568 



W. Thalbitzer 



to the West Greenland- 

 ers but are undoubtedly 

 also in the main applic- 

 able to the culture of 

 the East Greenlanders. 



The Greenlanders do 

 not (according to Cranz)^) 

 use the guts for sewing 

 thread, but the sinews 

 of reindeer and whales, 

 which they split into thin 

 fibres, afterwards plait- 

 ing them with the fing- 

 ers to form threads with 

 two or three strands. To 

 this Glahn adds the re- 

 mark 2), that it is the sin- 

 ews of smaller whale- 

 species (white whale, nar- 

 whal and porpoise) that 

 are used for the sewing 

 of clothes, but that the 

 reindeer sinews are best 

 suited to this purpose. 

 It is only for sewing the 

 whale-fisher's garments 

 (qardligpaasalik) that 

 sinews of larger whales 

 are used. The latter are 

 also used for sewing cer- 

 tain coarse objects, e. g. 

 the skins for umiaks, 

 kaiaks and tents and the 

 network of dipnets for 

 catching caplins. As al- 

 ready mentioned, only 

 the sinews of the small- 

 er whales, and some- 

 times the sinews in the 

 hind-part of seals and 

 the spine-sinews of foxes 

 are used in the sewing 

 of clothes. The sinews 

 are separated into finer 

 or coarser threads ac- 

 cording to what is want- 

 ed in the given case; 

 they are then rolled by 

 a certain twisting move- 

 ment of the hand on the 



Fig. 294. Mans outdoor dress of sealskin. 

 (Holm coll.). Vio 



') Cranz (1770) p. 182. 

 2) Glahn (1771) p. 184. 



