Implements and Artefacts of the North-east Greenlanders. 483 



occurrence of iron in the southern regions of North-east Greenland — 

 appear, is not surprising, in view of what we know regarding the 

 movements of the AngmagsaUk Eskimo to the northward. Thus a 

 man named Kunak, who was still living in 1906, informed Holm that 

 he had, as a boy — probably about the year 1850 — lived for three 

 years at Nordre Aputitek (67° 47' 5"), and had been there again about 

 1886.^ Amdrup found at this place a house, which he identified 

 as that where Kunak had lived as a child; he gives the following 

 description: "The ruined house itself lay on a site on which two 

 other houses had previously stood, so that the island must have 

 been successively occupied by different sets of inhabitants". "Its size 

 precluded the possibility of its having been inhabited after Kunak 

 by Eskimo from the North". ^ 



Holm further writes: "A man who is still alive told me that his 

 father once drove in a sledge from northern Aputitek to the district 

 round Kangerdlugsuak. Here he found a house which had just been 

 deserted by its inmates, who had driven away in sledges. It could 

 be seen from the sledge tracks that they had gone northwards. They 

 lay down to sleep in the house, but as he was stabbed in the leg 

 with a knife while he was asleep, he returned as fast as he could 

 to Aputitek, without seeing anything of the inhabitants. Nothing has 

 ever been heard since of the people up in the north". ^ Elsewhere, 

 the following note is made: "According to the statement made by 

 another, the place visited by this man was as a matter of fact, the 

 country north of Kangerdlugsuak, and he reported, that the coast 

 here curved round in a northerly direction".^ 



These accounts suggest that the routes of the two tribes have 

 crossed from time to time; there is, however, no record of friendly 

 intercourse between one tribe and the other. Another, more direct 

 indication as to the routes followed is furnished by the houses still 

 preserved. Unequal as they are in size, and varying considerably 

 in shape, their true significance is not always very clear; neverthe- 

 less, certain features can be laid down with certainty' as regards 

 the winter houses of indubitably North-east Greenland origin. On 

 referring to the plate showing the measured specimens of the houses, 

 about 60 in number, found by the Danmark Expedition^, it will be 

 seen that with one exception (that of the double house 132 — 133 at 

 Renskæret) the greatest extent is not, as in Angmagsalik, transver- 

 sely to the direction of the passage-way, but — save where length 

 and breadth are equal — in the direction from passage-way to rear 

 wall. Ryder notes the same with regard to the fifty or so houses 



1 Holm III, p. 218, Amdrup I, p. 246 et seqq., II, p. 311, Thalbitzer II, p. 345. 



2 Amdbup II, p. 311. 3 Holm II, p. 110. * Holm III, p. 222. ^ Thostrup, PI. II. 



