The Material Culture of the Eskimo in West Greenland. 197 



has been bored for the blade and at the other there is a socket 

 which is not deep, but well rounded at the edges, the importance 

 of which we shall see later. On the one side are a couple of crescent- 

 shaped incisions, which may be ornaments, but perhaps are there 

 only to give a firmer grip for the hand. Disco Fjord. 



Fig. 41, В is quite of the same type, but it is greatly weathered, 

 flaky and fragile. Walrus tusk. Disco Fjord. 



Fig. 41, С is quite another type. In the upper end is found the 

 usual rather large hole for the end of the stone knife. It is oblong 

 in transverse section and is made by boring. The other end is cut 

 obliquely in two parallel cuts which do not lie in the same plane, 

 but are connected by a notch cut like a step. The upper end of 

 the shaft is well rounded and slightly constricted, in transverse 

 section elliptical, and here a hole for fastening a piece of line is 

 made at the edge. Antler, Disco Fjord. 



Fig. 41, D most probably is the same type, but not so well 

 preserved, most of the lower, slanting surface being wanting. There 

 is no hole for the line, but there may have been one lower down. 

 Disco Fjord. 



Fig. 41, E again is a new type. Here also we have the bevelled 

 surface in two steps, on the upper are still distinctly seen the marks 

 of the instrument with which it has been fashioned, and here it is 

 easy to see that it has been scraped with a stone. The traces 

 are slightly rounded grooves, just as they would be if the work were 

 done with the rounded edge originating from the conchoidal fracture 

 in the stone. The lower surface is only partially preserved. Just 

 above the upper bevelled surface there is a piece elliptical in trans- 

 verse section and a hand's breadth in length, and here we have a 

 line hole which goes straight through it. Above this handgrip the 

 bone becomes considerably narrower, gets the form almost of a knife- 

 blade and on the thinnest edge there is quite a narrow groove produced 

 by scraping which is not a full millimetre broad nor much deeper. 



Antler, Disco Fjord. 



In a finished state, and therefore with a blade of stone inserted, 

 these knives are here called sanardlit, plural sanardlisit. This word is 

 not to be found in Kleinschmidt's dictionary. It is formed from the 

 verb sanaçâ, 311 "he manipulates it" viz., "he cuts out" analogous 

 with the word sitdlit "a whetstone" from silwâ "he whets it." On 

 the other hand Kleinschmidt has another word sänat from the same 

 root, which he translates "a narrow long-handled knife which is 

 sharpened from one side and slightly curved at its point (and is the 

 Greenlander's principal tool)." 



When working with sanardlit of the types C, D, E the bevelled 

 end of the handle was lashed to a stick 20 — 30 cm. long and fashioned 

 in the same manner. The lower end of this stick was fitted either 



