432 THOMAS THOMSEN 



inserted in a groove in one or both edges of the wood ; like the 

 iron lamellae, the teeth in the jaw slightly overlap each other. GRAAH 1 , 

 who found a knife like these in southern East Greenland, near 

 Malingiset (62 20' N. lat.), states that there it was used for cutting 

 blubber; at Angmagsalik, from where the type is best known and 

 where it is still prevalent at the present day, its use has become 

 specialized, viz. for cutting the hair of certain individuals who are 

 then also distinguished by peculiarities in their clothing; ordinarily, 

 men wear their hair long. 2 Ritual employment of an object which 

 was originally an article of use we may be justified in regarding as 

 a testimony of antiquity, and these knives are also mentioned even 

 as early as the middle of the 17th century by OLEARIUS as knives 

 of common use. 3 By the end of the century they had probably gone 

 out of use, since, as far I know, they are nowhere mentioned ^ by 

 the EGEDES, and, owing to the perishable material of which they 

 were made, not a single specimen of them occurs in any of the nume- 

 rous finds belonging to the National Museum in Copenhagen; Pro- 

 fessor JAP. STEENSTRUP, on the other hand, in his paper just cited, 

 has figured a fragment of such a knife found in a grave in the northern- 

 most part of Danish West Greenland. 4 



So far as is known, knives edged with shark's teeth, like those 

 with iron lamellae, constitute a local Greenland type; from the Central 

 Eskimo region, however, a similar large knife, from Southampton Is- 

 land, is known; but it is edged with rounded pieces of flint fashioned 

 by chipping and inserted in slots along the edges of the knife, which 

 there is made of bone. 5 Whether flint-edged knives of this type ex- 

 isted in Greenland still remains to be proved by discovery; it is, how- 

 ever, not improbable that certain of the bone knives mentioned above, 

 viz. those which instead of a continuous groove have a row of slots 

 along the edge, like that from Southampton Island, have been edged 

 like the latter; it must be borne in mind that the iron lamellae are 

 not fixed at intervals, but overlap each other as do the teeth in the 

 jaw of the shark. PORSILD regards the small flakes of chalcedony 

 or agate as cutting edges for knives with grooves, and figures one in 

 which the flakes have been inserted by the direction of a Greenlander 



1 GRAAH I, p. 85, cf. PI. VIII; II, p. 81 .82. The knife found by GRAAH is also 

 figured by W. THALBITZER II, p. 477, Fig. 187 to the right, cf. Medd. om Gronl. 

 vol. LIII, pp. 40406. 



2 HOLM I, p. 62; II, p. 32. 



3 OLEARIUS, p. 174: n lhre Messer seind von Backen Zahnen eines Meerfisches, wel- 

 chen sie Ekulugsua nennen". 



4 JAP. STEENSTRUP, PI. 25; cf. p. 248. This specimen, together with those by GRAAH 

 and HOLM, is also figured by AD. S. JENSEN: The Selachians of Greenland, p. 16. 



5 BOAS III, p. 384, Fig. 178. 



