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East Greenland East Greenlanders live mainly by hunting seal, great numbers of which are found along the coast. The meat of the seals is eaten, while their skins are either sold to the trading company or used for making clothes. For hunting in the summer, the Inuit formerly used harpoons and kayaks. These days they hunt with rifles in motor boats. Before the arrival of the Europeans the Greenlanders lived a semi-nomadic existence. During the short summer they fished for salmon, and lived in skin tents close to the water. In the winter they lived spread out along the fjords in small groups, inhabiting stone houses half buried in the ground, and often built into the slope of a low hill. A winter house of this kind was constructed to keep in the heat. The entrance consisted of a low corridor, to enable the warm air (which rises because it is lighter than cold air) to be retained in the living area. More than one family lived in a house, each family having its own blubber lamp for warmth and lighting. Food was also cooked over this lamp, and a rack hung above it was used for drying clothes. The advent of the Europeans - as late as 1884 in East Greenland - had a great influence on the Inuit way of life. Greenlanders began to sell their surplus fish to the Danish Royal Greenland Trading Company, in exchange for useful objects made of iron, and for firearms, textiles, and European foodstuffs. Greenlanders gradually began to settle in permanent villages and towns, where education, health care, shops and paid work were freely available. Today, most Greenlanders live in modern wooden houses or in flats. In 1979 Greenland was granted self-government, and partial independence. | |
