8 Kas BIRKET-SMITH. 
tion into Greenland, i. e. in Ellesmere or Grant Land. It is even 
uncertain whether the Eskimo ever found reindeer in the district at 
all. It is a fact well-known in Greenland that these animals often 
appear and disappear without any discernible cause, and in the case 
of the Cape York District it is known that the reindeer which lived 
there until a few years back were descended from herds which had 
immigrated about a century ago!. 
Whatever may be the true explanation here, the fact remains 
that the bow was unknown to the Polar Eskimo when first encount- 
ered. This is expressly noted by Kane? In the 19th century, how- 
ever, — as late as the 60’s — came the well-known immigration of 
the Eskimo from Baffin Land; taught by these, the Polar Eskimo 
resumed their forgotten summer hunting, and with it the use of bow 
and arrow’. Even in the early 70’s the weapon does not yet seem 
to have been generally adopted‘, but a little later its use became 
common, and remained so until the introduction of the gun, which, 
especially through PEArY’s intercourse with the natives, again super- 
seded the arm that but a generation earlier had been so great an 
acquisition. As early as 1894 the bow had fallen into disuse, while 
on the other hand, as late as 1909 we find that most of the men had 
themselves hunted with it when young’. 
The fact that we here again find mention, in the folk-tales, of 
reindeer hunting and the use of the bow, is in this case less significant 
than in that of Angmagssalik, as the stories have been written down 
since the introduction of the weapon. In one instance, where the bow 
is mentioned, it is expressly stated that the story comes “from beyond 
the great Sea”®. In the other three cases, however, no such reference 
is made”. One of these folk-tales answers exactly to one of those 
from Angmagssalik already mentioned, and belongs, by the way, to 
the far from numerous tales which are common to Eskimo, Athapas- 
cans and the Indians of the North-West. A blind man, so the story 
runs, shoots a bear through a window, but his mother, wishing to 
keep the meat all to herself, tells him that he has missed. Later 
on the man regains his sight, and the mother is transformed into a 
narwhal. 
The West Coast. 
If we may credit the tradition current among the Eskimo — and 
there is no reason to doubt its veracity — the bow played a part as 
1 FREUCHEN, р. 144 f. 
2 Kane, p. 210 — cf. also Ross, Voy. of Disc. p. 135. 
3 North Pol. Exped. р. 451. — For immigration, vide STEENSBY, Polar Esk. 
р. 259 f. — Rasmussen, р. 21 f. 
cf. BESSELS, p. 360. 
ÅSTRUP, р. 130. — STEENsBY, Polar Esk. р. 356. 
RASMUSSEN, p. 204. 
Ibid. р. 186, 202, 231. — Tales Smith В. Esk. р. 169. 
ao OO 8 
