Chapter I: Of the Situation and Extent of Greenland (5)

[20] The Moravian mission in Greenland began in the year 1733. The brethren of this mission have two settlements or villages upon the Western coast. One of these, which is called New Herrnhut, is on Ball’s River; and the other, which is denominated Lichtenfels, is at the distance of thirty-six leagues from the first, and more to the South. Crantz says, that, at his departure from Greenland, four hundred and seventy Greenlanders were living at New Herrnhut in sixteen houses. The brethren themselves describe this place as a sort of green Oasis in a cheerless desert. “No one,” says one of the missionaries, “would expect to find such a pleasant place in such an unpleasant land. The country consists entirely of bald rocks, thinly interspersed with spots and veins of earth, or rather sand. But our house, area, garden, &c. look very regular and decent, and all the adjacent land round about the place, where once not a blade of grass grew in the sand, is now enrobed with the most beautiful foliage, so that New-Herrnhut may be called a garden of the Lord in a most frightful wilderness.” Crantz, vol. i, p. 162, 163. In p. 399, of the same volume, Crantz extols the soft beauty of this little Greenland village, compared with the rugged sterility around. “On the spot,” says he, “that formerly consisted of nothing but sand, nay, on the very rocks, grows now the finest grass, the ground being manured for so many years with the blood and fat of their seals. And when the Greenlanders live in their winter houses, one may see every evening, yea, throughout the whole night, a beautiful illumination, which is the more agreeable as the houses stand in two parallel lines, are of equal height, and have light in all the windows.”

[21] According to the relation and opinion of those Greenlanders, that inhabit the gulf of Disco, in 69°, Greenland is an island, which they infer from the strong current that runs from the North, and keeps the ice open even into the midst of the sea: they will also tell you, they have spoken with people different from themselves on the other side of the ice, and hailed them. Their language, they say, is the same, but the persons different, so that a small strait only divides Greenland from America. The said straits are so narrow, that men on both sides can shoot at once one and the same fish. The continent farthest to the North is all covered with ice; the islands only uncovered, where rein deer, and also geese and other wild birds, are found in great numbers.

[22] Historians disagree about the time of the first settlement of Greenland. The Icelanders (as we have mentioned) will have it to be in the year 982-3. But Pontanus, in his Danish History, refers it to the year 770; making his assertion good by a bull of Pope Gregory the IVth, who in the year 835 sent to Bishop Ansgarius, wherein the propagation of the Gospel is recommended to him, as archbishop of the Northern Countries, and especially of Iceland and Greenland.

[23] The Greenlanders relate a very ridiculous story, as well concerning the origin of our colonies (whom they call by the name of Kablunæt) as of their total overthrow, as follows: a Greenland woman, in her child-bearing, was once delivered of Kablunæt and dogs’ whelps, of which the parents were highly ashamed, and for that reason withdrew from their neighbours and countrymen. This monstrous breed being grown up, became so troublesome to their father, that he was not able to endure them; wherefore he retired yet farther to some distant place. Meanwhile this inhuman race came to this horrible agreement amongst themselves, to devour their own father, whenever he should happen to come among them; which a little after came to pass, when he visited them with a present of some part of a seal, which he had taken, according to custom. Kablunæt immediately went down to him, to whom the father delivered the piece of seal’s flesh he had brought them. But he was no sooner got ashore, than the doggish race seized and devoured him, and then ate the seal’s flesh given them. Whilst the Kablunæt dwelled there, one of the Innuits (or mankind), for so they call themselves, came rowing along the shore, and throwing his dart at some sea fowl, missed what he aimed at; which one of the Kablunæt, who stood upon a point of land running out into the sea, observing, mocked and ridiculed him, and, laying himself down upon the ground, told him that as he saw he was so dexterous in shooting, he would be the bird; he might throw the dart at him, and take care not to miss him: whereupon Innuit shot and killed him. This death caused continual strifes and wars between the Kablunæts and Innuits, which last at length became masters, and overthrew the former.

[24] A Greenlander, who came from the most Southern part of the country near the States Promontory, told my son, when he saw some lemons in his room, that he had seen fruits much like those growing upon trees in his country, though they were four times less; which I take to have been some of those acorns, which I above took notice of, treating of the nature of the soil.

[25] The lamps and pots, which the Southern Greenlanders make of this marble, are sold at a very high price; so that the natives of the Northern parts, where such marble is not to be had, buy them at the rate of eight or ten rein deer skins a large pot, and a lamp at two or three skins.

