278 



two sides of the Sound has already been mentioned. And it 

 is also peculiar that the races of reindeer ditïer in an almost 

 exactly parallel manner. On the east side we find the common 

 Greenland reindeer, which is closely related in all its structure 

 and appearance to the caribou of the North American Barren 

 Ground. On Ellesmere Land, on the other hand, we find a 

 smaller race [Rangifer pearyi Allen), which is also said to 

 differ in colour, form of the horns and anatomical features Ч 



The pohir bear has quite a special importance for tlie 

 Polar Eskimos. It is their most dangerous enemy while hun- 

 ting and it has been in great degree their trainer in hardihood 

 and ingenuity. Further, there is no Eskimo tribe which 

 requires and uses the skin of the bear for clothing to such 

 an extent, as the Polar Eskimo's district falls within the 

 region of distribution of the polar bear; but it only occurs in 

 small numbers at the fjord.-^. It is most abundant, on the 

 other hand, up in the Kane Basin at the Humboldt Glacier, as 

 also in IVlelville Bay off its many ice-streams , and the Polar 

 Eskimos sometimes sledge up to these localities to hunt for 

 the bear and provide themselves with its indispensable skin. 



The areas visited by the Eskimos thus extend from the 

 Humboldt Glacier right down into IVlelville Bay. Sometimes 

 they have come so far down that the West Greenland bear 

 liunters have found the traces of their sledges; but, at any 

 rate during the period of the Danish colonisation in the district 

 of Upernivik, there was no connection with the more southern 

 Greenlanders before 1904. According to Knud Rasmussen the 

 Polar Eskimos tell of a bloody conflict they have had with the 

 latter, after which they no longer ventured to go so far to the 

 south. And there is scarcely any doubt that there has been 

 an occasional connection once upon a time, which for some 

 reason was broken off some generations ago, perhaps in the 



1 Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. Vol. XVI. New York 1902. p. 409; and 

 Vol. XXIV, New York 1908. p. 4S7. 



