120 



Another very common word for: south (on the Westcoast) kujai, 

 likewise is referred to: left, and in a similar way some words 

 signifying, on one side: upward and landward, and on the other: 

 downward and seaward, have passed to represent the ideas of east 

 and west too, although perhaps not so commonly as those used for 

 south and north, and still more owing to European influence. This 

 same duplicity, so natural to people who have their dwellings on 

 the very beach, may also in other Eskimo countries have caused 

 some of the confusion now met with in the foreign travellers' ac- 

 counts. The whole store of words here in question, to which also 

 might be added the terms for winds in regard to direction, will be 

 found in Sections 9. 1 and 27. I, III, and in Vol.1 p. 52 and the 

 list of stemwords. Certainly among them there must be some which 

 have direct reference to the ideas of the points of compass, but 

 in order to know the true original signification of the above named 

 principal radicals , I asked information of Gapt. Holm , whose inter- 

 preter also happened to be present now, and I was told that in 

 the eastern dialect qavdngarnisaq was used for denoting a person 

 who lives in the north, and avangarnisaq one who lives in the 

 south, the latter comprising the inhabitants of the Westcoast, and 

 that the East - Greenlanders have no other words for north- and 

 southlanders. These designations, just the opposite to those of the 

 western dialect, evidently confirm, that originally they only related 

 to the direction of the sea, and that probably the application to 

 north and south is owing merely to European influence. 



It is mentioned above (p. 17 18) how the surprising difference 

 of many East-Greenland words from the normal dialect originates 

 from the custom of not mentioning the names of persons recently 

 deceased, and for this reason altering, at least provisionally even 

 some of the most common words of the familiar language. It was 

 suggested that this fact perhaps explains some abnormities in the 

 vocabularies of the Extreme West, in which it happens, in several 

 cases, that the true Greenland word has been discovered as being 

 used contemporaneously with the different counterpart of it, appar- 

 ently in the same tribal district. After these lines had been printed, 

 the writer received the vocabulary of Wells and Kelly, in which is 

 said concerning the same dialects: r The language is difficult to 

 understand on account of there being so, many synonymous terms. 

 As many as six different names have been found for the same 

 thing in a single tribe. What may be the traditional name of an 

 object in one locality may be the common appellation in another." 



