SS el 
7 ee eeEEOoEeEeEE= 
An Anthropogeographical Study of the Origin of the Eskimo Culture. 191 
is no doubt that in South Greenland, on account of the greater supply 
of drift-wood, an attempt would once more have been made to realize 
the Mackenzie house. 
Now, on the other hand, a common-house has been made which 
distinctly evinces the relationship with the two North-Greenland small 
forms of houses, the pear-shaped house and the small rectangular house. 
As mentioned, these two are really of the same kind, inasmuch as the 
rectangular house necessarily must merge into the so-called “pear-shaped 
house” the moment the stones have to be employed exclusively. In 
1909 I was inclined to regard the “pear-shaped house” as the only 
direct precursor of the South Greenland common-house, At that time 
it was not so evident, as was made clear by the Danmark Expedi- 
tion, what a great réle the small rectangular house has played in 
North Greenland, though, even then, the existence of that house form 
was not unknown. From the regions about Scoresby Sound it was 
known from Ryper’s! and Amprup’s? reports of their expeditions. 
From North-western Greenland at Wolstenholm Sound it was known 
to me partly from verbal information from Knup Rasmussen and 
partly from my own observations. 
Thus, I shall only point out that the result is that the South 
Greenland common-house originates both from a pear-shaped house 
and from a small rectangular house like that we know from the 
north-west and north-east coasts of Greenland, and that by the way in 
which it is arranged it plainly shows that it has got its interior arrange- 
ment from the building together of small houses lying side by side (cf. 
M. o. G., Vol. 34, p. 328, Figs. 14, 15 and 16)*. 
In this way, then, the predecessor of the South-Greenland common- 
house dates right back to the house-type at Point Barrow or to the 
rectangular house with a wooden structure and a covering of earth. 
When whales’ bones have been employed, these have entered into the 
structure as a direct substitute for wooden beams or planks, and one 
must keep this construction distinct from a quite different one, into 
1 RypeErR, pp. 296 sqq. 
* Amprup, pp. 314 sqq. 
3 Amprup and Ryper both were of opinion that the small rectangular houses. 
were precursors of the large common-house, whereas now Birket-SmitH 
thinks that the small house is to be considered as a simplification of the 
large one. Even if Birxet-Smirn is evidently right when on account of 
the distribution of different implements both on the west coast and on a 
considerable part of the east coast, he decides that at a certain period 
migrations from the west coast to east coast must have taken place, I am 
not inclined to agree with him in his conception of the origin of the small 
rectangular house. I would rather believe that the development of the big 
common-house took place at a later period than the migrations which he 
refers to. 
