The Angmagsalik Eskimo. 5 15, 
the head as a wedge or a celt, and told me its name, which I then erro- 
neously took to be the name of the hammer as a whole”. 
It should be noted, that the illustration in Нотм’з book shown to 
the Eskimo was the very one here in question; the Eskimo then at once 
gave the thing its right name, which was the same as that appended 
to the illustration by Horm himself. This was an excellent test of the 
Eskimo intelligence; unfortunately, however, Mr. THALBITZER declined 
to be guided thereby. 
It may be as well in this connection to call to mind the reasons 
which persuaded Cand. THALBITZER in 1906 to publish the description 
of the Amprup collection. After declaring that the work lay “outside 
of the special line of study” which he “had hitherto pursued’, he 
goes on to mention, among the objects which induced him to undertake 
it, the following: “in my capacity of linguist I was sensible of the ad- 
vantage of obtaining a better insight into the forms assumed by the 
material culture of the East Greenlanders”. ...and concludes: “An exact 
knowledge of the objects and their modifications will always come in 
useful in studying a people’s linguistic designations of these objects”!, 
The last sentence is confirmed by the case of the chisel just referred 
to. The linguist may easily be misled if he does not happen to know 
the Danish name of the object which he wishes to have named in the 
Eskimo tongue. 
AN ESKIMO WORK OF ART. 
Among the finest pieces of work in JoHAN PETERSEN's collection 
is a little double head, carved in wood (THALBITZER's Fig. 356). The 
one face shows, in a very realistic manner, the typical Eskimo features, 
while the other reveals the large nose and numerous wrinkles typical 
of the masks from East Greenland. 
The Editor states that the object was found “in a grave in the Am- 
massalik Fjord” and expresses the opinion that “it may probably have 
been a memorial image like those known from Alaska (NELson 1899 
pp. 317—319)? belonging to a grave and representing the deceased 
sealer and his wife”, 
With regard to the reference made to NELson’s work, it should be 
noted that the objects described by him on the pages quoted are either 
large figures (the measurements given say 6—7 feet high, whereas the 
present head is only 11 em.) or large flat masks, placed side by side 
on a palisade. The placing of such figures is, moreover, not an ordinary 
burial custom, but is confined to memorials erected over persons who 
had met their death elsewhere, and were thus precluded from receiving 
the usual funeral rites.’ 
1 Medd. om Grønl. vol. 28 p.334. ? Ann. Rep. of the Bur. of Am. Ethnol. XVIII. 
