The Material Culture of the Eskimo in West Greenland. 215 



danger which should be avoided, is that the sole may let in water 

 at this spot. As these two implements are always used for the same 

 kind of work, and not for anything else, they are generally fastened 

 together. Thus В and C, and D and E are two sets of these imple- 

 ments. E is ornamented with rows of small holes. Both sets are 

 made of the tusks of a walrus. 



As the way in which the sole of the boot is made, is alike in 

 all Eskimo tribes, ^ these implements will also be found in other 

 places, at any rate the tigussaut. I do not know whether they have 

 been expressly mentioned; I have not been able to find any such 

 mention in the literature accessible to me here, but sometimes there 

 are figures of such implements, which have been — - evidently wrongly 

 — interpreted to be something else. Thus Boas has illustrated in 

 his figures 41, 42 and 134, a number of implements which he calls 

 "skin-scrapers", some of which undoubtedly are sole-puckers. While 

 the edge of a scraper as a rule is sharpened on the one side only, 

 unless the whole blade is curved, the edge of a tigussaut is sharpened 

 alike on both sides. Several of Boas's specimens would also be too 

 small for scrapers. A number are provided with a handle in such a 

 manner that by its shape it can be seen, that the edge is to be held 

 lengthwise, not crosswise. The "awls" and "marlinespikes" figured 

 by several authors are exactly similar to the Greenland putugkisit. 



H is a^needlecase {merqusiçik, 207) of wood for steel needles. 

 The stopper has been made to screw on. It is perhaps of European 

 workmanship. Sarqaq. 



/ is a bone knife (erisaut) for plucking the hairs from 

 those sealskins which are to be made into waterproof 

 leather (erisâq, 68). Now such a tool is doubtless out of date ; any 

 knife not too sharp, is now used for that purpose. Sarqaq. 



У is a bone needle {nuissaut, 256) for stringing fish. Disco 

 Fjord. 



The national skin-embroidery of West Greenland, which is 

 worked to regular patterns by sewing tiny square bits of coloured skin on 



^ See, e. g. the excellent figures in Mason: Primitive Travel and Trans- 

 portation. 



