Ethnographical collections from East Gieenland. 715 



the north had constantly remained south of the "world's end" and 

 had not (as it seems) undertaken sporadic, return journeys to- 

 wards the north ; for in this way the routes of earlier and more re- 

 cent culture have crossed one another and the traces become inter- 

 mingled. 



The Ammassalik culture is characterised by showing at one and 

 the same time archaic and recent features; the latter is undoubt- 

 edly due for a great part to influence from the south, a part may 

 have arisen in the Ammassalik district itself. This does not mean, 

 that the archaic features must be the remnants of the old northern 

 culture on this coast. In any case the archæological finds have not 

 yet confirmed that the archaic features in the Ammassalik culture 

 are only found again in the northern culture, or the reverse. To give an 

 example, I see archaic features in the Ammassalikers' hinged toggles 

 on the ice-sealing harpoons (and the pair on the salmon spears (?)); 

 the men's working and hunting knives; the high, three-legged sealing 

 stool used on the ice; the sealing rattles; the ivory relief work on 

 eye-shades, throwing sticks etc. ; the dolls with pliable arms and legs 

 on pivots; the spindle buzzes; the w^ooden masks. Of these only 

 one specimen of a hinged toggle of a sealing harpoon and some few 

 fragments of ivory relief work have been found far to the north on 

 the east coast, where they might as well have come with immigrants 

 from the south as from the north. The high ice-sealing stool has 

 not been found there but it is known from Smith Sound (and Point 

 Barrow), the masks from Baffin Land. All these objects (except the 

 masks) have not been mentioned from the Central Eskimo, being 

 first found again at the Bering Strait. 



Most of the objects of archaic or special character, which have 

 been found far north of Ammassalik, are not known in the culture 

 of the present Ammassalikers. They have remained lying north 

 there as witnesses of the isolation and conservatism of the northern 

 inhabitants, constructed perhaps hundreds of years ago. Among these 

 archaic objects I place the three cylindrical harpoon foreshafts found 

 by Amdrup at Dunholm ^). These are of a form elsewhere unknown 

 in Greenland, but agree with the w^alrus harpoons of the Alaskan 

 Eskimo. Nor are the characteristic snow-beaters and blubber-clubs, 

 several specimens of which have been found in the north, known 

 elsewhere in Greenland^). 



1) Amdrup inv. Nos. 72 and 99; see Thalbitzer (1909) figs. 44 and 63, pp. 441 and 

 484-488; cf. figs. 103-105 and pp. 526-533. 



2) Amdrup coll. Nos. 73-75: cf. Thalbitzer (.1909) pp. 338, 376, 443—446, fig. 45. In 

 Boas (1901) fig. 65, p. 48 there is a similar snow-beater from the central regions; 

 cf. also Boas (1888) p. 485 (wooden club). 



