668 W. Thalbitzer 



ADDENDA 



In the preceding monograph on the material culture of the 

 Ammassalik Eskimo I have laid special stress upon the description 

 of objects and details of things that are characteristic of this group 

 of Eskimo. At the same time I have endeavoured to distinguish 

 between the true Eskimo features and the foreign or later borrowed 

 ones, a task requiring a general comparative investigation. In this 

 as in my previous work, therefore, I have compared the special forms of 

 implements of this Greenland locality with those of the other 

 parts of Greenland and the western regions of the Eskimo world. 

 In dealing with certain implements or groups of implements, e. g» 

 weapons, I have been led by way of experiment to determine their 

 genetic position in the developmental history of the race; for other 

 groups of implements I have gained the impression that such a 

 genetic connection might perhaps exist. The development of the 

 culture of this people has undoubtedly begun in the far west and 

 taken on a large scale the lines of migration may be traced eastwards 

 to Greenland with various deviations caused by the shape of the 

 coasts, and other local conditions on the way. The task is still in 

 front of us by means of archæological and ethnological material to 

 point out the routes along which the characteristic details of each 

 type or group of implements have come, in order that we may 

 obtain a contribution to the understanding of the migrations of the 

 Eskimo tribes themselves. 



In my investigation I started from the supposition that the 

 Eskimo population between the Bering Straits in the west and the 

 Denmark Straits in the east make up an ethnic unit in ethnographic 

 as well as linguistic respects. From the latter point of view I have 

 previously had the opportunity to examine as far as possible the 

 nature of this race and the lines of demarcation in its dialects; where- 

 after I studied the older formations of the language in order to sketch 

 out a representation of its developmental history and a grouping of 

 the dialects according to their genetic connection. Finally I have 

 made use of these results to clear up the question about the migra- 

 tions of the Eskimo tribes ^). The linguistic criteria have the advantage 

 over the ethnographic that they are more intimately connected with 

 the human nature and, consequently, when dealing with the distribu- 

 tion and migrations of the tribes give a more exact picture of these 

 conditions. The ethnographic objects are not by far so close'ly bound 

 to a certain group or tribe; both formal peculiarities and whole types 

 of implements may be handed on from one group to another, directly 



') See my linguistic papers from 1904, 1906 and 1911. 



