1226 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



modern times — say since the discovery 

 of America by Columbus — far the greater 

 part of them could have had no contact 

 zvith zvhitc men. 



The presence of hybrid natives on the 

 east coast of Greenland has always been 

 credited by the Eskimo of the west coast. 

 In his Tales and Traditions of the Eski- 

 mo, Dr. H. Rink, who lived 22 summers 

 and 14 winters in Greenland, translates 

 the following tale from the Eskimo lan- 

 guage : "Iviangersook started for the 

 south of Greenland, and having passed 

 Cape Farewell, he came to the eastward 

 to some light-haired people of European 

 complexion." 



In 1 828- 1 829 Capt. W. A. Graah, Dan- 

 ish Royal Navy, explored the east coast 

 of Greenla^^d in search of the lost Scan- 

 dinavian colonies, whose descendants 

 were believed by some to still inhabit it. 

 Of an east coast Greenlander who came 

 to trade at Julianchaab, on the southwest 

 coast, Graah says : "He had the long, 

 lank, black hair and the black eyes of 

 his race, but nothing else in his exterior 

 characteristics of the Eskimo. He was 

 about 6 feet high and strongly built." 



Of the new tribe discovered at Kemi- 

 sak, on the east coast, he adds : "They 

 were like the generality of their country- 

 men of the east coast — a tall and well- 

 made set of people. Most of the men 

 had their eyebrows blackened, and some 

 of them wore large mustachios. One 

 had a long, black beard." 



In describing a family of six, which 

 he met at Iluidlek, he continues : "I ob- 

 served on this occasion that the counte- 

 nances of the two women had nothing 

 in them of the ordinary Greenland phys- 

 iognomy. Their whole appearance, in- 

 deed, presented none of the usual char- 

 acteristics of their race, and, in particu- 

 lar, they had neither the prominent belly 

 nor the corpulence of their country- 

 women of the west coast. They were, 

 both of them, above the middle size, and 

 were remarkable for their clear com- 

 plexion, their regularity of features, and 

 the oval form of their heads." 



In his summary on the inhabitants, 

 Graah says : "The natives of the east 

 coast of Greenland seem to me to have 

 very little in their exterior in common 



wnth the genuine Eskimo. They have 

 neither the full, fleshy person, nor the 

 prominent paunches of the Eskimo; but 

 on the contrary are slender and even 

 meager. They are, moreover, distin- 

 guished from the Eskimo by their form 

 of head and cast of countenance, which 

 is handsomer and more expressive. The 

 women and children have, many of them, 

 brown hair and a complexion scarcely 

 less fair than that of our (Danish) 

 peasantry." 



Graah's rather meager reports have 

 been greatly extended and strikingly con- 

 firmed in definite and scientific detail by 

 Capt. G. Holm and his associates in the 

 Danish Royal Navy Expedition of 1883- 

 1885. It is sufficient to quote only from^ 

 the ethnological summary written by 

 Prof. Soren Hansen. In this he says. 

 of the Eskimo of East Greenland that 

 in their eyes the color of the iris was 

 brown, shading from very dark brown 

 to a light brown, with a single excep- 

 tion — a young woman of 20 years, who 

 had blue eyes. Observations were made 

 of the color of the hair ; of 38 women 

 only three had the characteristic black 

 hair, while 30 had dark-brown hair and 

 three brown hair. None of these natives 

 had ever seen white men. It was most 

 striking that on the southwest coast, 

 where European half-breeds have been 

 born in large numbers during the past 

 two centuries, no less than 16 out of 24 

 women had black hair. 



The hybridization of the west coast 

 Eskimo of Greenland during the past 

 century has progressed so fast that its 

 present 10,000 inhabitants are out of 

 consideration. Rink says : "A pretty 

 numerous class of half-breeds has origi- 

 nated, many Europeans belonging to the 

 classes of sailors or laborers having mar- 

 ried native women. In 1855 the half- 

 breeds were calculated at 55 per cent of 

 the inhabitants." 



The west Greenland conditions of ear- 

 lier centuries are worthy of considera- 

 tion. Hans Egede, who entered west 

 Greenland in 1721 and permanently es- 

 tablished Christianity therein, says : "The 

 Eskimo have broad faces and thick lips, 

 are flat-nosed and of a brownish com- 



