337 



the sole witness are the numerous ruins in the islands in the 

 -North Canadian Archipelago ^); these islands form the most 

 northerly bridge between the western Eskimo and Greenland. 

 An archaeological investigation in that region might possibly 

 throw light on several obscure points: thus e.g. the remarkable 

 resemblance between the drum- handles (in the Amdrup collection) 

 of the North East Greenlanders and those of the Alaska Eskimo 

 seems to call for an explanation. My own theory is that the 

 North East Greenlanders and their forefathers long after their 

 severance in the remote past from the common Eskimo race, 

 must have numbered families and individuals for many gener- 

 ations who were particularly conservative in their manner of 

 working certain objects. 



The conservatism of the North East Greenlanders is not 

 incompatible with their participation in certain innovations (i. e. 

 typological peculiarities which distinguish them from other 

 Eskimo), which are also met with in West Greenland and 

 especially to the north: e. g. the special varieties of woman's 

 knives, ice-scrapers, needle-cases, bodkins, combs, wooden 

 buzzes, harpoon heads used in sealing on the ice {inv. Amd. 

 10), perhaps also the winged harpoons (with a bone weight at 

 the butt end of the wooden shaft, formed like two feathers), a 

 small toy model of which was found by Ryder ^). 



These points of correspondence might seem to indicate 

 that the north-easterly group of Eskimo in Greenland must have 

 belonged to the same mother tribe as that from which the 

 northern West Greenlanders (üpernawik, Oommannaq, Disko 

 Bay) derive their descent. But the time when the groups lived 

 together and could exert an influence on one another must lie 

 very far back in the past; for within the population of the 

 West coast, nay within the three northerly districts on the 



'i See "Map of the territories occupied by the Eskimo now and in earlier 



times", In Meddelelser om Grønland, Vol. 31 (1904). 

 *l Ryder, 1. с 314, Fig. 14. 



