708 W- Thalbitzer 



beted in the region where we know from the Icelandic sources that the event 

 must actually have taken place. 



When the Ammassahkers in 1884 referred to the tale, that "their ancestors 

 had killed the ancestors of the Europeans and burnt down their large house" ^), 

 this can only be explained as being a fragmentary quintessence of the wide- 

 spread report, which had reached them through oral tradition or direct immi- 

 gration from the south. 



Further south on the east coast, namely, near Kangeq south of the glacier 

 Puisortoq which is very difficult to pass, Holm and Hanserak heard another 

 short tale about the Norsemen, dealing with a contest between an Eskimo and 

 a Greenlander. The object was, to cross the sound between the small island 

 Umanak and the mainland by means of a rope suspended between the two places, 

 working their луау by the arms^). The island can only be Umanak on the east 

 coast at 61°15' N. lat. Though the tale gives some more details, which can be 

 connected with this place, the localization is less certain than that of the tale 

 about Oongortoq and Olawik. But this tale from the southern part of 

 East Greenland affords an interesting proof of the fact, that there is a certain 

 historic continuity between the Eskimo East-Greenlanders and the old Norse- 

 men. 



This statement, however, is not to be taken as indicating, that in my opinion 

 an intermixture of Norsemen and Eskimo has occurred on the east coast. The 

 anthropological investigation of the material from Ammassalik has proved, that 

 this people is pure Eskimo without foreign mixture and I feel inclined to beHeve, 

 that this applies to the whole population on the southernmost part of the east 

 coast^). It is probable, however, that investigations on the west coast, in the 

 regions of the old Icelandic settlements, might reveal the traces of a mixed 

 Eskimo-Icelandic race originating from the middle ages, but in East Greenland 

 no such traces have been discovered, either by studying the physical anthro- 

 pology or in the culture of the natives. 



Icelandic words in the Greenland language. — There is not much 

 to lend support to the theory about an old intercourse between the two peoples 

 in Greenland. From a Hnguistic point of view also we only find faint traces of 

 a superficial character. The connection between most of the following words 

 of both languages is very doubtful. 



Names. We have already mentioned the two names in the tradition about 

 the Norsemen Olawaq and Oongortoq, the first of which probably refers to Oldfr 

 (pp. 703, 707). The old names from the southern West Greenland Kunneling and 

 Sigoho possibly correspond to the Icelandic Gunnhildr and Sigurdr; the Eskimo 

 names Kunnitte and Kunnaak known from the east coast may possibly be varia- 

 tions of Gunnhildr (?) and Gunnarr. Two of these names from Greenland seem to 

 be identical with the names of two mountains there, namely, Kunnaak and the 

 mountain Kunnah at Arssuk in South Greenland^) and Oongortoq and the moun- 

 tain Oongortoq or Oonguttong-') near AmmassaUk. This would be partially analo- 

 gous with the fact, that in West Greenland there is a place called QaLwLunaait- 



^) In this volume pp. 134 and 332. 



2) Holm 1889j pp. 85-86 and 95-9(J; Hanserak (1900) p. 14. 



3) Søren Hansen in this volume p. 179. 

 •*) Grønl. histor. Mindesm. Ill, p. 832. 



°) Thus spelt Ooijortoq as well as Ooijuttutj in my own records from Ammassalik 

 and previously mentioned by G. Holm (1889 p. 208) as Ungutok. This name may 

 possibly be explained etymologically by the word mjrjoq "a wart", correspon- 

 ding to the siiape of the mountain: "tlie wart mountain". 



