720 W. Thalbitzer 



immigrated from the south ^), whereas in any case it can only entitle 

 us to see there a mixture or influence from the south. It must be 

 remembered however, that in the comparison with the culture of the 

 South Greenlanders it is necessary to reckon with the probability, 

 that also the forms of weapons existing there have once been changed 

 to suit the local (subartic) conditions, for their ancestors must also 

 have come originally from arctic regions^). 



The most decisive evidence, that the Ammassalik district has 

 obtained a portion of its inhabitants from the north and thus that 

 this contribution has come north round Greenland I find in their 

 ice-sealing weapons and hunting methods. On this part of the coast 

 the natives in winter are to a much greater extent reduced to seal- 

 hunting on the ice than those on the southern part. The hunting 

 methods connected herewith are unknown along the south coasts of 

 Greenland owing to the natural conditions and it is not probable that 

 these methods should have been brought the long way by the south to 

 the Ammassalikers and yet remained as a whole and in details precise- 

 ly the same as the northern West Greenlanders' ice-hunting methods, 

 still this is the case. It is only along the route from the north 

 through regions, where the same hunting methods could and must 

 have been practised, that we can find an explanation of the remark- 

 able continuity in this regard. We arrive at last at an old meeting- 

 place on the east coast of Greenland, where the paths of the northern 

 and southern groups crossed or overlapped and where the blood and 

 culture of two nearly related tribes became intermingled. 



RÉSUMÉ AND RESULTS. — I may here recapitulate the results of 

 my comparative study of the implements of the Ammassalikers. 

 I shall first of all choose for special mention the kinds and forms 

 which tell us something of the mixed origin from north or south 

 of the inhabitants at this place. 



We learn least here, naturally, from those instruments which 

 are essentially alike and common to the whole of Greenland. Ex- 



1) The immigration of the Ammassalikers from the south Avas first put forward as 

 a theory Ьл' Kroeber (1899) p. 321, later by Swenander (1906) p. 41, the former 

 on general ethnographic grounds, the latter especially on a comparison of the 

 Greenland harpoon heads. O. Solberg (1907) p. 58 agrees лvith my view based on 

 the Ammassalikers' dialect (1904, pp.40 — 41) as a mixture of northern and south- 

 ern elements, thus spoken Ьл' a mixture of northern and southern immigrants. 

 I obtained an essential confirmation on ethnographical grounds of this stand- 

 point from my first investigation of the Amdrup collection (1909) pp. 341 — 342. 



-') Attention was already' directed to this point of view by F. Nansen (1891) pp. 

 11-12. Cf. also Schultz-Lorentzen (1904) p. .304. 



