122 Morten P. Porsild. 



To these four West Greenland kayak-forms the East Greenland one 

 comes fairly near, while the Smith-Sound Eskimo's lately invented, 

 clumsy form, which is so primitive that no West Greenland hunter 

 would be able to use it, differs widely from them. A skilful investiga- 

 tion of these six types will undoubtedly prove that many of the details 

 are only adaptations to the various external conditions in the different 

 localities. But there will unquestionably be things left which cannot 

 be explained in this manner and, more particularly, details regarding 

 the construction of the frame-work, the outer style, etc., which bear 

 witness to the different periods and tribes which have produced them, 

 and that this is more than probable is proved by the fact that their 

 distribution coincides with the distribution of the six main 

 dialects of Greenland. 



It is not always that one can carry out a technological investiga- 

 tion of an Eskimo implement in the same way. The arrangement of 

 the succession of the questions set forth above for solution is the one 

 most suitable for the treatment of a highly specialized implement for 

 a very special purpose. If the implement in question is more of a uni- 

 versal implement, then more satisfactory results will be arrived at by 

 first trying to understand its form, and especially by trying to find out 

 whether, in a large collection of forms, there might be expressed an 

 attempt at a certain ideal form. With other implements it is not 

 the form which is of interest, but only the material; or, of interest 

 is the difficulty which the Eskimo has had to overcome. Here I 

 must leave it to the reader to decide whether the method in question 

 is not, after all, useful; and to exemplify the two above-mentioned 

 cases, I shall be content to refer to my treatment of the bow (see pp. 158- 

 sqq.) and of the woman's knife (see pp. 203 sqq.) in the present paper. 



Where an implement has been set aside because a new culture has 

 produced another and better implement, it will naturally be more diffi- 

 cult to form an opinion of it technologically. In this respect I am think- 

 ing of weapons such as bows and arrows which of course are imme- 

 diately abandoned when guns can be obtained. The earliest travellers 

 who came across such implements while they were still in use have 

 generally given us too scanty information as regards their use; usually, 

 we are not even told for which sort of game this or that particular arrow 

 is intended. Here we must try to gain what information we can through 

 the traditions existing amongst the descendants of the people who made 

 and used the implement. That, in this way, valuable information may 

 still be obtained I have shown in my previously published description 

 of the curious, highly specialized arrow point for Caribou hunting 

 (see bibliography). The introduction of iron also influences the form 

 of the implements; at first only slightly, because iron is no more than 

 a better stone, but afterwards the technological differences of the two 

 substances became more clear to primitive man, and what had 