[26] According to what the natives tell, there is in the Southern parts a hot well, of a mineral quality; which, if you wash therein, cures the itch; they wash their skins in it, and it takes away all dirt and foulness, and makes them look like new.

[27] In the 76th degree of latitude the number of bears is so great, that they in droves surround the natives’ habitations, who then, with their dogs, fall upon them, and with their spears and lances kill them. In winter, instead of dens or caves under the earth, as in Norway and other places, here the bears make theirs under the snow; which, according to the information the natives have given me, are made with pillars, like stately buildings.

[28] The farther you go Northwards, the seldomer you meet with rein deer, except in the 3d or 4th degree to the North of Disco, where they are in great numbers; perhaps by reason either of its joining to America, or else because the deer pass over to the islands upon the ice, in quest of food, which the main land, covered with ice and snow, does not afford them. The natives, instead of reason, give us a very childish tale for the vast number of rein deer being found upon Disco Island, as follows:--

A mighty Greenlander (one Torngarsuk, as they call him, who is father to an ugly frightful woman, who resides in the lowermost region of the Earth, and has command over all the animals of the sea, as we shall see hereafter) did with his Kajar, tow this island to the place where it now lies, from the South where it was before. Now, as the face of this island resembles very much the Southern coasts, and the root angelica is likewise found upon it, which grows nowhere else in the neighbouring parts, this confirms them in their credulity. And furthermore, they assure you, that a hole is seen to this day in the island, through which the towing-rope had been fastened by Torngarsuk.

[29] The above-mentioned author calls the first of these monsters Havestramb, or Mer-man, and describes it to have the likeness of a man, as to the head, face, nose, and mouth; save that its head was oblong and pointed like a sugar-loaf; it has broad shoulders, and two arms without hands; the body downwards is slanting and thin; the rest below the middle, being hid in the water, could not be observed. The second monster he calls Margya, or Mer-woman, or Mermaid, had from the middle upwards the shape and countenance of a woman; a terrible broad face, a pointed forehead, wrinkled cheeks, a wide mouth, large eyes, black untrimmed hair, and two great breasts, which showed her sex; she has two long arms, with hands and fingers joined together with a skin, like the feet of a goose; below the middle she is like a fish, with a tail and fins. The fishermen pretend, that when these sea monsters appear, it forebodes stormy weather. The third monster, named Hafgufa, is so terrible and frightful, that the author does not well know how to describe it; and no wonder, because he never had any true relation of it: its shape, length, and bulk, seems to exceed all size and measure. They that pretend to have seen it, say, it appeared to them more like a land than a fish, or sea animal. And as there never has been seen above two of them in the wide open sea, they conclude, that there can be no breed of them; for if they should breed and multiply, all the rest of fishes must be destroyed at last, their vast body wanting such large quantity of nourishment. When this monster is hungry, it is said to void through the mouth some matter of a sweet scent, which perfumes the whole sea; and by this means it allures and draws all sorts of fishes and animals, even the whales to it, who in whole droves flock thither, and run into the wide opened swallow of this hideous monster, as into a whirlpool, till its belly be well freighted with a copious load of all sorts of fishes and animals, and then it shuts the swallow, and has for the whole year enough to digest and live upon; for it is said to make but one large meal a year. This, though a very silly and absurd tale, is nevertheless matched by another story, every whit as ridiculous, told by my own countrymen, fishermen in the Northern part of Norway. They tell you, that a great ghastly sea monster now and then appears in the main sea, which they call Kracken, and is no doubt the same that the islanders call Hafgufa, of which we have spoken above. They say, that its body reaches several miles in length; and that it is most seen in a calm; when it comes out of the water, it seems to cover the whole surface of the sea, having many heads and a number of claws, with which it seizes all that comes in its way, as fishing boats with men and all, fishes and animals, and lets nothing escape; all which it draws down to the bottom of the sea. Moreover they tell you that all sorts of fishes flock together upon it, as upon a bank of the sea, and that many fishing boats come thither to catch fish, not suspecting that they lie upon such a dreadful monster, which they at last understand by the intangling of their hooks and angles in its body; which the monster feeling, rises softly from the bottom to the surface, and seizes them all; if in time they do not perceive him and prevent their destruction, which they may easily do, only calling it by its name, which it no sooner hears, but it sinks down again as softly as it did rise. They tell you of another sea spectre, which they call the Draw, who keeps to no constant shape or figure, but now appears in one, now in another. It appears and is heard before any misfortunes, as shipwrecks and the like, happen at sea, which it forebodes with a most frightful and ghastly howling; and they say it sometimes utters words like a man. It most commonly diverts itself, in putting all things out of order, after the fishermen are gone at night to rest; and then he leaves behind him a nasty stench. The fishermen will not suffer the truth of this tale to be questioned, but pretend it is confessed. But the most superstitious among them go yet a step farther, and will make you believe, that there appears to them another kind of sea phantom, in the shape of a child in swadling clothes, which they call Marmel, and sometimes draw him out of the sea with their angling hook, when he speaks to them with a human voice. They carry him to their home, and at night they put him into one of their boots, there to rest. In the morning, when they go a fishing again, they take him along with them in their boats, and before they let him go, they set him a task to inform them of all they want to know, upon which they dismiss him.

