660 W. Thalbitzer 



A C E G 



В D F H 



A throws the ball to В whereafter D begins to fight (wrestle) 

 with В to rob him of the ball. Pair stands against pair and wrestle 

 with each other; the pairs A — D have however nothing to do with 

 E— H. The result is that A and D, С and B, E and H and G and 

 F are called and "made" cousins. 



Ilageekartin begins in the same way with A throwing the ball 

 to В ; now all the other men and women in the row С — G (which 

 may also be still longer) throw themselves over the one of the two 

 parties who has kept the ball and try to wrench it from him, and 

 the person who at last gets hold of the ball has won the game 

 (ajjirjujuppoa 'I have won'). 



Nakkacaaleetut is played by two men trying to keep the ball in 

 the air for the whole time by knocking it up with the hands. The 

 spectators standing around excite them with high shouts {ha! ha!) 

 in time to the throws and in a constantly accelerating measure until 

 the ball falls to the ground. 



Isimmirjaatut 'foot-ball' was also played in olden times. 



Besides the ball -games the Ammassalikers have also had many 

 other kinds of games, e. g. naaijisartoq 'hopping-game from stone 

 to stone,' but I shall not describe them further on the present occasion, 

 as I hope to have the opportunity of describing them in connection 

 with the folk-lore of this people. 



Hans Egede mentions from West Greenland two kinds of foot-ball games i), 

 in both of which the players are divided into two parties. The first cor- 

 responds to ilageekartin, the other is a kind of foot-ball played between two 

 goals. The Greenlanders compare the latter game with the ball-game played 

 in the sky by their deceased, which has already been mentioned by Egede, 

 and the Ammassalikers have also the tradition that the aurora borealis is 

 the soul of the dead children playing at ball with a walrus-head ^). In one 

 of the peculiar ball-game-songs brought to us from Baffin Land by Boas, 

 they also sing of a ball made of a walrus-head. "The game is plaj^ed with 

 several small pebbles which are thrown and caught in one hand," says Boas 

 and the song is evidently sung during this game with the pebbles''). This 

 game has some resemblance to the girls' throwing of the ball in the game 

 emiQTieetaatut at Ammassalik. 



Further north on the west coast the ball-games have been mentioned 

 by Giesecke. In 1811 in the Umanak-fjord he saw the natives play on the 

 ice with a ball made of a whole seal-skin stuffed with haj^ and stones*). All 

 the forenoon the two parties played against each other until one of them 



^) H. Egede (1741) p. 93 cf. PI. facing the same page. 



2) Holm in this book p. 82. 



3) Boas (1901) p. 344-.345. 



•*) Giesecke, Reise Journal 4th April 1811. His description of tlie ball corresponds 

 exactly to that given by Glahn in Norske Vidensk. Skrifter I, p. 496. 



