487 



North East Greenland by Nathorst, some wooden implements 

 which must be referred to the same type, I realized at once that 

 the form of this object was no mere accident. Here I came upon 

 a fully intact specimen of exactly the same type as that found by 

 the Germans, which I had seen at Berlin. It is 39 cm long, 

 with an expanding shaft end of about the same form as the 

 handle of a throwing-stick, and with a flat, pointed end, the 

 head of which is marked by two lateral indentations (illustrated 

 in the Appendix flg. 104). There are, besides, several fragments 

 of the same kind of implement in the Nathorst collection. 



After this discovery I no longer entertained any doubts 

 that the two similar handles found by Ryder and Amdrup at 

 two different places along this coast, were parts of the same 

 kind of implements as those with which I became acquainted 

 in the museums. The next question then is only what it was 

 used for. It will certainly not be easy to answer this question, 

 as the implement, as far as I know, is not known from any 

 other group of Eskimo than that in North East Greenland. I 

 have never seen it in West Greenland, nor yet at Ammassalik. 



I do not know whether the question is brought nearer to 

 its solution by the fact that in the Nathorst collection from 

 North East Greenland there is a wooden implement with a 

 handle of precisely the same form and size as the implements 

 just described, but with a heavy club-shaped head at the other 

 end instead of a point. This implement, too, is otherwise un- 

 known, but it is at any rate possible to form an opinion 

 as to its use (compare my comments on the illustrations of 

 it. Appendix fig. 105). It may have been used as a blubber- 

 beater, or in general as a mallet. The implement with the 

 wooden point might be assigned a similar purpose in domestic 

 life; we must suppose that it was an implement in which it 

 was necessary to have a firm grip of the handle in order to 

 force the flat, blunt wooden point at the other end into the 

 substance or the space in which it is made to work in. It is 



