Ethnographical collections from East Greenland. 659 



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after the filling material has been put into the ball (see fig. 388 

 where the skin for the ball is of black, the small piece of white 

 skin). The balls are generally somewhat flattened, seldom quite 

 globular. 



I shall now mention some of the ball-games of the Ammassalikers. 



Erniijijeetaatut 4hose who are eagerly desirous of sons.' I saw 

 this game being played on the island Atteqit near Cape Dan in July 

 1906. Five or six young girls sat on the top of a small hill and the 

 same number of young men stood or lay on the ground below them. 

 One of the men threw the ball into the lap of one of the women, then 

 all the men shut their eyes murmuring some incomprehensible words. 

 The girl into whose lap the ball had fallen now threw it far away 

 from her whilst crying " the man down there shall be my son ! " 

 Amidst great excitement on both sides the men now began to look 

 for the ball while the women chimed in with a long-drawn half- 

 singing: nanää, nanää, oqumukaittaraa, karjimukaittaraa etc. "find it, 

 find it ! go northwards, go westwards etc." constantly giving orders 

 as to the diff"erent directions in which the men must look for the 

 ball. When at last one of them is quite close to the ball the ex- 

 citement of the women increases, the voice is pitched so high, that 

 it breaks into falsetto and a piercing shriek is heard : лат', nanini 

 ni ni "he has got it!" The finder now throws the ball towards the 

 women and the girl he hits is his "mother," he takes the ball to 

 her and when he hands it over she puts the thumb of her left hand 

 into her mouth saying: erniijeewa aijiijujuqaa qr qr qr "my son has 

 won the game, has made a great capture" (then a sound as of boiling 

 or bubbling water is heard). Now the "mother" must play some 

 tricks with the ball; she must throw it high up in the air and in 

 the intervals while the ball is up she will pretend to: 1 boil the 

 meat, 2 eat it (with a slobbering noise), 3 scrape the fleshy side of 

 the meat, 4 scrape also the hairy side, 5 stretch it out to dry, 6 

 chew it to soften it, 7 twine the sinew-thread, 8 sew an anorak for 

 the "son." She calls him to come to her and he embraces her 

 while she says: oquk, oqukl "it (the anorak) is warm." He pretends 

 to put on the anorak and she helps him. The game of this couple 

 being finished, the men again lie down on the ground while the 

 girls sit down on the hill after having first fought about the pos- 

 session of the ball. The last winner keeps it if possible and throws 

 it out again or else the girl who had succeeded in stealing it away 

 from her {aijijeerpoa 'I stole it away from you'). 



Ilageetaatut 'those who are or will become cousins' is also a 

 game played by men and women, placed in two rows and arranged 

 in the following way: 



42* 



