1887] The East Greenlanders. 137 
Their artistic taste and skill is very great, and equals, or even 
excels, that of the long-famous Alaskan Eskimos. Their carv- 
ings often consist of little figures carved from bone or ivory, 
fastened with pegs to wooden surfaces. All sorts of implements 
are ornamented with such carvings, representing natural and im- 
aginary objects or conventionalized ornaments. The most ex- 
traordinary of their objects of art are the relief maps carved in 
wood, in which the islands are represented by séparate pieces, 
attached to the mainland by thongs. 
Much taste is also exhibited by the women in ornamenting 
and embroidering their clothing (in which, again, they resemble 
the Alaskan Eskimos), though their needles are all home-made, 
hammered and ground out of old iron obtained from wrecks. 
The inhabitants of each winter village appear to form one 
large household, more or less under the control of a single head, 
chosen apparently by tacit consent, and whose commands often 
do not need to be expressed. The head of the household was 
observed to give definite commands as to the order in which the 
eight families of his household should take their places on the 
sleeping platform, how the lamps should be lighted and the win- 
dows closed. During the winter one young man was expelled 
from the house by way of punishment, and compelled to seek 
shelter elsewhere. Hospitality is universal, as with the Eskimos 
everywhere. 
The largest of the several “ village-houses” on the Argmag- 
salik fjord, where Captain Holm wintered, contained fifty-eight 
people. The house nearest Captain Holm’s winter-quarters had 
eight families, thirty-eight souls living and performing all their 
work, sleeping, cooking, eating, singing, and dancing in a space 
twenty-seven feet long, fourteen and a half feet wide, and at the 
utmost six and a half feet high! 
Much valuable linguistic material was Gallectesi, thanks to their 
excellent interpreters, Christian West Greenlanders, and fifty-one 
interesting traditions, of which thirteen are plainly identical with 
those of other Eskimos, while in thirteen others are recognizable 
well-known traditional elements. From a preliminary examina- 
tion of the linguistic material, it appears that there is more differ- 
ence between the dialects of East and West Greenland than 
_ between the well-known North and South Greenland dialects. 
tain Holm is of the opinion that the East 
