Implements and Artefacts of the North-east Greenlanders. 



now living. : So long as this hypothesis has not been verified by finds 

 I am inclined to regard it as somewhat doubtful; the only parallel 

 known to me from the Eskimo region, figured by MURDOCH 2 , he him- 

 self is inclined to regard as a counterfeit. 



The flint-edged knife from Southampton Island must probably 

 be regarded as the prototype of the peculiar Greenland form of knife 

 with iron lamellae. If, at its introduction into Greenland, knives of 

 shark's teeth had already been in use, it is probable, as maintained 

 by JAPETUS STEENSTRUP, that the overlapping of the lamellae is an 

 imitation of the more familiar shark-tooth edge. By this arrangement 

 also a more continuous edge was produced, and the long groove 

 which the old knives required was retained. 



That the iron-edged knives were intended, as far as possible, 

 to imitate European knives with iron blades is distinctly evident 

 from several of the knife-forms : marked differentiation between a 

 thicker handle and a thinner blade. Sometimes the blade continues 

 in a thin tang furnished with holes for nailing a reinforcement of 

 wood; in others, it is true, the thick handle is cut in one piece with 

 the blade, but on the handle small knobs are carved in imitation of 

 the nails for the reinforcement; lastly, the knife from Fiskernaesset 

 is made in two parts, viz. a blade with a tang and a bone haft with 

 a hollow in the fore end for inserting the tang. In all these features 

 the European influence can hardly be denied. 



SOLBEHG has rightly pointed out that the double-edged knife is 

 the original form, the single-edged being a later production. As already 

 mentioned, the West Greenland knives with grooves for insertion of 

 the edge occur both as double-edged and single-edged ; the latter, 

 however, are in the majority, for instance in the National Museum 

 in Copenhagen there are 33 as against 12; it is probably significant 

 as regards the relation in age of [the two forms that so far as is 

 known no double-edged knife has been found south of the peninsula 

 of Nugsuak, while at least 14 single-edged knives come from districts 

 further south, chiefly from around Disco Bay. 



As regards the cutting edge of the two North-east Greenland kni- 

 ves figured in Fig. 26 nothing can be stated; rust does not occur 

 in the grooves, therefore it may be that in these specimens the cut- 

 ting edges have not been of iron; but even if possibly in these remote 

 regions they were obliged to make do with another material, the con- 

 nection of the knives with those described from West Greenland is 

 nevertheless unmistakable, and to judge from the above, no very 

 great age should be ascribed to them. 



1 PORSILD I, pp. 621622, Fig. 7 E; II, p. 196, Fig. 41 E 

 3 MURDOCH 1, p. 160, Fig. 117. 



