Ethnographical collections from East Greenland. 



667 



stick by indentations in the edges is divided into 7 parts each of 

 which is perforated in the middle. A bone-peg shaped like a violin- 

 peg is suspended by a sinew-thread at the same end as the stick 

 and is meant to be stuck into the seven holes successively for the 

 seven days of the week. In southern Greenland they must have learnt 

 to count the days of the week in this way from the resident Europeans 

 (the Moravians) ^) and the almanack has a few times been imitated 

 in East Greenland. The 

 two wooden blocks with 

 holes for the twisting of 

 sinew threads (fig. 241, cf. 

 pp. 516—518) found by 

 Holm have some resem- 

 blance to the shape of 

 wooden almanacks and 

 •one is easily led to think, 

 that these two unique ob- 

 jects were originally ident- 

 ical with the almanack 

 and have only been used 

 among the East Green- 

 landers, who knew nothing 

 of division of time into 

 weeks nor took any in- 

 terest therein, for the 

 twisting of sinew-threads. 

 In this case (or in any 

 case) they must have wooden calen- 

 reached as far up as Am- dar for count- 

 massalik by barter along '"^ ^^^ ^'"^^^ 



of a week. 



^1 



Fig. 392. 



the coasts before the ar- 



Holmcoll.). M 



a Ъ 



Fig. 393. Seal rattles(?) (Holm 

 or other coll.). ^li. 



rival of the Europeans. 



Seal rattles. — Fig. 393 shows two objects from Ammassalik 

 about the use of which the catalogue of the Museum informs us, 

 that they are two floats intended for luring the curious seals to the 

 openings in the ice. a is a solid wooden block, b a cocoa nut, which 

 may have drifted ashore from a ship (cf. p. 333). They are both pro- 

 vided with hanging "ballast" consisting of ivory beads {b a long 

 double-chain of beads). A specimen of a similar object was obtained 

 by Murdoch near Point Barrow on the north coast of Alaska^). 



^) Hoist's coll. (1880) in Stockholm Riksmuseum contains such an almanack {uvd- 



loTsiut) from Frederikshaab in South Greenland. 

 2) Murdoch (1892) fig. 254, p. 254. 



