338 W. Thalbitzer 



keep dogs. When there is too much ice on the sea to get seals, 

 they resort to a kind of halibut (or shark?), the fat of which they 

 burn in the lamps instead of seal blubber. What they specially 

 lack, are iron and bone. To get these, they have begun, though 

 only 10 years earlier, to make these dangerous journeys to the 

 southernmost Greenlanders. They bring fox and seal skins, skin 

 straps or thongs and soapstone utensils, lay down their wares and 

 are satisfied, however bad the needles or blunt the knives they get 

 in exchange. They are greatly astonished at linen and wollen gar- 

 ments, but show no anxiety to possess them." So far Cranz. 



The next to visit the east coast after Walløe was W. A. Graah 

 (1829 — 30)^). Before he reached Cape Farvel he already met in with 

 Ernenek, who lived on the east coast and accompanied him on his 

 journey up along this in the umiak. Though Graah reached up to 

 65° N. lat., he learnt nothing, curiously enough, about the natives 

 at Ammassalik. Nevertheless, his report on the journey furnishes 

 us with the first distinct picture of the East Greenlanders of the 

 south coast and contains a quantity of interesting details regarding 

 them. I may just quote here two passages, referring on the one 

 hand to the occurrence of European articles even at the northern- 

 most places visited by Graah, and on the other giving the only 

 information regarding some people still further north. 



Graah's discoveries on Ole Rømers Island (64° 58' N. lat.) show 

 the contemporaneous use of stone instruments and iron instruments 

 displaying European influence. On August 7th 1829 he landed here: 

 "We discovered three Greenland houses. This island had probably 

 been inhabited in the previous year, as a quantity of blubber and 

 various utensils, among them some lamps but not of the ordinary 

 soapstone, had been hidden away. Some of the things found 

 showed, that the natives had been provided with European articles, 

 such as knives and saws, which they had probably bought in ex- 

 change from their landsmen living further to the south. A large 

 piece of drift wood, which they had begun to split up by means of 

 stone wedges, lay on the shore "^). 



In the summer of the following year Graah again made an 

 attempt to penetrate further north, but was not successful. At the 

 island Taterat (63° 50' N. lat.) he met with two Eskimo families, 



') I cannot altogether omit a reference to К L. Giesecke's short visit to the 

 southernmost point of the east coast on July 31st 1806 (Giesecke's Mincral- 

 ogiske Reise, ed. Copenhagen 1878 and 1910). He also mentions a South Green- 

 lander, who lived there and who traded with the most remote eastlanders. 



2) Graah (1832) p. 104. 



