441 



is slightly convex, the other quite flat. There are two holes 

 pierced near the edge, lying transversely to each other, and 

 there are no traces of holes in the edge itself, which fact might 

 argue that the piece did not form the bottom of a box or a 

 dish, as in that case there would have been nail-holes in it 

 (cf. inv. Amd. 53]. There are, however, examples of bottoms 

 having been grooved in without nails being used, so that this 

 possibility is not excluded (cf. inv. Amd. 52). 



Could it be the blade of an umiak oar? In one of the 

 ends of the umiak oar, a loose flat piece of wood is generally 

 grooved in as a blade, which at Ammassalik is sometimes 

 ovally rounded in the free part of the edge ; only the grooved 

 or nailed part of the blade is formed otherwise, more in the 

 manner of a tongue ^). The two holes in inv. Amd. 71 must 

 in this case be thought to have been used in binding the 

 blade to the shaft of the oar, certainly, one would think, a 

 clumsy method, which can hardly have been generally prevalent. 



No unimpeachable piece of an umiak oar or of an umiak 

 (large skin boat) has been found in North East Greenland ; but, 

 as Ryder remarks^), the great number of tent-places betoken 

 that the use of umiaks must have been known. 



Inv. Amd. 72 (Fig. 44) from Dunholm is a hammer-like 

 piece of wood, apparently the fragment of a branch, which 

 has grown naturally at right angles. 



The length of the legs of the angle is 23 cm, and 13 cm. 



The thinner, slightly tapering part of this object is almost 

 circular in cross section; the circumference of the cross section 

 increases continuously towards the corner of the angle, but 

 diminishes where the rounding of the outer line begins. At 

 the same spot there is also a change in the form, the inner 



*) Ота! oar-blades are also found in Baffin Land; see Boas 1, 529; cf. 



Nelson 224, fig. 70; Cranz 149, PI. 6. 

 *) Ryder 306. 



