IL 



Historical data about the East Eskimo. 



Our knowledge about the early history of the Eskimo people 

 and their language is not great, although they inhabit that part 

 of the new world about which we have the earliest historical 

 accounts ; I have especially in mind the old Icelandic sagas 

 and other works of Scandinavian historians. The historians of 

 our own time and of the past century have with ever sharper 

 and clearer judgment tried to determine the relations between 

 the various old sagas , their sources, and their dating, until 

 they have gradually succeeded in distinguishing between the 

 authentic and the more incredible elements, and have thereby 

 made it possible for us to use them in establishing historical 

 data. The Eskimo themselves have next to nothing in the way 

 of historical traditions and no chronology whatever. When 

 they say that this or that event happened in olden days [itmq]^ 

 they may just as well be referring to the times of their grand- 

 parents and their great grandparents as to the times of their 

 ancestors who lived 1000 years ago. We can rather obtain 

 certain information about the earlier homes and wanderings of 

 this people through the accounts of the first discoverers than 

 through the Eskimij people's own traditions. I shall here limit 

 myself to giving a survey of the information which has been 

 obtained in earlier and later times about the Eskimo inhabitants 

 of the coast of Davis Strait, and of those traces of the earliest 

 communication with them which were preserved in traditions 



