624 W. Thalbitzer 



partly converging, partly diverging. I do not know these lines from 

 the Western Eskimo but on the other hand the double curve motive 

 is mentioned as being very common in the Eastern Algonkian art, 

 i. e. among the neighbours of the East Eskimo from whom it may 

 have reached the Eskimo ^). The Ammassalikers call the curved or 

 wavy lines carjiaai^n i. e. 'rivers having fairly equal undulations in 

 their course,' and the encircling straight lines sannaat 'their sides, 

 the banks.' (See e. g. figs. 253 c/ and 254 b). 



While all these patterns with exception of the latter are known from 

 the ivory engravings and have possibly been transferred from the hard 

 material to the skin embroideries, I have not been able to trace the char- 

 acteristic bifurcated (Y-shaped) or the trifurcated pattern 2), which does not 

 seem to have played any important role among the Greenlanders. In the 

 central region this design is found, however, on the skin of the human body 

 where it is tattooed on hands, arms and shoulders, with the single line 

 turned upwards, the short branches downwards as on the needle-cases ^). 

 This fact lends some support to the supposition, that the tattoo patterns are 

 in the main the same as those carved in ivory and sewn on skin. The Am- 

 massalikers' square or round figures tattooed round a dot on arms and legs 

 are the same designs that have developed into concentric rings in the orna- 

 mentation of the implements, and the lattice or network pattern is also used 

 in both cases. There is some reason to believe, that to begin with the orna- 

 mentation of the implements and the human body have been based upon 

 the same principle. 



The seal-tail ornament carved in wood or ivory, whose development 

 into a conventional shape has been described previously by G. Holm (see 

 pp. 116— 120j, is seen e.g. on the following objects illustrated here: the heavy 

 bone (ivory) ends of knob and feather harpoons (fig. 43, cf 116), the upper 

 bone pegs of a kaiak-stand (fig. 92 Zj), several kaiak buttons (figs. 95c, g, i), drag 

 line toggles (figs. 162—163)^ hafts of men's knives (figs. 204сС, e), sinew twisters 

 (figs. 239, 243, 246), toggles (fig. 242 a, 244), thimble guards (figs. 249 a, 6), a large 

 scraping-board (fig. 226). Several of these objects, e. g. the last-mentioned 

 and the sinew twisters, are shaped entirely like a seal. In the collections 

 described by Boas from the central regions there is a number of "hand- 

 supports for harpoon-shafts" partly from Cumberland Sound on the south- 

 eastern side, partly from Ponds Bay on the northern side of Baffin Land, 

 all of which in their upper part have quite the same ornamental carving as 

 the final conventional shape of the seal-tail ornament known from Ammas- 

 salik*). If the theory, that the latter form (in fig. 43 seen on the figure marked 



1) F. G. Speck in the American Anthropologist 1911, p. 118. 



2) I think it preferable to distinguish between these two designs (taken as identical 

 by Boas), also on account of the interpretations by Hoffman, Murdoch and 

 others with regard to these and other patterns. Hoffman (1897) pp. 800 — 808 

 and 928 — 938. According to Nelson and the latter the trifurcated line indicates 

 "the raven totem," cf. Nelson (1899) pp. 324 and 426 and figs. 114-116 and the 

 bifurcated line probablj' "whale-tails" (Hoffmann, 1. с pp. 929 and 937), and a 

 row of single crosses "flying birds," cf. Wilson (1896) pp. 937—938. 



3) Boas (1901) p. 108, fig. 158. 



*) lb. idem. fig. 11a— 7 and 1907) fig. 222 a. Cf. fig. 136 c. 



