WINELAND THE GOOD 



This description, together with Egede's drawing, from 

 which it appears, among other things, that the opponents 

 are arranged in pairs, seems to show that the Eskimo game 

 was very like the Icelanders' "knattleikr" and the Indians 

 " lacrosse " ; but with the difference that, according to 

 Egede's account, the Eskimo did not use any club or crosse; 

 moreover, from Egede's drawing it looks as if both men 

 and women took part, as with certain Indian tribes. That 

 there is a connec- 

 tion here appears 

 natural. The most 

 probable explanation 

 may be that the 

 Eskimo as well as 

 the Indians got this 

 ball-game from the 

 Norsemen. That the 

 Eskimo should have 

 learnt it from the 

 whalers after the 

 rediscovery of Green- 

 land in the sixteenth 



century is unlikely, as also that it should have come to the In- 

 dians from the Eskimo round the north of Baffin Bay and through 

 Baffin Land and Labrador ; nor is it any more likely that the Ice- 

 landers should have learnt it of the Eskimo in Greenland, who 

 again had it from America. 



It is in itself a strange thing that the discovery of a country 

 like North America, with conditions so much more favorable 

 than Greenland and Iceland, should not have led to a permanent 

 settlement. But there are many, and in my judgment sufficient 

 reasons which explain this. We must remember that such 

 an outpost of civilization as Greenland offered poor oppor- 

 tunities for the equipment of such settlements; the settlers 

 would have to be prepared for continual conflicts with the In- 

 dians, who with their warlike capacity and their numbers 



41 



Game of ball among the Eskimo of 

 Greenland [Hans Egede, 1741] 



