Contributions to tlie Anthropology of the East Greenlanders. 153 



According to the census taken by the native missionary Joh. 

 Hansen (Hanserak) under the supervision of Captain Holm , the 

 population of the East coast of Greenland amounted in the autumn 

 of 1884 to 548 souls, all told. With such a small number we can 

 hardly expect to arrive at entirely reliable statistics; but, while 

 making this acknowledgement, I consider it permissible to give an 

 account of a single peculiar circumstance of special interest for 

 anthropology, while I regard it as outside my sphere to investigate 

 other aspects of this interesting document. 



Out of the 548 persons, 245 belonged to the male and 303 to 

 the female sex. There were thus 1237 women to every 1000 men, 

 a proportion which looks quite natural in the following setting^): 



Women per 1000 men 



Denmark 1035 



Faeroe Islands 1050 



Iceland 1121 



West Greenland 1154 



East Greenland 1237 



It might seem natural to explain this considerable predominance 

 of the female sex as a result of the increased mortality of grown- 

 up males due to the perilous nature of their pursuits, but although 

 it is not a priori presumable that East Greenland should differ 

 to any great extent in this respect from the Danish districts 

 on the West coast, a glance at the figures in the different age- 

 classes will show that the matter is by no means so simple as 

 it looks. 



The accuracy of the ages given in the census can only be re- 

 lied on in the case of the smaller children, whereas in other cases 

 it has only been possible to give a rough estimate. As all the 

 persons (amongst them 13 whose age has not been given) are de- 

 signated respectively as 'men' and 'boys', 'women' and 'girls', the 

 line being drawn at the age of fifteen, the difficulty of reckoning 

 according to age-classes is not so great as it might otherwise be; 

 and when we have to deal with such small figures, this division 

 may be regarded as the only one of any value. 



By dividing the whole population in this way, we arrive at the 

 remarkable result that the numerical predominance of the female 

 sex is greater in the case of children than in that of adults, al- 

 though the analogy of the West coast would lead us to expect the 

 very opposite. 



1) Folketællingen i Grønland 1. Oktober 1880. Statistiske Meddelelser. 3. Række. 

 6. Bind. 



