Ethnographical collections from East Greenland. 



637 



those known from Alaska ^) belonging to a grave and representing 

 the deceased sealer and his wife. 



Figs. 357 — 358 show four masks (keeapaait)^) of the kind which 

 certain old men (especially Akernilik) as late as 1906 knew how to 

 carve in wood in imitation of their ancestors, but without know- 

 ing anything about their original use, Kruuse was the first (in 1900 — 

 1901) to give us surprising information about the occurrence of 

 these remnants of a religious cult in this part of the Eskimo 

 world, but he also states that near Ammassalik the masks are now 



a Ъ 



Fig. 356. Double-faced head carved in wood, front and back. (Petersen coll.). ^1 



only used as "toys for frightening the children."^) Among the masks 

 he brought home with him only one could be designated as really 

 old ; the others were new carvings. From Ammassalik some more 

 masks were later sent to the collections in Copenhagen and from 

 there a few specimens reached to the museums of other countries*). 

 Among the masks I received myself from Akernilik were also a 



1) Nelson (1899) pp. 317-319. 



-) Word derived from the same word stem as the Alaskan Eskimo kenakok 'wooden 



masks used as festivals'. Barnum (1901) p. 343. • 

 3) Kruuse (1912) pp. 44—46. 

 ■*) I have seen some East Greenland masks in the Hofmuseum in Vienna. They 



are reproduced in Trebitsch's book (1910), PI. XXVII. 



