A Description of Greenland

by Hans Egede

THERE are no venomous serpents or insects, no ravenous wild beasts to be seen in Greenland, if you except the bear, which some will have to be an amphibious animal, as he lives chiefly upon the ice in the most Northern parts, and feeds upon seals and fish. He very seldom appears near the colony, in which I had taken up my quarters. He is of a very large size, and of a hideous and frightful aspect, with white long hairs: he is greedy of human blood[27]. The natives tell us moreover of another kind of ravenous beasts, which they call Amarok, which eagerly pursue other beasts, as well as men; yet none of them could say, they ever had seen them, but only had it from others by hearsay; and whereas none of our own people, who have travelled up and down the country, ever met with any such beast, therefore I take it to be a mere fable.

Rein deer are in some places in so great numbers that you will see whole herds of them[28]; and when they go and feed in herds they are dangerous to come at. The natives spend the whole summer season in hunting of rein deer, going up to the innermost parts of the bays, and carrying, for the most part, their wives and children along with them, where they remain till the harvest season comes on. In the mean while they with so much eagerness hunt, pursue, and destroy these poor deer, that they have no place of safety, but what the Greenlanders know; and where they are in any number, there they chase them by clap-hunting, setting upon them on all sides, and surrounding them with all their women and children, to force them into defiles and narrow passages, where the men armed lay in wait for them and kill them: and when they have not people enough to surround them, then they put up white poles (to make up the number that is wanted) with pieces of turf to head them, which frightens the deer, and hinders it from escaping.

There are also vast numbers of hares, which are white summer and winter, very fat and of a good taste. There are foxes of different colours, white, grey, and blueish; they are of a lesser size than those of Denmark and Norway, and not so hairy, but more like martens. The natives commonly catch them alive in traps, built of stones like little huts. The other four-footed animals, which ancient historians tell us are found in Greenland, are sables, martens, wolves, losses, ermins, and several others; I have met with none of them on the Western side.—See Arngrim Jonas’s History of Greenland; as also Ivarus Beni’s Relation, mentioned by Undalinus.

Tame or domestic animals there are none, but dogs in great numbers, and of a large size, with white hairs, or white and black, and standing ears. They are in their kind as timorous and stupid as their masters, for they never bay or bark, but howl only. In the Northern parts they use them instead of horses, to drag their sledges, tying four or six, and sometimes eight or ten to a sledge, laden with five or six of the largest seals, with the master sitting up himself, who drives as fast with them as we can do with good horses, for they often make fifteen German miles with them in a winter day, upon the ice: and though the poor dogs are of so great service to them, yet they do not use them well, for they are left to provide for and subsist themselves as wild beasts, feeding upon muscles thrown up on the sea side, or upon berries in the summer season; and when there has been a great capture of seals they give them their blood boiled and their entrails.

As for land fowls or birds, Greenland knows of none but rypper, which is a sort of large partridges, white in winter, and grey in summer time, and these they have in great numbers. Ravens seem to be domestic birds with them, for they are always seen about their huts, hovering about the carcases of seals, that lie upon the ground. There are likewise very large eagles, their wings spread out being a fathom wide, but they are seldom seen in the Northern parts of the country. You find here falcons or hawks, some grey, some of a whitish plumage, and some speckled; as also great speckled owls. There are different sorts of little sparrows, snow birds, and ice birds, and a little bird not unlike a linnet, which has a very melodious tune.

Amongst the insects of Greenland, the midge or gnats are the most troublesome, whose sting leaves a swelling and burning pain behind it; and this trouble they are most exposed to in the hot season, against which there is no shelter to be found. There are also spiders, flies, humble bees, and wasps. They know nothing of any venomous animals, as serpents and the like; nor have they any snakes, toads, frogs, beetles, ants, or bees; neither are they plagued with rats, mice, or any such vermin.

CHAP. VI.

Of the Greenland Sea Animals, and Sea Fowls and Fishes.

THE Greenland Sea abounds in different sorts of animals, fowls, and fishes, of which the whale bears the sway, and is of divers kinds, shapes, and sizes. Some are called the finned whales, from the fins they have upon their back near the tail; but these are not much valued, yielding but little fat or blubber, and that of the meaner sort; they consist of nothing but lean flesh, sinews, and bones. They are of a long, round, and slender shape, very dangerous to meddle with, for they rage and lay about them most furiously with their tail, so that nobody cares to come at them, or catch them. The Greenlanders make much of them, on account of their flesh, which, with them, passes for dainty cheer. The other sort of whales are reckoned the best for their fat, and fins or whalebones. These differ from the first sort, in that they have no fin on the back towards the tail, but two lesser ones near the eyes, and are covered with a thick black skin, marbled with white strokes. With these side fins they swim with an incredible swiftness. The tail is commonly three or four fathoms broad. The head makes up one-third of the whole fish. The jaws are covered, both above and beneath, with a kind of short hair. At the bottom of the jaws are placed the so called barders, or whalebones, which serve him instead of teeth, of which he has none. They are of different colours, some brown, some black, and others yellow with white streaks. Within the mouth, the barders or whalebones are covered with hair like horse-hair, chiefly those that inclose the tongue. Some of them are bent like a scymitar, or sabre. The smallest are ranged the foremost in the mouth, and the hindermost near the throat; the broadest and largest are in the middle, some of them two fathoms long, by which we may judge of the vast bigness of this animal. On each side there are commonly two hundred and fifty, in all five hundred pieces. They are set in a broad row, as in a sheaf, one close to the other, bent like a crescent or half-moon, broadest at the root, which is of a tough and grisly matter, of a whitish colour, fastened to the upper part of the jaws near the throat, and they grow smaller towards the end, which is pointed; they are also covered with hair, that they may not hurt the tongue. The undermost jaw is commonly white, to which the tongue is fastened, inclosed in the barders, or long whale bones; it is very large, sometimes about eighteen feet, and sometimes more, of a white colour, with black spots, of a soft, fat, and spungy matter. The whale has a bunch on the top of his head, in which are two spouts or pipes, parallel one to the other, and somewhat bent, like the holes upon a fiddle. Through these he receives the air, and spouts out the water, which he takes in at his mouth, and is forced upwards through these holes in very large quantities, and with such violence and noise, that it is heard at a great distance, by which, in hazy weather, he is known to be near, especially when he finds himself wounded, for then he rages most furiously, and the noise of his spouting is so loud, that some have resembled it to the roaring of the sea in a storm, or the firing of great guns, His eyes are placed between the bunch and the side fins; they are not larger than those of an ox, and are armed with eyebrows.