Hans Egede

Treats of the ordinary Occupations, as Hunting and Fishing: of the Tools and Instruments necessary for these Employments: of the House Implements and Utensils, &c., of the Greenlanders.

AS every nation has its peculiar way of living and of getting their livelihood, suiting their genius and temper to the nature and produce of the country they inhabit; so the Greenlanders likewise have theirs, peculiar to themselves and their country. And though their way and customs may seem to others mean and silly, yet they are such as very well serve their turn, and which we can find no fault with. Their ordinary employments are fishing and hunting: on shore they hunt the rein deer, and at sea they pursue the whales, morses, seals, and other sea animals, as also sea fowls and fishes. The manner of hunting the rein deer has been treated of above in the fifth chapter; but there we took no notice of their bows and arrows, which they make use of in the killing those deer. Their bow is of an ordinary make, commonly made of fir tree, which in Norway is called tenal, and on the back strengthened with strings made of sinews of animals, twisted like thread: the bow string is made of a good strong strap of seal skin, or of several sinews twisted together; the bow is a good fathom long. The head of the arrow is armed with iron, or a sharp pointed bone, with one or more hooks, that it may keep hold, when shot into a deer’s body. The arrows they shoot birds with are at the head covered with one or more pieces of bone blunt at the end, that they may kill the fowl without tearing the flesh. The sea fowls are not shot with arrows, but with darts, headed with bones or iron, which they throw very dexterously, and with so steady a hand at a great distance, that nobody can hit surer with a gun. They are more frequently employed at sea than on shore; and I confess they surpass therein most other nations; for their way of taking whales, seals, and other sea animals is by far the most skilful and most easy and handy.

When they go whale catching, they put on their best gear or apparel, as if they were going to a wedding feast, fancying that if they did not come cleanly and neatly dressed, the whale, who cannot bear slovenly and dirty habits, would shun them and fly from them. This is the manner of their expedition: about fifty persons, men and women, set out together in one of the large boats, called kone boat; the women carry along with them their sewing tackles, consisting of needles and thread, to sew and mend their husbands’ spring coats, or jackets, if they should be torn or pierced through, as also to mend the boat, in case it should receive any damage; the men go in search of the whale, and when they have found him they strike him with their harpoons, to which are fastened lines or straps two or three fathoms long, made of seal skin, at the end of which they tie a bag of a whole seal skin, filled with air, like a bladder; to the end that the whale, when he finds himself wounded, and runs away with the harpoon, may the sooner be tired, the air bag hindering him from keeping long under water. When he grows tired and loses strength, they attack him again with their spears and lances, till he is killed, and then they put on their spring coats, made of dressed seal skin, all of one piece, with boots, gloves, and caps, sewed and laced so tight together that no water can penetrate them. In this garb they jump into the sea, and begin to slice the fat of him all round the body, even under the water; for in these coats they cannot sink, as they are always full of air; so that they can, like the seal, stand upright in the sea: nay they are sometimes so daring, that they will get upon the whale’s back while there is yet life in him, to make an end of him and cut away his fat.

They go much the same way to work in killing of seals, except that the harpoon is lesser, to which is fastened a line of seal skin six or seven fathoms long, at the end of which is a bladder or bag made of a small seal skin filled with air to keep the seal, when he is wounded, from diving under the water, and being lost again. In the Northern parts, where the sea is all frozen over in the winter, they use other means in catching of seals. They first look out for holes, which the seals themselves make with their claws, about the bigness of a halfpenny, that they may fetch their breath; after they have found any hole, they seat themselves near it upon a chair made for this purpose; and as soon as they perceive the seal come up to the hole and put his snout into it for some air, they immediately strike him with a small harpoon, which they have ready in their hand, to which harpoon is fastened a strap a fathom long, which they hold with the other hand. After he is struck, and cannot escape, they cut the hole so large, that they may get him up through it; and as soon as they have got his head above the ice, they can kill him with one blow of the fist.

A third way of catching seals is this: they make a great hole in the ice, or, in the spring, they find out holes made by the seals, through which they get upon the ice to lie and bask themselves in the sun. Near to these holes they place a low bench, upon which they lie down upon their belly, having first made a small hole near the large one, through which they let softly down a perch, sixteen or twenty yards long, headed with a harpoon, a strap being fastened to it, which one holds in his hand, while another (for there must be two employed in this sort of capture) who lies upon the bench with his face downwards, watches the coming of the seal, which when he perceives, he cries “KÆ;” whereupon he, who holds the pole, pushes and strikes the seal.

