25 



time supplied the national sports and entertainments. The so 

 called nith-songs were used for settling all sorts of crimes or 

 breaches of public order or custom, with the exception of those 

 which could only be expiated by death. 



While, as before stated, a MARKED PROGRESS is evidently 

 observed in passing from the Western to the Eastern tribes, as 

 regards the kayak with its implements and the dexterity in 

 using them, THE CONTRARY MAY RE SAID SO FAR AS CONCERNS 

 SOCIAL ORGANISATION , a natural consequence of the dispersal 

 which renders the preservation of social customs and usages 

 more and more difficult, in some cases even impossible. Our 

 imperfect knowledge only permits us to illustrate the social 

 order of the different tribes by examples of which a few shall 

 be given here. 



We begin with THE EXTREME EAST, the district of Angmags- 

 alik on the Greenland coast opposite Iceland. The Danish ex- 

 pedition who wintered here in 1884—1885 had the opportunity 

 of most minutely studying the usages and customs, the lang- 

 uage and traditions of the natives who had lived here debarred 

 from a contact with Europeans which might influence their way 

 of life. Their society exhibited most decidedly the character of 

 a «tribe» on a small scale and the researches mentioned have 

 made it one of the best known, if not the very best known of all 

 the Eskimo tribes that have existed unaltered by contact with 

 civilisation. They numbered 413 souls, divided into eleven smaller 

 communities inhabiting so many wintering stations; the widest 

 distance between them being 80 miles. A remarkable feature 

 of this distribution (as a rule probably observed nowhere else) 

 was that each place had but one house. Consequently no dif- 

 ference between housefellows and placefellows could exist. The 

 number of inmates of a house in one instance was as high as 

 58. The house of the station where the Danish explorers had 

 erected their own hut was inhabited by 38 persons constituting 

 8 families. The ledge running along the backwall of the room 



