• Ethnographical collections from East Greenland. 729 



These provincialisms and still other features, which might be 

 mentioned, gave the culture of the Ammassalikers until recently a 

 special character by contrast with the other Greenlanders'. There 

 can hardly be any doubt, that some of them are old relicts, retained 

 conservatively, but some also are merely local variations of more 

 recent origin after the immigration, possibly specialisations of im- 

 plements common to all the Greenlanders. Among the latter I would 

 place the forms of the sledges and their uprights; it is from local 

 causes that both sledges and umiaks are comparatively short and 

 narrow at this place. To sling the lance with a throwing stick is 

 a recent imitation of the casting of the kaiak harpoon by this means. 

 The use of the hinged toggle heads in the salmon spear is perhaps 

 only secondary by comparison with the hinged head on the ice seal- 

 ing harpoon weapon, as its name "the small tookaq'' suggests that 

 it is derived from a name and object of the normal size. Likewise 

 the double sealing bladder, the wound trimmers, decoy whistles, 

 sucking tubes are perhaps local inventions; whereas the triangular 

 needle skins of the women are probably an enlarged part of an old- 

 time apparatus, which has now been lost in Greenland, namely, the 

 Eskimo needle case made from a bone-tube with a skin-strap through 

 it. This implement which at one time was used everywhere in Green- 

 land and had a special national form has now ceased to be used 

 and it is only at Ammassalik that the skin-strap has been preserved 

 to our day in the form of these needle skins. A few more of the 

 peculiarities mentioned as only known now from Ammassalik have 

 certainly been used earlier on the other coast. The use of caps by 

 the men has come presumably from the west coast within recent 

 times. Possibly the pointed skirts of the women's anoraks have ear- 

 lier been rounded at Ammassalik as further south on the coast; the 

 pointed forms have thus perhaps been copied from West Greenland 

 in later years. Several of the working implements of the men and 

 women (knives, ulos, sinew twisters) have possibly also been known 

 at one time on the other coast, though it is remarkable that the 

 collections contain no parallels from there. In PfafTs collection 

 there are examples from North Greenland (fragments from graves) 

 both of the cross-shaped kaiak stand and of the men's eye-shades. 

 Other provincialisms of the Ammassalikers appear again on the 

 American side west of Greenland, for example, on Baffin Land the 

 masks carved from wood or sewn of skin, and certain ornamental 

 patterns (seal tail carved on the edge of ivory implements; serrated 

 edges of buckles; the dot ornamentation on carvings in ivory). Ivory 

 relief ornaments are known outside Ammassalik only from Alaska 

 and the Aleutian Islands. The spindle buzz is only found among 



