42 A SUMMER IN GREENLAND 



fact that I did not understand a single word. The 

 men sat on one side of the church and the women 

 on the other; all joined heartily in the many hymns 

 that were sung. Spittoons were provided and occa- 

 sionally used by the officiating clergyman. 



There is, no doubt, a persistent attachment to 

 certain old superstitions behind the apparent ac- 

 ceptance of the Protestant religion. Situations 

 sometimes arise when the tact and common sense 

 of the representatives of the church or of the 

 Danish residents are severely tried; it is at times 

 necessary to explain to the more intelligent natives 

 seeming contradictions between passages in the 

 Bible, literally rendered, and current practices. 

 One of the many instances of the clash of deeply 

 rooted pagan ideas with the teaching of the Church 

 that had come under his notice was related to me 

 by Mr Porsild. An old Eskimo woman, who had 

 become mentally deranged, was being treated as 

 one possessed of a devil by the people of the small 

 Settlement, where there were no Europeans, by 

 methods which would soon have proved disastrous. 

 A young Dane arrived in time to save the situation 

 so far as the woman was concerned: he bluntly 

 told the natives that their talk about devils was all 

 nonsense. 'But how,' was the reply, 'can that be, 

 when we read of people possessed of devils in the 

 Lord's own book?' 



At many localities on the east coast north of 

 Angmagssalik traces of old Settlements have been 

 found, and it has been suggested that the east coast 

 may have been colonised originally by Eskimoes 



