118 



giska Forelasningar, Helsingfors 1857, p. 182). A man set out on 

 a journey and met with an old woman, who was felling birch-trees. 

 He said: Thou newest round it, that is not the way of felling a 

 tree, from two sides thou must hew. He helped her and followed 

 her to her tent. She bade him hide himself. Then seven girls 

 arrived, had a talk with the crone and withdrew. She said to 

 him: In the darkest forest yonder is a lake, there the seven girls 

 will go swimming, take the clothes belonging to one of them. So 

 he did, and the girls certainly also are spoken of as having their 

 home in the air or in heaven, but not in the shape of birds, and 

 the rest is quite different from the Eskimo tradition. 



The folk-lore of Eastgreenland is mentioned in Vol.1 p. 18. 

 In the Journal of the Danish Geographical Society Capt. Holm has 

 set forth several grounds for not separating the Eskimo from the 

 Indians as a true American race. For this purpose he explains 

 some traditions and traditional customs existing among the East 

 Greenlanders and indicating a relationship between this most isolated 

 Eskimo tribe and even the southern North American Indians. The 

 chief points of his arguments are as follows: 1) The Eskimo tale 

 of Asiak, a heavenly ruler, to whom the Angakut apply for getting 

 rain , apparently a reminescense from an earlier southern home. 

 2) The souls of the deceased as ball players. 3) The custom of 

 burying in water. 4) Certain hunting and fishing implements. 



I his work: The Central Eskimo" Dr. Boas has given 17 

 traditional tales besides some more fragmentary ones and a similar 

 number of songs , a true rarity among the Eskimo spiritual pro- 

 ductions we posses. In a comparison with the traditions of the 

 other Eskimo tribes about half of the tales are determined as ident- 

 ical with tales from Greenland , while elements of the same kind 

 are recognised in others. 



As belonging to the Greenland stock but little has to be added 

 to the collection of 1875, namely: the origin of the Arnakuagsak, 

 of the hooded seal and of the loom (by C. Lytzen in Fra alle 

 Lande" 1874), and as an element in one of the tales: the origin 

 of salmons mentioned above. 



4. LIMUISTICAL. 



Stemwords from the Central Eskimo - Dialect. In the list of 

 stemwords Vol. I, those marked with C will be found rather scanty, 

 the reason is in fact, that, what existed in the shape of printed 

 vocabularies was comparatively poor. But just now I was gratified 

 at receiving from Dr. Boas a list of the C- stemwords which he 

 considers appropriate to be added to the vocabulary, and I am 

 glad thus to be enabled to insert it here: 



agdlerpoq agssoq ailaq oka I alarpd aligoq 



