534 



pages, north of 68° lat. N., but which were not immediately 

 docketed with the name of the place where they were found. 

 None of them are of any ethnological importance (fragments 

 of sledge keels, split reindeer horns, or other bones, sticks or 

 nondescript parts of wooden implements). 



The polar bear figured here, which is carved in wood and 

 is 15 cm in length, is interesting for a trait which is yet an- 

 other testimony to the continuity between North East Green- 

 land and the Ammassalik di- 

 strict. This trait is the man- 

 ner in which the legs of the 

 bear are made; the upper 

 parts of the fore legs are 

 carved so as to form two 

 square projections; in the 

 centre of the flatly cut un- 

 der side there is an aperture 

 in which a thin cylindrical 

 tree-nail has been inserted 

 to a considerable depth, so that a part of it projects thus for- 

 ming the lower thin part of the animals leg. Similar tree-nails 

 have been stuck in the thigh portions of the hind legs. The 

 body of the bear must thus have rested on four cylindrical pegs, 

 of which, however, only the stumps are seen in the holes. It thus 

 comes to resemble the so-called angakok bear from Ammassalik 

 described byG. Holm^), a toy which has hitherto been found only 

 in one single specimen. The resemblance, however, is not 

 great enough to warrant us in definitely pronouncing this 

 object to be an angakok bear; but the similar manner in which, 

 — at two different places in East Greenland, and doubtless 

 also at different times (Amdrup's bear is highly weathered) — 

 artificial legs have been inserted in a polar bear in order to 

 adapt it better for use as a toy by children, can hardly have 

 been a more coincidence. 

 1) Holm, PI. XXVI. 



Fig. 106. Inv. Amd. 121. Polar bear 



carved in wood. 



North East Greenland. 4s. 



