622 W. Thalbitzer 



The dot ornamentation may be traced outside Greenland to the regions 

 of the Central Eskimo north and west of Hudson Bay, where it is perhaps 

 the most frequently used ornamentation, and from there westwards to Alaska. 

 Sometimes we also come across a similar form-element but with a compound 

 pattern, namely, small circles arranged in rows and with a dot in the cen- 

 tre^). I have seen the latter variety from West Greenland on the bone-hafts 

 of a couple of men's knives (with iron-blades) found in Pfaff's collection. 

 On implements from Alaska we find both this and another still more com- 

 plicated pattern consisting of 2 or 3 concentric rings round a central dot^). 

 In several cases it looks almost as if the carver by means of the dots dis- 

 tributed over the body of the animal wished to imitate either the hair of 

 the seal or the specific lines of the different species^). Small carved figures 

 of fishes (and seals) have often a dotted line along the side of the body from 

 head to tail. Ryder found a small carved fish (of wood) in Scoresby Sound 

 with the same ornamental peculiarity, an interesting parallel to the Alaskan 

 specimens, to which he also draws attention^). — A curiosity pointing per- 

 haps in a different direction is a small carved ivory seal with ornamental dots, 

 which was found among the results of some excavating work at Bergen in 

 so deep a layer of soil that it must date from the period before the fire of 

 this town in the year 1413^). The style of this figure is however somewhat 

 different from the present carvings of the Ammassalikers. Yngvar Nielsen 

 has put forward the supposition, that the object might originate from south- 

 ern West Greenland and date from the time in the middle ages, when the 

 merchants of Bergen traded with Greenland; in this case it would certainly 

 be the earliest known ethnographical proof of the connection between Green- 

 land and Europe.'') 



With regard to the already mentioned patterns (the alternate 



spur; the bifurcated line and the dot designs) I have presupposed 



that we should only look for them on the ivory objects. It is how- 



^) In the collections from Southampton Island, Iglulik and the west coast of Hud- 

 son Bay described by Boas (1901 — 1907), these ornamental patterns are seen on 

 combs (fig. 215), hair-ornaments (figs. 102 and 217), eyes for needle-cases (fig. 226), 

 buckles, beads, buttons (figs. 218, 220, 261), on a marrow extractor (fig. 148a); 

 from Cumberland Sound it is found on an ivory bead (1888, fig. 509 b) and some 

 toy figures (fig. 522) and on a swivel (1901, fig. 45 e). 



2) Specimens of these patterns occur in quantities in Nelson and Hoffman, e. g. 

 Nelson (1899) PI. 34, 36, 44(!), 45, 46, 52, 56, 63, 64, 94 and figs. 40, 41, 45, 125; 

 Hoffman (1897) PI. 9, 25, 32, 56, 57, 61, 62, 63 and figs. 43, 44, 45. 



3) See e. g. Hoffman (1897) PI. 57; Nelson (1899) fig. 135. 



^) Ryder (1895) p. 337, fig. 38 c. Cf. Murdoch (1892) fig. 413 a; Hoffmann (1897) 

 PL 56 — 57. The same feature is seen here on a wood carving of a seal in 

 fig. 372 d, likewise on several ivory carvings of seals in the Nordenskiöld coll. 

 from the Chukchee (in Stockholm). 



b) This discovery is mentioned (with illustration) in Koren Wiberg (1908) p. 151. 



'') Yngvar Nielsen in Koren Wiberg (1. с). The difference between the carvings of 

 the Ammassalikers and the walrus found in Bergen consists partly in this, that 

 the dots on the latter are leaf-shaped, whereas they are circular in East Green- 

 land and that the claws of all four paws are distinctly marked, a feature otlier- 

 wise only known from similar carvings of animals from Alaska and North-east 

 Asia. Before drawing any far-reaching conclusions from this Bergen discovery 

 with regard to the East Greenlanders we must await confirmation of the Green- 

 land origin of the figure, wliich can only be obtained by some more discoveries. 



