Contributions to the Antliropology of tiie East Greenlanders. 177 



black spot which vanishes in the course of the first year of the child's 

 life. Saabye^) had previously pointed out this peculiarity as regards 

 the West Greenlanders, and Eschricht took occasion to recall this 

 fact in one of his treatises on whales; but otherwise this observation 

 appears to have been forgotten, and at any rate it has not left any 

 traces behind it in recent anthropological literature. The observa- 

 tion has, however, acquired a new significance through the circum- 

 stance that Dr. E. Baelz of Tokio, at the same time that Holm made 

 his observations, mentioned quite a similar spot in the same place 

 in Japanese babies, in a treatise on the physical characteristics of 

 the Japanese ^). 



This peculiarity has subsequent^ been observed in many other 

 tribes, particularly those belonging to the yellow races, and it is 

 now no longer possible to attach any importance to it as evidence 

 of the possible affinity of the Eskimo to the Mongolians. The spot, 

 or rather the spots, as there are often two or more, occurs not 

 merely among the Japanese, the Aihos, the Koreans, the Chinese 

 and hido-Chinese, but also in North and South America, in Hawaii 

 and, though extremely seldom, in Europe itself. 



The question is, however, too wide and moreover too obscure 

 and intricate for me to enter into here. I need only say that at 

 any rate it has nothing to do with the question of the immediate 

 descent of the Eskimo, as their possible immigration from Asia in 

 any case is to be placed much further back than their immigration 

 into the arctic countries from the south, which after Rink's 

 extensive investigations must be considered no longer open to 

 doubt. 



The colour of the iris among the total number of East Green- 

 landers examined must be designated as brown with certain nuan- 

 ces: blackish-brown, dark-brown, greyish-brown — wàth only a 

 single exception, a twenty-year-old girl from Umanak, who had 

 blue eyes. 



The colour of the hair must in general be designated as black 

 or dark-brown, but here we remark a very peculiar sexual difference, 

 which we must now pause to examine. It will be seen from the 

 following table, in which I have grouped together the nuances 

 found, viz., blackish-brown, brownish-black, blackish-red (one man) 

 and dark-brown under the common designation 'dark-brown', that 



1) Brudstyltker af en Dagbog, holden i Grønland 1770—78. Odense 1816, p. 136- 

 ■-) Die körperlichen Eigenschaften der Japaner. Mittheilungen der deutschen 



Gesellschaft für Natur- und Völkerkunde Ostasiens. Yokohama 1883. Cited in 



Globus. Vol. 48, 1885. 

 XXXIX. 12 