The fourth way is this: in the spring, when the seals lie upon the ice near holes, which they themselves make to get up and down, the Greenlanders, clothed with seal skins, and a long perch in their hand, creep along upon the ice, moving their head forwards and backwards, and snorting like a seal, till they come so near him, that they can reach him with the perch and strike him. A fifth manner of catching seals is, when in the spring the current makes large holes in the ice, the seals flock thither in great shoals; there the natives watch their opportunity to strike them with their harpoons, and haul them upon the ice. There is yet a sixth way of catching seals, when the ice is not covered with snow, but clear and transparent; then the catchers lay under their feet foxes or dogs’ tails, or a piece of a bear’s hide, to stand upon and watch the animal, and when by his blowing and snorting they find what course he takes, they softly follow him and strike him.

In fishing they make use of hooks and angles of iron or bones. Their lines are made of whalebones cut very small and thin, and at the end tacked together; and with such lines they will draw one hundred fishes to one which our people can catch with their hemp lines. But to catch halibut they use strong lines made of seal skin, or thick hemp lines.

Their way of fishing the small salmon or sea trout is this: at low water they build small enclosures with stone, near the river’s mouth, or any other place where the salmon runs along; and when it begins to flow, and the tide comes in, the salmon retreats to the river, and in high water passes over the enclosure, and remains in the river till the water again falls; then the salmon wants to go to sea again; but the fishermen way-lay him at the enclosure and stop his passage. And soon after, when the water is quite fallen and it is low ebb, the salmon remains upon dry land, and may be caught with hands. And where they are left in holes, they take them with an instrument made for this purpose, viz. a perch headed with two sharp hooked bones, or with one or two iron hooks.

The rogn fish, or roe fish, so named from the great quantity of roe that is found in it, as he is commonly found in shallow water and upon the sands, so he is caught like the salmon with the before-mentioned instrument. There is such abundance of these fishes, that, as they cannot consume them all fresh, they are obliged to dry them on the rocks, and keep them for winter provision. When roe fish catching is over, which happens in the month of May, then the Greenlanders retire into the bays and creeks, where the lod or stint fishing then takes place. There are such numberless shoals of them near the shore, that they catch them in a kind of sieves fastened upon long poles, and throw them upon the shore; they open and dry them upon the rocks, keeping them for their winter stock. This fish is not agreeable, nor reckoned wholesome, when eaten fresh; besides they have a nauseous smell, but when dried they may pass. The natives eat them with a bit of fat, or soused in train oil: and so of all other sorts of fishes, what the Greenlanders cannot consume fresh they dry upon the rocks in the sun, or in the wind, and lay them up for the winter.

Now as to the Greenland boats, there are two sorts of them; the one of which the men alone make use, is a small vessel sharp and pointed at both ends, three fathoms in length, and at most but three quarters of a yard broad with a round hole in the midst, just large enough for a man’s body to enter it, and sit down in it, the inside of the boat is made of thin rafts tacked together with the sinews of animals, and the outside is covered with seal skins, dressed and without hair; no more than one can sit in it, who fastens it so tight about his waist, that no water can penetrate it. In these small boats they go to sea, managing them with one oar of a fathom in length, broad at both ends, with which they paddle sometimes on one side, and sometimes on the other, with so much swiftness, that they are said to row ten or twelve Norway miles in a day. They chiefly make use of them in catching of seals and sea fowls, which they can approach on a sudden and unawares; whereas we in our large boats can very seldom come so near as to touch them. They do not fear venturing out to sea in them in the greatest storms, because they swim as light upon the largest waves as a bird can fly; and when the waves come upon them with all their fury, they only turn the side of the boat towards them to let them pass, without the least danger of being sunk: though they may happen to be overset, yet they easily raise themselves again with their paddle; but if they are overset unawares (as it often happens) and the boat be not close and tight about their waist, they are inevitably drowned.

The other kind of boats are large and open, like our boats, some of them twenty yards long; and these are called kone boats, that is, women’s boats, because the women commonly row them; for they think it unbecoming a man to row such a boat, unless great necessity requires it: and when they first set out for the whale fishing, the men sit in a very negligent posture, with their faces turned towards the prow, pulling with their little ordinary paddle; but the women sit in the ordinary way, with their faces towards the stern, rowing with long oars. The inside of these boats is composed of thin rafts, and the outside clothed with thick seal skins. In these boats they transport their baggage, as tents and the like household furniture, when they go to settle in some distant places in quest of provision. In these boats they also carry sails, made of the bowels and entrails of seals. The mast is placed foremost on the prow, and as the sail is broad at the upper end, where it is fastened to the yard and narrow at the lower end, so they neither want braces nor bowlines and sheet ropes, and with these sails they sail well enough with the wind, not otherwise. These boats, as they are flat-bottomed, can soon be overset.

The men meddle with no work at home but what concerns their tools for hunting and fishing tacklings, viz. their boats, bows, arrows, and the like. All other work, even of building and repairing their houses, belongs to the women. As dexterous and skilful as the men are at their work, so the women are not behindhand with them, but according to their way and manner deserve to be praised and admired.