Ethnographical collections from East Greenland. 



519 



turned barb of the hook with the ornamented front side is seen 

 above the ring). 



To spin the thread in the true sense of the word is not known 

 among the Eskimo, probably because the material, the frayed sinews, 

 is in itself sufficiently connected and strong to be twined into 

 thread at once and without any special preparation. Otherwise we 

 should be inclined to consider the implement described here as re- 

 lated to a spindle on account of its function. But it has evidently 

 not been constructed to rotate. On the 

 other hand, we are not quite without proofs 

 that spindle implements have been known 

 in West Eskimo regions. Nelson describes 

 a sinew-cord spinner from St. Lawrence 

 Island in the Bering Straits, consisting of 

 three parts, namely a heavy base to be 

 used as handle, wùth a central perforation 

 into which a slender rod is inserted. The 

 sinew to be spun is attached to the flat- 

 tened rod, which by a rapid circular mo- 

 tion of the hand is caused to revolve, giv- 

 ing the desired twisting to the cord. Nel- 

 son suggests that this implement, which 

 he does not know elsewhere from Alaska, 

 may have been borrowed by the Eskimo 

 of St. Lawrence Island from foreign whal- 

 ers^). I am, on the other hand, inclined 

 to consider this implement as an old relict, 

 because it corresponds exactly to the Scand- 

 inavian Laplander's sländor, 'spindles,' or 

 primitive spinning-wheels'^). The Lapland 

 spindle also consists of a flat, perforated 

 disc, revolving on a rod. This as well as 



the Eskimo spindle corresponds to the ^'^^- ^^З- Apparatus for sinew 

 ,. ,, . 1, , twisting. (Petersen coll.'. Vs. 



description 01 the spindle known among 



the North American Indians, namely a slender rod with a circular 

 block for a fly-wheel'^). In Greenland this implement is merely 

 known as a toy for children, being like a kind of buzz, and as I 

 have only seen it from Ammassalik there is reason to believe that 

 this is the only place apart from St. Lawrence Island where the 

 Eskimo have still kept it in mind. A more thorough description of 



1) Nelson (1899) pp. 111-^113, fig. 31. 



^) In "Nordiska Museum" in Stockholm I have seen a great number of these. 



3) O. T. Mason in Handbook of American Indians И ^1910) p. 928. 



