The Ammassalik Eskimo. 465 
It will be seen that we have here a problem as to the solution of 
which there may be some doubt; now, the dolls are playthings and 
nothing else, but there may be some reason to suppose that they were 
formerly regarded in a different light, at any rate by adults. 
Hr. THOMSEN cannot deny that both GRAAH and RYDER here found 
a similar problem, and that this is plainly evident from the passages 
in their books to which I refer and which he partly quotes. These writers 
have taken up the same question as I myself; GRAAH very briefly, RYDER 
more in detail, and Ryder ends by asserting that the dolls are now at 
any rate only playthings for children. 
Hr. Tuomsen, however, is evidently anxious to find me guilty of 
misquotation or some other misdemeanour; at any rate he makes des- 
perate efforts to obscure one side of the opinion expressed by the writers 
in question and emphasise another, by quoting the respective passages 
and setting certain sentences in spaced type as if in the hope that these 
may at a hasty reading produce a different impression in the reader’s 
mind. And finally he omits the one sentence in RYDER's observations 
which would most of all serve to damage his case. RYDER states clearly 
as follows: “The wooden dolls are now used by the natives of Angmagsa- 
lik only as toys for children”! And a little farther on we read, at the 
conclusion of the whole discussion: 
Selvom der derfor muligvis engang i Fortiden har været en eller anden 
højere Tanke forbundet med disse Dukker, hvad jeg for min Del efter det foran 
anførte meget betvivler, saa er Dukkerne for de nuværende Beboere af Angmag- 
salik kun Bornelegetoj”’. 
[Translation:] “Even if there may possibly, at some time past, have been 
some higher idea connected with these dolls, which I for my part, after what 
has already been stated, am much inclined to doubt, for the present inhabitants 
of Angmagsalik the dolls are only playthings”. — Ryper.* 
The problem does not appear altogether the same to GRAAH as to 
RYDER; the former writer has found some “dolls” in an East Green- 
land grave, and asked himself whether they are “idols” like those which 
the savages presented to the Danish discoverer of Bering Straits; the 
. latter finds the dolls in possession of children, and is reminded of the 
well-known amulet dolls which we have found at Ammassalik. Despite 
this, both reject the idea that the dolls found should be other than playth- 
ings; RYDER, however, with a certain hesitation, considering it not 
impossible that such may have been the case in former times. I am thus 
certainly justified in referring to these writers as to men who have con- 
sidered the question, quite apart from the fact that I have in my own 
1 This sentence from Ryver’s paper is found in Hr. Tuomsen’s quotation, 
see p. 401. The italics in now are mine. 
2 RYDER, Beretning om den Mstgranlandske Expedition 1891—92 (Medd. om 
Gronl. 17), р. 141. — This passage Hr. THomsen omits in his quotation 
p. 401. 
LI. 30 
