Ethnographical collections from East Greenland. 713 



theless this author has done good service in emphasizing Ihe provincial 

 differences apparent in the Greenland population both ethnographi- 

 cally and linguistically and in recording a number of useful obser- 

 vations on these points during his long stay in the land. Earlier 

 authors had rather slurred over these differences. For my part, in 

 opposition to this author, I doubt whether these differences are so 

 fundamental, that they must necessarily be referred back to two or 

 more different Eskimo territories outside Greenland. 1 do not be- 

 lieve, that they bear witness of independent immigrations from 

 different tribes in the far west, but that the majority are merely 

 due to local specialisations, which have developed within Greenland 

 itself; a smaller part of the peculiar features or forms of implements 

 in certain districts may perhaps be regarded as archaic remnants or 

 rudiments of a vanished culture, but not of an alien culture. 



With regard to the West Greenland Eskimo the lack of thor- 

 ough archæological investigations is severely felt. On the basis of 

 anthropological criteria Søren Hansen distinguished the Upernawik 

 natives on the northern part of the coast as a special tribe from the 

 inhabitants more to the south ^). From an investigation of the phone- 

 tics of the same population I fou'nd in 1901 a similar boundary between 

 the dialect of Upernawik and that of their southern neighbours (in 

 Umanak Fjord and Disko Bay). If we go northwards to the Smith 

 Sound Eskimo we obtain the impression, that they are not only the 

 nearest neighbours of the Upernawikers (though the connection has 

 been broken for a long time) but also their relatives. Kroeber has 

 therefore placed the Smith Sound and Upernawik Eskimo in one 

 group, whereas Boas regarded the Smith Sound Eskimo as an inter- 

 mediate group between the Upernawik and the Baffin Land Eskimo ^). 

 An unmistakable resemblance exists between the implements found 

 in northern West Greenland (from Disko Bay northwards) and in 

 northern East Greenland (from Ammassalik northwards), thus in the 

 high-arctic parts of the two coasts. On linguistic as well as ethno- 

 graphic grounds 1 have come to the conclusion, that a "north-eastern" 

 group of Greenlanders has existed, embracing the original dwellers 

 on the west coast north of Umanak and the ancestors of the Am- 

 massalikers in North-East Greenland-^). Their common ancestral home- 

 region has lain most probably west of Smith Sound, for 1 do not think, 

 that there has been any direct connection between the northern in- 



ij S. Hansen (1893) pp. 174, 203—205, 229—230, 242. 

 -) Kroeber (1899) p, 321. Boas (1901) p 355. 



3) Thalbitzer (1904) pp. 202-203, 259, 264; (1909) pp. 337 and 339; (1910) p. 224 

 (1911) p. 44. 



