25 



are to abide by the original state of the natives , before their 

 contact with the Europeans. The difficulties in following this 

 rule are especially perceivable in the sections for Sociology and 

 Religion. The translation of the words from civilised languages 

 belonging to these domains can hardly be given without adding 

 explanation. Habits and customs that to the natives have the 

 same importance as laws, nevertheless, if classified as such 

 may be misunderstood. A still greater confusion has prevailed 

 in the designation of ideas relating to religion. For the name 

 of: "God", in Greenland and Labrador the word simply was 

 taken from the Danish language. In the Extreme West we meet 

 with several apparently Eskimo words as translation of «God» 

 the origin of which however seems very problematic, in the 

 Mackenzie vocabulary a word is formed signifying something 

 like «the land its worker». For spirits or the ghostly world in 

 Greenland and Labrador words have been applied, connected 

 with the idea of breathing, which evidently is Europeism. In 

 the Mackenzie we find «Dieu des Esquimaux» translated as 

 «Great breathing» and «Saint Esprit» as «High (takiyork-longf) 

 breath or breathing». A similar abnormity has prevailed in the 

 words referring to moral and physical evil. Some original Eskimo 

 designations however have been maintained in the Christian 

 instruction. This chapter on the whole also may be of some 

 more general interest to the history of culture, by tending to 

 show the origin and the earliest development or differentiation 

 of certain important ideas. 



The vocabulary offered by the present book of course can 

 not be compared with dictionaries, it is but a selection taken 

 from a very large store of words. First a suitable series of 

 Greenland words had to be set up; then the other dialects had 

 to be examined in order to pick out what was really deviating 

 from this standard list, and finally a number of words was 

 added chiefly as examples, representing diversities either of 

 minor importance, or merely originated by the often mentioned 



