DECLINE OF GREENLAND SETTLEMENTS 



the east coast of Greenland, many of whom struck him as re- 

 sembling Scandinavians in appearance — a fact which he sought 

 to explain by European sailors having perhaps been wrecked 

 there. 



But if it is now difficult to prove in this way the partially 

 Norse descent of the natives on the southern west coast of 

 Greenland, it is to be expected that there should be many ves- 

 tiges in their m5^hs and fairy-tales which would give evidence 

 of this. And this is precisely what we find. In an earlier work 

 [1891, pp. 207 f. Engl, ed., pp. 248 f.] I think I have pointed 

 out numerous features in their tales that bear a resemblance 

 to the Norse mythical world, and that must have been 

 derived from thence; and many more might be adduced. 

 The similarities are sufficiently numerous to bear witness 

 to a quite intimate intellectual contact, and are in full 

 agreement with what we should expect. But it may seem 

 strange that their religious ideas did not show more Christian 

 influence, especially when we see that even so late as 1407 

 Christianity was powerful enough in the Eastern Settlement 

 for a man to be burnt for having seduced another's wife by 

 witchcraft. There are, however, many features in their 

 conceptions of another world, of which Egede speaks, 

 which appear to be necessarily of Christian origin; we must 

 suppose, too, that Christian education was at a very low ebb 

 in Greenland at the close of the fourteenth century, and soon 

 ceased altogether. 



Only a few words in the language of the Greenland 

 Eskimo on the southern west coast have been shown to be 

 of Norse origin. Hans Egede himself pointed out the following : 

 "kona" (= wife. Old Norse kona), "sava" or " savak " 

 (= sheep, O.N. sauSr, gen. sauSa), "nisa" or "nisak" 

 (= porpoise, O.N. hnisa), "kuanek" (= angelica, O.N. 

 hvonn, plur. hvannir). Some of these words recur in 

 Labrador Eskimo, but may have been introduced by the 

 Moravian missionaries from Greenland. We may also men- 

 tion the name the Eskimo of southern Greenland apply to 



105 



