466 WILLIAM TAALBITZER. 
investigations later on come to a conclusion which suggests the 
probability of this alternative, that “there may possibly at some time 
past have been some higher idea connected with these dolls”. 
That the dolls used by children as playthings are different from 
those used by the Ammassalimmiut as amulets or idols I have myself 
also pointed out in my book (pp. 644—646), but I leave open the pos- 
sibility that the dolls may in the parents’ eyes have been connected 
with some religious principle or custom. Many other sides of the Eskimo 
life and property have been subjected to the control of religion or magic!. 
Hr. THoMSEN may therefore enjoy his irony by himself, and pocket 
his insinuation again. Once more his hypercritical zeal has overshot 
the mark. 
р. 40213, read “seemingly” instead of “evidently”. 
Jointed Dolls. 
р. 402—404. — Parturiunt montes. Hr. THOMSEN appears greatly 
upset by the fact of my having compared the finds of dolls with movable 
joints at Ammassalik with similar finds made among the Eskimo’s 
neighbours in Asia, and combining this fact with the theory of marked 
conservatism in this race, which has given rise to so many other simi- 
larities in the culture of the western and eastern Hyperboreans. 
] am certainly justified in offering a warning against drawing hasty 
conclusions as to “European influence”in cases such as this. It is Hr. 
THOMSEN and not I who drags in the jointed dolls of ancient Greece. 
I have, by the way, on other occasions pointed out, that we might 
expect to find — and as a matter of fact actually do find — traces of Eu- 
ropean influence reaching even as far as Ammassalik by way of the 
south, and this already in times long past (e.g. my book p. 719, cf. 
р. 332—339, 471, 486—487, 668 and 682). In this instance, however, 
I have not deemed it necessary to have recourse to such explanation. 
I have had two examples of dolls with movable joints on which 
to support my view, both from Ammassalik, one belonging to the Green- 
land Administration collection (see fig. 368 b in my book 1914, p. 647) 
and one in the National Museum, belonging to the Thalbitzer collec- 
tion there (not illustrated). Hr. Тномзем further mentions seven speci- 
mens, likewise from Ammassalik, all “jointed at the knees”, which I did 
not succeed in discovering at the Museum. I myself have had since 
the good fortune to make the acquaintance of yet another wooden doll, 
with movable hip-joints, belonging to JoHAN PETERSEN’s latest pri- 
vate collection (Fig. 1 in this paper). We have thus altogether ten wooden 
dolls with movable joints from Ammassalik. The last specimen was 
found by some native hunter belonging to the family of MARATTE, near 
1 The same is true of their tattooing, vid. the remarks of Hozm in “Den 
danske Konebaads-Expedition” pp. 227—228. 
