Ethnographical collections from East Greenland. 68 1 



To p. 558-559. 



Basket-work must also have been known among the central East Eskimo; 

 for in the Sloane Collection in the British Museum I have seen a basket made 

 of twigs which is said to have come from "the Indian Esquemos in Hudson 

 Streights (63° N. Lat. 72° N. Long)". The Sloane Collection was acquired by 

 the British Museum in 1753 but is probably of a considerably older date (ca.. 

 1720). The basket mentioned is registered as No. 1933. It is very beautifully 

 plaited, oval with pointed bottom, girded round by three figured bands of the 

 plaiting material. 



To p. 581. 



Wide women's boots. — When discussing this subject G. Holm (p. 234) 

 in a footnote called attention to the Ammassahk tale about Kamikinak, who 

 is put down into one of his foster-father's boots away in the foreign land "on 

 the other side" (Akilinek). This is possibly a reminiscence in East Greenland 

 from neighbours who have had this custom (note, only among the women, not 

 among the men, who had only the common boots with narrow legs). 



To p. 605. 



Combs. — Combs used for scraping together the berries when collecting 

 them up in the hills have not been mentioned before from Greenland (or Eskimo) 

 regions. But in a small pamphlet, otherwise quite unimportant, by W. Beh- 

 rens^), I find an observation mentioned, that when the Greenlanders in Umanak 

 Fjord go up in the hills to "scrape berries", they carry with them a skin-basket 

 and a "kind of implement made of reindeer-bone by means of which they scrape 

 the berries from the hill-side and down into the basket". When the basket is 

 full, they shake it so that small leaves and other rubbish tumble out through 

 the hole in the bottom and only the cleaned berries remain in the basket. We 

 may imagine, that "this kind of implement" has been some sort of comb. 



To p. ßh-1 (fig. 368 b). 

 Dolls. — Wooden dolls with pHable joints in arms and legs have been 

 mentioned from the Chukchee and Koryaks in north-eastern Asia^). There 

 is reason consequently to believe that the same kind of dolls found among the 

 Ammassaliker s is an Eskimo product of old origin. This — like many other 

 facts of a similar kind mentioned by me — shoAvs how cautious we must be 

 in considering the apparently surprising agreement with modern objects from 

 our own shops as due to "European influence". We have probably here an- 

 other proof that the Ammassahkers like all other East Greenlanders have stuck 

 tenaciously in their isolation to certain old forms of implements, cult and luxury 

 long after the same things have disappeared from the west coast and even from 

 among the western kinsmen on the opposite side of the Davis Straits. 



To the chart (back of the book). 



I have found it most practical to spell the Eskimo names of the places 

 on the chart according to the traditional orthography, namely Kleinschmidt's, 

 though otherwise I only use this in citing. The chart has been worked out on 



tualliait from 1860. The Labrador dictionary from 1864 gives Kablunak as 'a, 

 foreigner, European' and kablunartak (= Greenl. qaLLunartaq) as 'a thing 

 acquired from the Europeans, wood, clothes etc' 



1) Behrens (1860) p. 32. 



2) Jochelson (1908) p. 656. "In connection with the various Koryak carvings, the 

 wooden figures of men should be mentioned, made without any artistic finish 

 with their extremities on pivots like mechanical dolls. These figures serve as 

 toys for children", cf. the East Greenland toy bear, Amdrup inv. 121, (1909) p. 

 534, fig. 106. 



