The Angmagsalik Eskimo. 403 



disappeared from the west coast and even from among the western 

 kinsmen on the opposite side of the Davis Straits". 



Why stop at the Koryaks? By a second spring like the first he 

 would reach Greece, and dolls with movable joints were known there, 

 as we are aware, in ancient times. Yet perhaps, after all, it would be 

 better to keep a little closer to the dolls of Greenland. There are over 

 170 of these from Angmagsalik in the Museum. Of these one only, to 

 wit, that brought back by Thalbitzer himself in 1906, which is quite 

 new, has four pairs of movable joints. Seven others, likewise apparently 

 new, are jointed at the knees, to make them "sit down"; all the others 

 are perfectly rigid. Turning to Western Greenland, we find that not 

 one out of some sixty dolls found in old villages and graves has movable 

 joints; such are, however, found in a few figures of recent date, viz. a 

 group of bone figures representing a drum dance 1 , and another group 

 of four dogs in a team. 



It seems thus more natural to suggest "European influence", either 

 as coming direct from Denmark, which is undoubtedly the case with 

 the jointed doll in question, or indirectly by way of the West Coast. 

 It should be borne in mind that the frequently mentioned isolation of 

 Angmagsalik is not to be taken too literally, or rather, that it is of recent 

 date, and artificially created, the foundation of the Danish trading 

 station having prevented the natives there from following their fellows 

 on the southern side of the station down to the colonies of the West 

 Coast. It was not until the close of the last, and beginning of the present 

 century that the southern portion of the East Coast was entirely for- 

 saken, and the isolation rendered complete. During the last century, 

 the products of the West Coast could still find their way up along the 

 East, and much may have reached Angmagsalik in this way. 



Mr. Thalbitzer himself, by the way, is in other parts of his work 

 not disposed to reject altogether the idea of such influence. He con- 

 siders, for instance, that the wooden objects shown in Fig. 241 are imi- 

 tations of an almanack such as that shown in Fig. 392. In this particular 

 instance, however, I am loth to accept the imitation theory, as the resem- 

 blance is not very great. The almanack has one hole for each day of 

 the week; of Mr. Thalbitzer's specimens the one has 9 holes of different 

 sizes, the other 23, — of which, however, 7 in the middle line — in addition 

 to which, no such almanack has been shown to have originated from 

 Angmagsalik, the object in question being, as we have seen, from a more 

 southerly part of the East Coast. 



As regards the Koryak dolls, by the way, the appearance of these 

 is but vaguely described in the passage quoted from Jochelson (Thalb. 

 p. 681, Note 2) and no illustration is given. Mr. Thalbitzer, moreover, 

 in the same note, compares these with a toy bear from East Greenland 



1 Labels of the National Museum: East Greenland No. 57. 



26* 



