678 W. Thalbitzer 



To p. 4-78. 

 Hammer, chisel, wedge. — At Ammassalik the hammer is called parpa- 

 leen, meaning in reality "a means of making a noise"; cf. parpalippaa "he ham- 

 mers (on) it", parpaligaq" the thing hammered, on which noise is made, i. e. iron"; 

 parpaleen signifies the primitive hammer stone (see figs. 215 — -217). The word 

 ilageen which I have erroneously given for a hammer like that seen in fig. 189 

 means 'a wedge for splitting wood', possibly also 'a celt, a chisel'. This expla- 

 nation agrees quite well with the figures referred to (namely figs. 189 and 200); 

 the Eskimo, who was shown the illustration of a hammer in Holm's book, evi- 

 dently considered the head as a wedge or a celt and told me its name, which 

 I then erroneously took to be the name of the hammer as a whole. At Ammas- 

 sahk the true word for a wedge is however aaitcaahilaa (see fist of words p. 221). 



To pp. 487—488. 



The archæological reasons on which 0. Solberg has founded his theory that 

 already before the time of Erik the Red the Eskimo had lived for many years 

 in Disco Bay, is the discovery of the 8 to 10 feet deep refuse-heaps near the old 

 settlement Sermermiut ('the inhabitants of the glacier') close to the mouth of 

 the large Jakobshavn icefjord, and of similar refuse-heaps near Qeqertaq further 

 north in the north-eastern corner of Disco Bay^). Without having visited these 

 places himself he has formed his opinion on the basis of Rink's description (1857) 

 and his knowledge of the collections of the museums. 



If this theory is correct, it seems strange that the Icelanders going out 

 on fishing expeditions every summer to the northern fjords on the coast have 

 said nothing about the existence of the Skrælings up there before the year 1266 

 and that the present natives in the same fjords have preserved no traditions 

 about the summer- visits up here of the foreigners in olden days. In order to 

 make all the circumstances fit in, Solberg has endeavoured to uphold a new loca- 

 Hzation of the old Icelandic names of the places in the northern district visited 

 by the Icelanders, an experiment that has been criticized by me in a review 

 of his paper about this question^). 



How this question may be solved in future — and I must admit that Sol- 

 berg's interpretation of the archæological facts and historic sources regarding 

 this case cannot be dismissed without further ceremony, or scrutiny — the 

 fact still remains, that the Eskimo have inhabited a part of the Greenland coast 

 at the same time as the Icelandic colonists and have drawn the net tighter and 

 tighter round these until they extinguished them. When the explorers of later 

 times reestabhshed the connection between Greenland and Europe every trace 

 of the Icelanders had apparently disappeared and only Eskimo were met with 

 in the country. The explanation which seems most probable now-a-days is that 

 owing to the dechning connection with the motherland and Norway the Ice- 

 landers in Greenland in the Mth and 15th century had become dependent on 

 the progressing Eskimo. If the Icelanders have not been killed in fights with 

 the Eskimo they have from being the masters sunk down to mere servants, 

 they have asked for help in hard times and have become mixed with them by 

 marriage and in hunting communities. A process of adaptation has taken place 

 resulting in the quickly gained superiority of the people best suited to the cli- 

 mate and mode of Hfe of the country, the stamp of which may now be traced 



') Solberg (1907) pp. 12-14, 79-80 and 90. 



1) Geografisk Tidsskrift (1909—1910) pp. 11—15; and Meddelelser om Grønland 

 (1909) p. 343. 



