Ethnographical collections from East Greenland. 



559 



a 



that the West Greenland amaat^) is identical with the Point Barrow Eskimo 

 word ama, giving evidence of a very old knowledge of basket-work in the 

 western regions. 



Men's boxes or house chests (pp. 40 and 356). — These chests, 

 in which the men (seldom the women) keep their tools and part of 

 their clothes, are in Green- 

 land always made of sev- 

 eral pieces. The sides, 

 bottom and lid consist of 

 separate boards, some- 

 times a side or a lid is 

 even made of tw^ pieces 

 bound together (fig. 288 a 

 and b). The hinges for 

 the lid consist of skin- 

 straps; the sides and the 

 bottom are fixed together 

 by means of wooden nails. 

 The chest seen in fig. 289 e 

 is divided into three com- 

 partments. Fig. 289 b 

 shows a richly decorated 

 box provided with a string 

 of beads to be used as a 

 handle for carrying pur- 

 poses; further, it has four 

 chains of beads fastened 

 in the corners and con- 

 nected with the same 

 number of toy bears of 

 wood (the fourth which is 

 not seen in the figure has 

 fallen off and lies in the 

 chest). A chain of beads 

 belonging to the lock has become loose and is illustrated in fig. 344a. 

 The different kinds of locks are mentioned p. 40. On the boxes in 

 figs. 289 a, b, с there is a strap in the lid with a bone-toggle at the 

 end, which is meant to be fixed between the two projecting teeth in 

 fig. 290. This type of small toggle, shaped like a double crescent, 

 is well know^n from Baffin Land and the Netchillik Eskimo ^). 



Fig. 288. Tool boxes from Nualik. (Amdrup coll. 



^) Kleinschmidt's dictionary (p. 24) атак. рЫг. amåt, '-the long thin runners from 



the root of a tree, also a basket of European basket-work." 

 2) Boas (1901—1907) pp. 455—456, fig. 251 d. e, cf. pp. 19—20 and 74. 



