Seal skin
Seal skins are usually processed by the women of East Greenland. The men go hunting for seal in both the summer and winter. The women and children, who remain behind in the village, can see from a distance whether or not the returning men have caught any seals. When they have, it is a happy day for the families since it means that there will be food for everyone.

A good wife will hurry to her husband's landing place, and help him to drag the seal he has caught to their house. Then she begins to flense the seal, i.e., to cut it up and skin it, and to process the seal skin. She lays the skin on her scraping board, the qapiarpik. She scrapes the fat away from the back of the skin with hard strokes of her woman's knife.

Sogrid Jonathansen, holding a corner of the sealskin in her mouth. There is a flensing (skinning) board in front of her. She is scraping the last remains of fat and liquid from the skin. (Photos: Gerti Nooter 67-4-34-15 en 16)

The subsequent stages in processing seal skins involve heavy and time-consuming work, consisting of several rinsings in soapsuds (in earlier times, urine was used). Women then have to stretch the skins and dry them, several times. Stretching the skin makes it supple. Inuit women formerly chewed the skins to make them supple, but in East Greenland this is no longer done today. It is only the very worn teeth of some of the older women that reminds us of this former custom. When the seal skins have been processed the hunter or his wife sells them to the trading company. The couple keep only a few of the skins for their own use, for making mittens, slippers, boots and bags.

There are several different kinds of seal, each producing a different kind of fur and leather. The Bearded Seal (Erignathus barbatus) for example, is a large seal with thick, tough skin that is eminently suitable for making boot soles. The Inuit have a great number of different names for the kinds and qualities of skin, distinguishing both species and ages of the seals.

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