The Angmagsalik Eskimo. 399 



the head as a wedge or a celt, and told me its name, which I then erro- 

 neously took to be the name of the hammer as a whole". 



It should be noted, that the illustration in Holm's book shown to 

 the Eskimo was the very one here in question ; the Eskimo then at once 

 gave the thing its right name, which was the same as that appended 

 to the illustration by Holm himself. This was an excellent test of the 

 Eskimo intelligence; unfortunately, however, Mr. Thalbitzer declined 

 to be guided thereby. 



It may be as well in this connection to call to mind the reasons 

 which persuaded Cand. Thalbitzer in 1906 to publish the description 

 of the Amdrup collection. After declaring that the work lay "outside 

 of the special line of study" which he "had hitherto pursued", he 

 goes on to mention, among the objects which induced him to undertake 

 it, the following: "in my capacity of linguist I was sensible of the ad- 

 vantage of obtaining a better insight into the forms assumed by the 

 material culture of the East Greenlanders". . . .and concludes: "An exact 

 knowledge of the objects and their modifications will always come in 

 useful in studying a people's linguistic designations of these objects" 1 . 



The last sentence is confirmed by the case of the chisel just referred 

 to. The linguist may easily be misled if he does not happen to know 

 the Danish name of the object which he wishes to have named in the 

 Eskimo tongue. 



AN ESKIMO WORK OF ART. 



Among the finest pieces of work in Johan Petersen's collection 

 is a little double head, carved in wood (Thalbitzer's Fig. 356). The 

 one face shows, in a very realistic manner, the typical Eskimo features,, 

 while the other reveals the large nose and numerous wrinkles typical 

 of the masks from East Greenland. 



The Editor states that the object was found "in a grave in the Am- 

 massalik Fjord" and expresses the opinion that "it may probably have 

 been a memorial image like those known from Alaska (Nelson 1899 

 pp. 317 — 319) 2 belonging to a grave and representing the deceased 

 sealer and his wife". 



With regard to the reference made to Nelson's work, it should be 

 noted that the objects described by him on the pages quoted are either 

 large figures (the measurements given say 6 — 7 feet high, whereas the 

 present head is only 11 cm.) or large flat masks, placed side by side 

 on a palisade. The placing of such figures is, moreover, not an ordinary 

 burial custom, but is confined to memorials erected over persons who 

 had met their death elsewhere, and were thus precluded from receiving 

 the usual funeral rites. 



1 Medd. от Стгоп!. vol. 28 p. 334. 2 Ann. Rep. of the Bur. of Am. Bthnol. XVIII. 



