish a new post on King William's Land for the Hudson's Bay Company. Their ship was called "El Sueno", and was an old, worn-out yacht from San Francisco. To our eyes, unused to the sight of ships, she looked like a frigate, though she measured no more than twenty tons. In that nut-shell, without even engine power, and with a big boat in tow into the bargain, Peter Norberg had forced the most difficult part of the old Northwest Passage, Queen Maud Gulf, and achieved a feat of seamanship of a magnitude that he did not dream of; without charts, in fact with no technical means of navigating at all; "but", Peter Norberg said, "we are not Norse- men and Vikings for nothing, are we!"

In the struggle for the Northwest Passage forty ships have headed for these waters in vain. Roald Amundsen was the first to get through with the little "Gjøa", Peter Norberg the second, with a vessel that covild not even be called a ship, and originally built for pleasure trips in the Golden Gate. In this unexpected manner all our anxieties were dispersed. Peter Norberg greeted us most cordially and promised us all the ammunition we needed. And it was in this manner that we were able to spend the whole of the last month on King William's Land free of cares and solely occupied with our preparations for the long sledge journey that winter.

Autunm was most unsettled and stormy, with quick changes of weather. In September it was already freezing, and there was thin ice on the lakes; the snow covered all the land, so that we went long hunting trips with the dog sledge; but just when we thought that winter had come in earnest, snow and rain set in, and ice and snow melted away.

Until