Ethnographical collections from East Greenland. 



635 



allows his phantasy to give these carvings is in accordance with the 

 Ammassaliker's conventional conception of these. It is possible that 

 these dolls are old idols, or that like the wooden masks they are the 

 last visible remnants of a religious cult long forgotten. 



Fig, 354 represents the angakoq Taqhisima's auxiliary spirit 

 Tornarsiwättiaq ('the minor tornarsik') seen from in front and from 

 behind. The name of the carver was Mikeeki. The mysterious 

 figure of the sacred being is crooked-backed, concavo-convex with 

 the long arms close to the body which tapers downwards and ends 

 in a couple of truncate knobs instead of legs. Seen from behind 



Two monsters (qimarrat) carved in wood; 

 a an angakoq bear. (Petersen coll.). ^/2. 



this figure has some resemblance to the tornarssuk figures, e. g. in 

 figs. 48—49, cf. p. 119—120 and in fig. 350 b. 



Fig. 355 a and b are wooden carvings of two different fear-inspiring 

 spirits (qimaRRat) in the service of the angakoq; the first is meant 

 to represent a kind of mythic bear^), the other something between 

 an animal and a human being, a sphinx-like figure with an appalling, 

 deformed face. 



From the 17th century we find in Olearius and Schacht a state- 

 ment ^), unfortunately rather short, from which it appears that in 

 West Greenland idols were used for religious purposes. Some idols 



^) Compare the description in Holm of the angakoq's bear from the lake, in this 

 book p. 284, note 6. According to what Johan Petersen has told me each anga- 

 koq has his own special bear; it creeps out of the water to him with the fore- 

 paws drawn together and the hind-paws stretched out. 



2) Olearius (1656) p. 178, Schacht (1789 but his Ms. Avritten before 1700 when he 

 died) p. 263. — The citations from Olearius and Schacht will be given among 

 the notes and additions towards the end of this paper. 



