The only place, so far as 1 know, within Eskimo territory, 

 where there are certain traces of the old Norsemen, is in 

 the southernmost part of the west coast of Greenland. Here 

 are to be seen, as has been mentioned, a large number of 

 ruins of Icelandic origin, which were examined in 1880 by 

 G. Holm*) and more recently by Dan. Bruun**). In this district 

 also, Dr. Rink, in about the year 1850, wrote down 5 old 

 Eskimo tales about the first and last conflicts between the two 

 peoples***). Internal evidence in these tales shoAvs that it is 

 really the old Icelanders that are meant, and not later dis- 

 coverers ; among other things, the name of one of the old Norse 

 chiefs Olave (Old Norse Olafr) is preserved, Avhich indicates 

 that the tradition of these tales is at least 500 years old. 



Finally, in the South Greenlandic language, there are some 

 words Avhich can and may be Norse loanwords. Hans Egede 

 already calls attention to this factf). They are all (with the 

 exception of kona) words which in form stand isolated in the 

 Greenlandic language , and they are not used much outside 

 of South Greenland, kona (Egede's vocab.) = mulier, uxor, is 

 no longer used and was a rare word already in Egede's timeff). 

 But its existence is also testified to by Olearius's list of words 

 (kona) from 1656. From Old Norse kona (woman)? sava or savaq, 

 a sheep, (Fabricius's vocab.), nrsa or ni'saq^ a porpoise, kuan-eq^ 

 angelica archangelica, could correspond to Old Norse sauör 



*) Meddelelser om Grönland VI, tS83. 

 "] Ib. XVI, 1896. 



'**) H. Rink: Esk. eventyr og sagn 18GG. — Tales and Traditions of the 

 Eskimo (Edinburgh and London 1875) no. 3 — 4. 

 I) "Det gamle Grönlands nye Perlustration" 1729 (written 1724): "It is 

 quite certain that these present Greenlandic inhaJntants, as far as 

 the west coast is concerned, are principally the descendants of the 

 old so-called Skrœlings. But that some of the Norsemen have mixed 

 with them and become naturalized in the course of time may he con- 

 cluded from some few Norse words, agreeing with our language both 

 in form and meaning."' (p. 23.) 

 ft) u. s. p. 64. 



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