Ethnographical collections from East Greenland. 333 



this kind in their large fund of traditions'? or have these things 

 perhaps never taken place? has the connection with the west coast 

 only begun 200 years ago? 



According to Holm, Graah's visit of 1830 to the districts just to 

 the south of Sermilik Fjord was still remembered in 1885 by an old 

 man there who said he had met him. They also described the ap- 

 pearance of Donati's comet in 1858 ^). They remembered, that a 

 damaged, three-masted vessel had drifted along the coast about a 

 generation before (the period has been fixed at about 1845 ^). Further, 

 it was remembered in 1885, that various foreign objects had drifted 

 to land at Ammassalik in recent years, for example, a ship's boat, 

 wooden wreckage, a cocoa-nut and a bamboo stick, a bottle for 

 pickles or preserves, a musk-ox, a white reindeer^). What specially 

 interested the natives of the place was the iron and brass, found 

 in the vessel and boat, which they used for their own weapons. 

 Graah had the same experience in 1829 further south on the coast^). 

 This was also their main attraction in Fridtjof Nansen's landing at 

 Umeevik in 1888 some miles south of Ammassalik, when he began his 

 ski-journey over the inland ice'). I obtained information about this from 

 a native of Sermilik baptised David, who with another had met Nansen 

 in the south. His boat was found later by Ilinguake's son Kalia and 

 his brother-in-law Mammeqaait, both belonging to Iliaq. In addition 

 to a book and some jars they found a number of cartridges and a 

 brass pipe. The last especially was made of use. One of the natives 

 I saw regularly at Ammassalik still had a piece of it as a ferrule on 

 his ice-pick (tooq) and looked upon it almost as an amulet. 



Further south on the east coast there is no remembrance of any 

 vessel observed off the coast. Holm learnt this in 1880 from the 

 first Fastlander he met with in southern West Greenland*^). 



The trading routes along the coast southwards led to the famous 

 market centre on the small island of Aluk, or to Naneeseq (Graah's 

 Nenneetsuk), or round to Pamiätluk (Pamiagdluk) or to Nanortalik, the 

 southernmost Danish trading place on the west coast. What the East- 

 landers desired to barter here, can be gathered from another of the 

 East Greenland songs, which Rink obtained (ca. 1860) from a half- 

 blood Greenlander at the southernmost trading place ^): 



1) Holm in this volume p. 188. Cf. (1888) p. 184. 



2) Holm (1889) pp. 90—91, cf. 78. 



3) Holm (1889) pp. 133—134. 

 *) Graah (1832) p. 97. 



b) Nansen, Paa Ski over Grønland (1890) p. 437. 



6) Holm, Meddelelser om Grønland VI (1894) p. 68. Cf. Cranz (1770) p. 344. 



') Rink (1871) No. 132, p. 141 and (1866) p. 355. 



