The Angmagsalik Eskimo. 405 



laboriously worded explanation: "that is they explained with this word, 

 that the knives were made from sharks (presumably the teeth of sharks)" 

 since Olearius expressly states that they were made of "Backen Zähnen". 



With regard to the closing words of the description: "The teeth 

 are inserted into grooves along both edges, like the small iron blades 

 in the primitive knives we know from northern West Greenland and 

 Southampton Island (see p. 489)" it should be noted, 1) that shark's 

 tooth knives may be single-edged, and 2) that the knives from South- 

 ampton Islandj are made, not with iron blades, but with stone 1 , as 

 Mr. Thalbitzer himself, moreover, correctly states in the passage 

 (p. 489) to which he refers. 



We need not, by the way, hark back as far as the 17th century 

 in order to find mention of shark's tooth knives from West Greenland. 

 In 1872, Japetus Steenstrup., in his treatise "Sur l'emploi du fer 

 météorique par les Esquimaux du Groenland" 2 gave an illustration of 

 a fragment of a shark's tooth knife, found in a grave in North Green- 

 land. Graah's statement: "This instrument is also said to have been 

 used in former times on the West Coast" 3 is of .less weight, and may 

 possibly be based on his recollections of Olearius. 



On p. 677, Mr. Thalbitzer again reverts ■ — as he frequently does 

 in the case of other subjects dealt with — to the shark's tooth knives, 

 and observes: "In the British Museum I have seen knives of a similar 

 kind but much longer from the Hawaiian Islands, Polynesia, designated 

 as ,fighting weapons armed with shark's teeth'". Once more, it was 

 not necessary to go so far afield; the National Museum in Copenhagen 

 contains a whole series of similar large shark's tooth weapons from the 

 Gilbert Islands. And in any case, it is not easy to see how the remark 

 bears upon the point in question. It merely tells us, as most ethno- 

 graphers already know, that sharks' teeth are used for making sharp 

 instruments in some parts of the South Sea Islands. And the Editor 

 admits that the objects to which he refers are not tools, but weapons, 

 and differ considerably in point of size from the Greenland implements. 

 It might further be added that the edge also is different in the two cases, 

 the South Sea Islanders using single teeth, whereas in Greenland a whole 

 row of teeth, still imbedded in the jaw, is used. Nevertheless, since Mr. 

 Thalbitzer inserts the remark in a special note, it must be presumed 

 that he considers it of some relevant importance, and finds some con- 

 nection between the small Greenland knives, edged with rows of 

 teeth, and the large Hawaiian weapons in which single teeth are 



1 Franz Boas: The Eskimo of Baffin Land and Hudson Bay (Bulletin of 

 the American Museum of Natural History vol. XV) p. 384; Fig. 178, "Bone 

 knives with stone blades". 



2 Compte rendu du congres international d'anthropologie et d'archéologie 

 préhistoriques, 6me session, Bruxelles 1872, PI. 25, fig. 1; cf. p. 248. 



3 Undersøgelsesrejse til Østkysten af Grønland. Kbh. 1832, p. 85. 



