The Ammassalik Eskimo. 443 
On my return from a winter in Greenland (1906) I was invited by 
the Committee for Geological and Geographical Investigations in Green- 
land, and by the Director of the Carlsberg Fund, to undertake the 
description of the collections from East Greenland recently brought 
home to Copenhagen, and of which nothing had been published up to 
that date. I was the first man in this country since the days of G. Horn, 
who had taken sufficient scientific interest in the culture of Greenland 
to learn the language and take up residence among the natives. Never- 
theless, I hesitated to accept the honour of such a task. I had at that 
time published nothing beyond a book on the phonetics of the Eskimo 
tongue, in Meddelelser om Gronland (Vol. 31, 1904) which had called 
forth several reviews, all of an appreciative character, in specialist publi- 
cations. I was now afforded a prospect of extending my sphere of work 
to a field in which no great scientific work on Greenland had appeared. 
Dr. H. P. ЗтЕЕХЗвВУ had, however, shortly before published his thesis 
on the origin of Eskimo culture”, and I therefore suggested that the pro- 
posed work would be likely to interest him. The Committee never- 
theless maintained that I myself, as the only man who had spent two 
years among the Eskimo and had learned their language, ought to under- 
take the work, while the Chairman of the Carlsberg Fund likewise urged 
it as a natural task for me to undertake. 
I myself did not fail to point out that this would necessarily delay 
the execution of the earlier task entrusted to me by these same institu- 
tions, to wit, the publication of my linguistic and folkloristic material 
from Ammassalik, in which, moreover, I was more keenly interested, 
having myself procured the matter from the traditions of the Ammassa- 
lımmiut. I recognised, however, that it might be useful for the linguist 
to take up a branch of ethnography as an auxiliary; the two tasks might 
well be prosecuted side by side to mutual advantage. I was well aware 
that a considerable amount of previous study would be required, in 
respect of which I should have to seek recourse to the ethnographical 
side. But it never occurred to me to doubt that in the arena of science, 
the principle of mutual support must rise superior to that of every man 
for himself. I had up to that time no grounds for thinking otherwise. 
It is this I refer to in the introduction to my work of 1909 (p. 334): 
“I hesitated at first to undertake work of a kind which lay outside the 
special line of study I had hitherto pursued. On the other hand, I was moved 
by the consideration that the publication of the Amprup collection had already 
been sufficiently delayed. This interesting collection surely deserved a better 
fate than to be forgotten. Further than this, in my capacity of linguist, I was 
sensible of the advantage of obtaining a better insight into the forms assumed 
by the material culture of the East Greenlanders; for changes in the implements 
1 STEENSBY’s work has since appeared in an enlarged and translated (English) 
Edition in vol. 53 of Medd. om Grønland, with the title “Ап Anthropo- 
geographical study of the Origin of the Eskimo Culture”. 