[30] What so many authors of great note relate of the wood ducks, and affirm to be an unquestionable truth, is by as many learned writers treated as an old woman’s tale, pretending that such an heterogeneal generation passes the ordinary bounds of nature.

Others (in consideration of so many authors of credit, who affirm that they have been eye witnesses to this strange and wonderful generation) have taken great pains to demonstrate the causes and probability of it physically and philosophically, amongst whom is the learned father Kirkerus, in his Mundus Subterraneus; where he maintains, that the semen of this extraordinary generation is neither contained in those old pieces of wood, that drive in the sea, nor in the muscles originally; for a piece of wood cannot produce a living animal, this exceeding the virtue nature has endowed it with; much less the summer froth of the sea, which adheres to the rotten piece of wood, and may produce shells or muscles. Then he forms the question, from whence comes this semen or seed, which produces such a strange fruit as a living bird? which question he strives thus to resolve; that, whereas he has been informed by certain Dutchmen’s journals or voyages into the Northern seas, that this sort of birds, peculiar to that climate, make their nest and lay their eggs upon the ice; when the ice by the heat of the sun thaws and breaks asunder, this innumerable quantity of eggs are likewise mashed and crushed to pieces and beaten about by the waves; and that if that part of the egg, which contains the seed, encounters any subject matter proper to foment and brood it, and is received in it loco nutricis, assisted by the temperament of the air, the earth, or the sea, it becomes in due time a perfect bird. This is the renowned father Kirkerus’s notion concerning the generation of these birds. But if one examines his reasoning, it is found altogether incoherent: for it was never known, that sea fowls lay their eggs upon the naked ice, but commonly upon the islands and rocks in the sea, which are surrounded and sometimes covered with ice; and consequently when the ice breaks, and drives away from the islands, the eggs remain still in their nest, without receiving any hurt. And thus the Dutch found it at Nova Zembla, in the year 1569; but what they saw was not the right sort of wood ducks, but what they in Norway call gield ducks; for wood ducks never are seen to couple, nor to lay or hatch their eggs. Secondly, it seems no less absurd to maintain, that eggs, after they are mashed in pieces, and beaten about by the waves, retain as much seminal virtue as will serve to procreate a bird. From whence I infer, that either the information the good father had got from the Dutch voyages was intirely groundless, or this pretended generation goes beyond the bounds of nature. As to the first inference, it is not impossible that the authors who relate this story may have been imposed upon by a common though false report of vulgar and ignorant people; as any one may, that takes a thing for granted upon a bare hearsay, without the attestation of eye witnesses in such a matter. For my part I do not doubt at all of this wonderful generation; for though I have not beheld it with my own eyes, yet I have met with many honest and reasonable men in my native country, who have assured me, that they have found pieces of old, rotten, driven wood in the sea, upon which there hang muscles, in some of which they saw young birds, some half formed, others in full perfection and shape. From whence I conclude, that those fowls spring from no other seed than some clammy and viscous matter floating in the sea, precipitated upon pieces of old rotten wood as aforesaid; of which there is first formed a muscle, and then a little worm in the muscle shell; from whence at last a bird proceeds. And although this may seem to exceed the ordinary bounds set by nature in the procreation of other birds, yet it is observed and confessed, that the sea produces many strange and surprising things, and even living animals, which we cannot affirm to have had being from the first creation; but that by virtue of the primitive blessing God gave the sea to produce, it may yet bring forth many uncommon and wonderful things; as for example, many sorts of sea insects, viz. crabs and the like. And thus the sea or water in general may with reason be stiled _pater et mater rerum_; i. e. “the common parent of things.” Nature seems to delight sometimes in forming out-of-the-way things: thus we see divers insects formed out of the very dung of animals; some of which insects often change their kind and shape, _viz._ from a small worm into a flying animal; as flies, beetles, butterflies, and so forth.

[31] When they see our drunken sailors quarrelling and fighting together, they say we are inhuman; that those fighters do not look upon one another to be of the same kind. Likewise, if an officer beats any of the men, they say, such officer treats his fellow creatures like dogs.

