264 



Uelluland?) i.e. Newfoundland and Labrador*) really were Eskimo, 

 they were no doubt the ancestors of those who are now living 

 in these districts. Since the South and Middle Greenlanders, 

 as we have seen, have probably belonged to the same flock as 

 these old Labrador Eskimo , before they wandered north over 

 Smith Sound to Greenland , it must have been in the course 

 of the centuries just before 1266**) that they separated from 

 those who remained in Labrador, and followed the western 

 coasts of Davis Strait. After that Baffin Land got tlie popu- 

 lation that Frobisher fell in with, and whose language with 

 respect to the uvularizalion seems to have been at an earlier 

 stage of development than the language of the Labrador Eskimo 

 and the Greenlanders; so this people has probably come from 

 the west. Now if the northernmost groups of Greenland con- 

 stitute together one original group as against the Soulh Green- 

 landers, and if they have immigrated into Greenland later than 

 the Soulh Greenlanders, it seems natural to connect them with 

 the original tribe of Central Eskimo in the west. Whether 

 they have separated from this tribe earlier or later than the 

 flock that went to Baffin Land is impossible to decide now 

 with any degree of certainty. But it is tempting to see some 

 connection between the Greenlandic Eskimos' hostile advance 

 toward the south about the year 1400, as described in the ac- 

 counts of the old Norsemen***), and the arrival of these new 

 hordes (i. e. the Upertiawik Eskimo), who from the northwestern 

 corner of Greenland must have pushed on toward the south 

 following the coast, always seeking for new and better hunting 

 and fishing grounds. Already at that time their language devi- 

 ated somewhat from the language of their neighbors to the 

 south, whom they here fell in with. As strangers belonging 

 to another tribe they were at first regarded as enemies by the 

 South Greenlanders ; but in the course of time tliey have mixed 



•) cf. Introduction, p. 18. *') ibid., pp. 17, 24. *'*) ibid., p 27. 



