Ethnographical collections from East Greenland. 



639 



Besides these wooden masks I received a somewhat larger mask 

 made of shark skin with a piece of skin sewn on as nose and the 

 rims of mouth and eyes roughly seamed with small tranverse strips 

 of a lighter colour. 



Fig. 359 shows the only one among the many wooden dolls 

 found in the collections from East Greenland which has a face with 

 carved furrows like the masks. As usual, arms and legs are passed 

 over whereas the protruding abdomen and the sexual organs are 

 carefully emphasized as also the different parts of the face. Very 

 characteristic also is the sitting position. 



Several of the dolls illustrated in the following section (figs. 366 

 a, d, e, 367, 368), on which the same features are found, must un- 

 doubtedly be considered from the same point of 

 view as the above-mentioned doll with the tattooed 

 face. This kind of doll probably originally served 

 for some cultic purpose or other, even though now 

 only spoken of as toys for children (cf. p. 636). 



Aleqajik (old woman) told me that before the 

 arrival of the Europeans the masks were often used 

 in the house-games (uaajeertut) when they tried to 

 represent the spirits of the angakut. The angakut 

 themselves did not use them during their ceremonies. 

 When worn out they were not preserved but thrown 

 out on the refuse-heaps. 



Akernilik told me that his father had been a 

 skilled carver of wooden masks. An other old man 

 who carved masks was Nataaq. They used their 

 masks merely for fooling or frightening the children, 

 and when they died the masks were thrown into the sea together 

 with their corpses. The masks brought me by Akernilik represented 

 certain deceased persons whose names he gave me. 



These masks from Ammassalik are the only remnants found in 

 Greenland of the western Eskimo's variegated world of cultic masks. 

 From Baffin Land we have in Boas some illustrations of masks, both 

 of wood and skin, which bear a strong resemblance to the East 

 Greenland ones^). They are used at the great religious festivals in 

 autumn and winter in these regions, when Sedna and her servant 

 Qailertetang visit the people; the latter wears a mask of sealskin. 

 The masks of the Baffinlanders are tattooed and these as well as 



Fig. 359. Image of 

 a man with mask- 

 like face carved in 

 wood. (Petersen 



coll.) 1|2. 



') Cf. Holm in this book, pp. 128-129. Boas (1888j fig. 535, pp. 604—608 and 669, 

 (1901) fig. 169, pp. 138 — 142; Preuss (two masks of skin in the Hantzch collection 

 from Baffin Land) (1913) p. 124. 



