636 W. Thalbitzer 



of this kind were brought to Copenhagen probably by the Dannell 

 expedition in 1654. One of them is described as a wooden doll 

 dressed in reindeer skin and adorned with birds' feathers and fish 

 teeth. It was called by the natives nalymgu'isang which seems to 

 mean 'an allknower, an oracle,' and they stated that the children 

 used to dance round it. hi the more competent main authors from 

 the 18th century I have not however found any confirmation of this 

 interesting statement^). 



From Alaska (Yukon river), on the other hand, we learn of idolatrous 

 use of dolls at the Doll Festival. This festival is characterized by the placing 

 of a wooden doll or image of a human being in the "kashim" (which cor- 

 responds to the Greenland qashse, the assembling house) and making it the 

 centre of various ceremonies, after which it is wrapped in birch-bark and 

 hung in a tree in some retired spot until the following year. During the 

 year the shamans sometimes pretend to consult this image to ascertain what 

 success will attend the season's hunting and fishing. "If the year is to be 

 a good one for deer hunting, the shamans pretend to find a deer hair within 

 the wrappings of the image. In case they wish to predict success in fishing, 

 they claim to find fish scales in the same place. At times small offerings of 

 food in the shape of fragments of deer fat or of dried fish are placed within 

 the wrappings." 2) 



The description of the Greenland doll and the dance of the natives 

 round it has several features in common with the Alaskan doll and may 

 refer to a very similar feast among the Greenlanders of former days. 



Masks. — Fig. 356 shows the front and back of a wooden block 

 carved like a head with two faces. The too narrow neck was broken 

 off, uppermost on the head is a deep socket-like hole. I imagine that 

 the carved furrows of the faces are meant to be tattoo markings^); 

 in this case b must be considered as the face of a women; if a is 

 meant to be the tattooed face of a man, it does not at any rate have 

 any of the men's tattooing designs known in more recent times. 

 This block was found in a grave in the Ammassalik Fjord and as 

 it is the only, really old evidence of the occurrence of masks or 

 mask-like objects in Greenland, it is a discovery of great interest. 

 Whether it has been an amulet or has been used in any other way 

 is unknown. It may probably have been a memorial image like 



M A distinct reminiscence of the use of such oracle-like dolls is found in a version 

 of the South Greenland tale about the last chief of the old Northerners, Ungor- 

 tok (see Pingel, 1838, p. 240). When he had fled, his Eskimo enemies discovered 

 him by means of one of the wooden dolls, which an angakoq had planted on 

 the gull dung-hills in the mouths of the fjords. One of the dolls, namely, had 

 turned in the direction of Ungortok's hiding-place. 



■') Nelson (1899) p. 494, cf. p. 379. 



') Besides tiie patterns of Eskimo tattoo-markings described on p. (iOi) I may men- 

 tion the marking cited by Hoffman (1897) p. 782 from Mac Clure: "a blue line 

 drawn across tlie bridge of tlie nose." This trait fits in well with the fact that 

 several lines are cut across the nose on the masks from East Greenland. 



