40 



most coast of Greenland. That this has been the route to 

 Greenland in past times is certain, and it is equally certain 

 that sporadic immigrations have taken place all the way down 

 to our days. It may then be assumed that only a few hundred 

 years ago there was more frequent intercourse between the 

 tribes dwelling on both sides of Davis Strait, and that in the 

 14*^ Century, when the Eskimo first began to press southward 

 from the northernmost parts of Greenland, the two tribes had 

 more in common with respect to language and customs than 

 is the case to-day. The separation between the Greenland 

 Eskimo and the Labrador Eskimo is perhaps after ail not 

 much older than 600 years, and to this supposition the great 

 resemblance which, so far as I know, still exists between the 

 languages of these tribes also seems to point. 



As for the Greenlanders themselves, they by no means 

 seem to be homogeneous. It was already brought to light as 

 a result of the anthropological investigations led by the Com- 

 mission in the years 1885 — 1888 that there existed a distinct 

 tribal difference between the northernmost Greenlanders in the 

 Upernavik District and the remaining population of the 

 west coast*). In the case of the population of the east coast, 

 it was more difficult to decide where they belonged, perhaps 

 because the material for investigation was rather scanty. 



Linguistically there is a pretty sharp division between 

 Upernavik and Umanak, so this is also another reason for 

 assuming that the population in the north has immigrated later 

 than the population in the south, and that it has sprung from 

 a different tribe. 



I consider it not impossible that the isolated tribe at 

 Angmagssalik (pronounce: âmmassalik) on the east coast is 

 another off-shoot of the same migratory horde, although per- 



*) Soren Hansen : Bidrag til Vestgronlændernes Anthropologi, Meddelelser 

 om Grönland Vol. VII, pp. 203—20.5, 229—230. — Bidrag til Ostgrøn- 

 lændernes Anthropologi, .Meddelelser om Grönland Vol. X, 1888. 



