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MIKLÓS VASSÁNYI
For Pilot James Hall returned, this time, under the direct command of
Admiral Lindenov, to Greenland the following year, in 1606," in order to
exploit silver ore located on the previous voyage." Contrary to what Cranz
suggests, the fleet was also carrying surviving Kalaallit back to their
homeland though two of them died soon after departure while we do not
learn anything about the fate of any other of them.” The fact that (at least
some of) the Greenlanders abducted the year before were travelling with the
expedition may mean that they were to be used as guides and interpreters or,
a less likely option, that they were to be made free. (Cartier, for instance, at
the end of his second journey, recaptured his First Nations interpreters whom
he kidnapped during his first journey, and took them back with him again to
France.)** Our Danish-English explorers, then, had a first peaceful meeting
with Greenland natives towards the end of July when barter trade was made at
length, with a larger group of Kalaallit, to mutual content.** A couple of days
later, in early August, the Admiral went ashore and inspected an apparently
deserted Kalaallit settlement and the appertaining cemetery.** On the same
day, however, Hall and his crew seized five Aboriginal men together with
their kayaks. He relates the event in very plain words, as follows:
About noone, our men came aboord againe; and, after Dinner, some of the people
came vnto vs, of whom we caught fiue, with their Boates, and stowed them in our
ships, to bring them into Denmarke, to enforme our selues better, by their meenes,
of the state of their Countrie of Groineland, which, in their owne language, they
call Secanunga, and say that, vp within the Land, they haue a great King, which is
carried vpon mens shoulders.*°
Our chief historical source is An Account of the Danish Expedition to Greenland, under the
Command of Captain Godske Lindenov, in 1606, by James Hall, Chief Pilot, in Gosch (ed.),
Danish Arctic Expeditions, Vol. 1, 54-81. Further, Captain Leyell’s and Captain Bruun’s
respective logbooks were published by C. Pingel in his De vigtigste reiser, som i nyere tid ere
foretagne fra Danmark og Norge, for igjen at opsöge det tabte Grönland og at undersöge det
gjenfundne, Kjöbenhavn, S.L. Möllers Bogtrykkeri, 1845, 55-62 and 68-72, respectively.
5! Oswalt, Eskimos and Explorers, 45; Gad, History of Greenland, 220.
“This afternoon <= June 4, 1606> dyed one of our Groinlanders called Oxo. [...] This night <=
June 10>, at midnight, dyed the Groenlander which we had aboord us named Omeg.” (Hall,
An Account of the Danish Expedition to Greenland, in 1606, in Gosch (ed.), Danish Arctic
Expeditions, Vol. 1, 56-57.)
Cartier, Brief recit, 12 verso and 42 verso—44 verso.
54 Hall, An Account of the Danish Expedition to Greenland, 67.
“The ninth, in the morning, Our Captaine, with the Captaine of the Urin, went with their
Boates vp the Riuer, where they did come to see their winter houses, which were builded with
Whales bones, the Balkes being of Whale’s ribbes, and the toppes were couered with earth,
and they had certaine Vaults or Sellers vnder the earth foure square, about two yards deepe
in the ground. These houses were in number about some fortie. They found also certaine
Graues made of stones ouer the dead bodies of their people, the carkasses being wrapped in
Seales skins, and the stones laid inmanner of a Coffin ouer them.” (Ibid., 70.)
56 Ibid., 70-71.
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