[32] The way the men wash themselves is to lick their fingers (as the cat does his paws) and rub their eyes with them to get the salt off, which the sea throws into their face. The women wash themselves in their urine, that their hair may grow, and to give it (according to their fancy) a fine smell. When a maiden has thus washed herself, their common saying is _niviarsiarsuanerks_, that is, she smells like a virgin maid. Thus washed they go into the cold air, and let it freeze, which shows the strength of their heads, and it well becomes foreigners to do so.

[33] In the summer they wear short frocks, as also in winter, when they work on the ice in the bays; but then they put a white covering over it, that they may not frighten the seals.

[34] When a man sends for his son’s bride, to be conducted to his house, if he be in good circumstances he makes a great feast; and throws out for prizes several presents of poles, rafts, knives, and other toys. The same is practised the day following after the bedding of the new-married couple. If they have children before the year is past, or if they often breed, they are blamed, and compared to dogs. A new married woman is ashamed for having changed her condition for a married state.

[35] In its inflections it agrees with the Hebrew.

[36] The angekuts say that souls are a soft matter to feel, or rather that they cannot be felt, as if they had neither sinews nor bones.

[37] The Innuæ, or inhabitants of the sea, they call Kongeuserokit; of whom they say, that they feed upon fox tails. Ingnersoit, a sort of sea sprites, which inhabit the rocks that lie upon the coast; which, they tell you, will carry away the Greenlanders, not to do them any harm, but to enjoy their company. Tunnersoit are phantoms living in the mountains; and Ignersoit, or fiery sprites (because they appear to be all over fire) live near the shore, in steep and craggy cliffs. This is that meteor which we call the Flying Dragon. Innuarolit they pretend to be a people of a dwarfish size, like pigmies, and are said to inhabit the East side of Greenland. Erkiglit, on the contrary, are said to be a nation of a huge and monstrous size, with snouts like dogs; they are likewise said to dwell on the East side. Sillagiksortok, a spirit, who makes fair weather, and lives upon the ice mountains. Nerrim Innua, or the ruler of diet, because he prescribes rules for the diet or eating of those that are obliged to keep abstinence. They ascribe also some sort of divinity to the air, and for fear of offending it they will refrain from certain things and actions; for which reason they are afraid to go out in the open air in the dark.

[38] While angekkuts are conjuring, nobody must scratch his head, nor sleep, nor break wind; for they say, that such a dart can kill the enchanters, nay the devil himself. After a conjuration has been performed, there is a vacancy from working for three or four days.

[39] _Argnakaglertoko_, a woman that lives by rule, they say, can lay the storm, by going out of doors and filling her mouth with air, and coming back into the house, blows it out again. If she catches the rain drops with her mouth, it will be dry weather; and other strange effects they ascribe to her.

[40] A word not known to me in the Danish tongue.

[41] Others say, that a huge dog watches the entry, and gives warning, when an angekkok attempts to get in, and defends the entry. Wherefore the angekkok must watch the minute, that the dog falls asleep (which lasts but a moment), to steal in upon her. This moment nobody knows but an angekkok poglik; wherefore the other angekkuts often return home again without success. This frightful woman is said to have a hand as big as the tail of a whale, with which, if she hits any body, he is at one stroke mouse-dead. But if the angekkok conquers her (which he does if he can get at her _aglerrutut_, which hang dangling about her face, and rob her of them) then she must discharge all fishes and sea animals, which she has detained in captivity; who thereupon return to their wonted stations in the sea.

[42] They assign the Moon a house in the Western part of the world, where he is often visited and resorted to by the angekkuts. And the Sun, they say, has her abode in the East; but she is inaccessible on account of her heat, which keeps the angekkuts at a distance; at which she is sorely grieved, because she cannot learn by them how matters stand upon Earth.

Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:

Forbisher=> Frobisher {x 5}

no such piercing or singing sharpness=> no such piercing or stinging sharpness {pg 56}

like a cresent=> like a crescent {pg 68}

firing of great gnns=> firing of great guns {pg 69}

his mouth his armed=> his mouth is armed {pg 82}

His length his five=> His length is five {pg 82}

come up to to the hole=> come up to the hole {pg 104}

sea dogs, who mount the the guard=> sea dogs, who mount the guard {pg 202}

None can can get admittance=> None can get admittance {pg 202}

Ou il se fait grande=> Où il se fait grande {note, pg xxviii}

End of Project Gutenberg's A Description of Greenland, by Hans Egede