The Angmassalik Eskimo. 



413 



Inv. No. 



List I 



List III 



31 



Bodkin, or marline spike, of bone. 



Bodkin-shaped wound plug of bone. 



33-44 



Bodkin and needles. 



Bodkins. 



65-56 



Drum handles, 2, of bone. 



Two handles of bone with finger- 

 rests. 



62 



Wooden handle. 



Handle-like object (cross piece of 

 a bladder float?). 



72 



Wooden hammer-like implement 



Hammer -like implement (maul) 





(blubber-beater?) 



made of a crooked branch. 



80 



Wooden handle of a skin-scraper. 



Womans knife (scraper). 



97 



Fragment of a wooden implement. 



Head of a wooden implement 

 (fragment of a snow beater). 



99 



Shaft-like fragment of a wooden 



Handle part of a wooden imple- 





implement. 



ment (snow beater or blubber 

 beater). 

 Foreshaft like fragments (or toy 



104-105 



Miniature foreshafts of harpoons, 





2. 



harpoons?). 



Such inconsistencies cannot but create a feeling of uncertainty in 

 the mind of the reader. Have we here, as in the figures above referred 

 to, but a series of errors due to negligence ? Have the words "and needles" 

 under 33 — 44 merely been omitted in List III ? Or is the "wooden handle 

 of a skin-scraper" a totally different object to the "woman's knife (scra- 

 per)" of List III, which must thus have crept in through some accidental 

 error ? 



The answer to such queries is in the negative. The difference in 

 terms is due to the change which the Author's opinion regarding one 

 and the same object has undergone in course of time. An instance of 

 this is furnished by Nos. 55 — 56. In his work of 1909, Mr. Thalbitzer 

 treats of these two objects, and comes to the result that they are drum 

 handles, and further that they are the earliest finds of this type and 

 material made in Greenland 1 . As to the features which the Editor here 

 has regarded as of decisive importance, this may be seen from the fol- 

 lowing passage 2 referring to one of the specimens: "The drum-handle 

 type, however, is unmistakable; we see the finger-rests and the remains 

 of the knob-like head". These, however, would hardly appear to be the 

 distinguishing marks of a drum handle, if we may judge from the dif- 

 ficulty which Mr. Thalbitzer experiences in determining how the drum 

 is fixed to the handle. After having devoted nine lines of print to the 

 discussion of the question as to which end of the handle should be fixed 

 to the frame of the drum, he concludes: "I feel convinced that it is the 

 broad end of the handle which carried the drum, though I am not clear 

 as to the mode in which it was secured" 3 . 



1 Thalb. I, pp. 412—17. 



2 Thalb. I, p. 417. 



3 1. c, p. 416. 



