Ethnographical collections from East Greenland. 487 



the coasts of Davis Strait. He urges indeed, that the Eskimo even 

 at that time must have been dependent on the irregular arrival of 

 iron through ships that had been lost, a consequence of the fact, 

 that the Basque fishermen had extended their whale fishing since 

 the end of the middle ages from the Bay of Biscay right up to the 

 north-western regions of the Atlantic (Newfoundland and Labrador). 

 Upon the whole, according to the same author, the fixed place that 

 lost vessels and wooden wreckage obtained in the economy of the 

 East Eskimo must have meant an early and unique change in the 

 material culture of America's north-east coast ^). It seems to me 

 very probable, that the first summer visits of the whale-fishers to 

 Davis Strait may have influenced the stone-age culture of the Eskimo 

 on these coasts. Solberg is undoubtedly right also, that the daw^i 

 of the West Greenland iron age lies even further back in time. The 

 appetite of the natives for iron has probably been nourished earlier 

 by contact with the Iceland-Norse colonists in the middle ages at the 

 end of the 14th century. But in contrast to Solberg I doubt whether 

 the Eskimo have been present in North Greenland before (at the 

 earliest) the middle of the 13th century. The Icelandic colonists in 

 South Greenland made hunting excursions every summer to the 

 large fjords of West Greenland further north (Disko or Umanak 

 Fjord?) and it was in 1266 (according to the Icelandic annals) that 

 the Skrœlingjar (Eskimo) were discovered living on this coast for 

 the first time since Erik the Red's landing. The discovery is men- 

 tioned in connection with definite localities in North Greenland, but 

 without reference to any chart ^). It soon came to fighting between 



M 0. Solberg (1907) pp. 20 21. 



"-') It has been discussed where these places 1аз% which the Icelandic colonists 

 visited from their southern settlements. I have endeavoured earlier to localize 

 the different place names mentioned in the Icelandic reports (in an account of 

 the principal historical data regarding the Greenland Eskimo, "Medd. om Grøn- 

 land" Vol. XXXI, 1904, pp. 24—25) as follows: Snœfjall 'snowfell' i. e. a con- 

 spicuous mountain with snow always on its summit, maj' be Cape Svartenhuk 

 (71°N. lat.) or Qaersorsuaq at UpernaAvik (72°N. lat.l; Hafsbotninn, 'the bottom 

 or innermost part of the bay of the sea' suits Melville Bay furthest north on 

 the west coast, at the mouth of Smith Sound. KröksfjarDarheiöi might be a 

 bare plateau in a corner of the Umanak Fjord, possibly the point of the Nug- 

 suak peninsula or a place even further south on Disko Island. Greipar 'finger- 

 grip, the claws' might possibh'^ be called after a coast with four or five pro- 

 jecting glaciers or clefts between steep hills or cliffs, such as, for example, I 

 saw in the northern side of the Umanak Fjord opposite Ubekendt Eyland (a 

 chart in "Medd. om Grønland " Vol. IV 2. ed. 1893, illustrates this coast distinctlj^ 

 with the 5 glaciers); in the sound between this island and the mainland there 

 is good seal hunting. — I am reminded of my earlier attempt to determine the 

 situation of these localities by F. Nansen's recent attempt in the same direction 

 in "Nord i Taakeheimen" (1911) pp. 229 — 230 etc. Like him I have my doubts 



