Ethnographical collections from East Greenland. 689 



from the northern part of Labrador by the Eskimo and by boat crossed over 

 from the mainland to Killineq (i. e. Cape Chudleigh near the southern corner 

 of the entrance to the Hudson Straits leading into Hudson Bay). The Labra- 

 dor Eskimo reporting this tradition considered Tunnit as identical with the 

 inhabitants of Greenland. The name is evidently only another form of the 

 Greenland Tornit, a foreign tribe or people in the inland about whom the Green- 

 landers have many legendary tales. 



The Eskimo of both Labrador and Greenland have thus had their tradi- 

 tions about this people, first heard of from Labrador where ruins of their 

 stone houses have been observed. The above-mentioned report from Labrador 

 reminds us of the one sent 100 years earlier to Cranz from the first mission- 

 aries arriving at Newfoundland and the southern Labrador. But according 

 to him the hostile people once living north of the Labrador Eskimo were cal- 

 led Karaalit and were perhaps identical лvith the Greenlanders. As the 

 name Karaalit is the same as the one the southern Eskimo in West Green- 

 land use about themselves, adding that it was the Icelandic colonists of the 

 middle ages who gave them this name, there seems to be some historic connec- 

 tion between the emigrated people in North Labrador and the Eskimo immi- 

 grating into South Greenland^). If the name really originates from the Icelanders, 

 we might perhaps explain why the Labrador people knew it in the following 

 way, that in the middle ages it was brought to Labrador by the Icelanders 

 and used about the Eskimo tribe called Тишги (Tornit) by the other Eskimo. 

 The Icelanders had undoubtedly from the days of Leif and Thorfinn Karlsefni 

 constant (though often interrupted) oversea connection with these regions, fetched 

 furs and timber and had their summer houses {ЪиЫг) over there, the same as 

 was the case in the northern fjords of West Greenland. About this the Icelandic 

 annals contain some, though unfortunately too little information. But as al- 

 ready mentioned here, the Labrador reports contain not a few indications that 

 foreign people have lived in their neighbourhood, who must either be consid- 

 ered as Eskimo of a different tribe or as Europeans^) or possibly as a mixed 



1) Cranz (1770) pp. 298—299. Cf. my remarks (1905) p. 206—208 about this informa- 

 tion from Labrador and my conclusion cited here: "As pointed out in my book 

 on the Eskimo languages (in "Meddelelser om Grønland" Vol. 31, 1904, pp. 183 

 229, cf. 232 — 237 and 263—264) there are certain phonetic similarities between 

 the dialect of the West Greenlanders (especially in Central and South Greenland) 

 and that of the Labrador Eskimo. These two Eskimo tribes are now distantly 

 separated and into the interval between them a heterogeneous Eskimo tribe to 

 Avhich the Upernavik Eskimo in North Greenland also belong seems to have 

 made its way. But that the present Greenland Karaalit before coming to Green- 

 land have been closely related to the Labrador tribe now begins to be some- 

 thing more than a mere possibility, if it be true that the two tribes have had 

 a common tribal name which the tribes living in the intervening countries (North 

 Greenland and Baffin Land) do not acknowledge". I may add here, that the 

 name Karâleq (sing.) is given as true Labrador word for a "Greenlander" in 

 Erdman's Labrador vocabulary (from 1864) as also in the list of words found 

 at the end of Bourquin's Labrador Grammar (1891, p. 378). 



^) Rink remarks with regard to the Labrador traditions (1866, p. 367): "It is also 

 inexplicable that Tunnit is described as a population driven away partly from 

 the outer islands, partly further north, this being just the opposition to what 

 was the case with the inland dwellers. Neither is it impossible that hereunder 

 is concealed some misrepresented memories of a population of a European tribe 

 which may have lived in America in olden times". In this connection I may 

 mention the linguistic peculiarity that the common Greenland word for "another, 



XXXIX. 44 



