444 



THOMAS THOMSEN 



serves that the women's knives, which in West Greenland are employed 

 for manifold purposes, in North-east Greenland exhibit a tendency to 

 group themselves as several different implements, of varying degrees 

 of size and fineness. There are large rough knives, such as are used 

 in the western Eskimo region for fish knives, small slight tools which 

 can doubtless only have been applied to needlework, and blunt-edged 

 skinscrapers '. In the case of archajological material, however, where 

 the use of an implement is only to be learned from the object itself, 

 it will nevertheless be necessary to range such related forms together. 



Scrapers. 



The foregoing section was devoted to the consideration of knives 

 classed by reason of their shape under the Ulo type, without regard to the 

 possibility of their having been used for scraping; the following pages 

 deal solely with implements intended as scrapers and for nothing else. 



At Rypefjeldet, on a gravel bank extending 

 east of the eastern group of winter houses (521 ) 2 , 

 the scraper shown in Fig. 34 (L. 4076) was found. 

 It is of a light brown flint, with white spots, 

 6'6 cm. long and 4'5 cm. broad. This is a con- 

 siderable size for a scraper as Greenland scra- 

 pers go; most of those from West Greenland are 

 far smaller, only a few reaching these dimens- 

 ions. With regard to the distribution of the con- 

 vex edged scraper, the reader is referred to SOL- 

 BERG'S observations,which are based upon careful 

 studies of museum material. 3 The present spec- 

 imen is of particular interest from the fact of its having been found 

 in North-east Greenland, from which region only one other example 

 is known, and that much smaller. 4 



Another type of scraper is shown in Fig. 35 (L. 4153). This was, 

 like the last, found at Rypefjeldet, but at the spring 

 settlement, tent ring 619. * It is fashioned from 

 part of the sheath of a musk-ox horn, one wall 

 of which has been cut away. It is cut off straight 

 at the upper or grip end, the lower end, or edge, 

 being rounded. This specimen closely resembles 

 the bone implements used by the natives at Cum- 

 berland Sound for scraping the fat from skins 6 ; 

 similar ones are also used by the Polar Green- pig. 35. ! / 3 . 



1 The last are, however, already partially separated in West Greenland, cf. POR- 

 SII.D II, p. 207. * THOSTRUP, pp. 300 et seq. s Cf. SOLBERG, p. 30. 4 RYDER I, 

 Fig. 31 a. 6 THOSTRUP, pp. 315 et seq. BOAS III, p. 33, Fig. 40. 



Fig. 34. 8 / s , 



