Melodies from East Greenland. 55 
out the sweat on the almost quite naked body, the discourse of the 
singer is well under command, at any rate if he is well exercised 
in singing. In the refrains especially, which characterize this kind 
of song and take up the most part of it, the expressional movements 
of the singer are as it were damped or confined. In the single words 
or quite short sen- 
tences, in which the 
meaning of the song 
is being expressed, 
there may bea violent 
outburst; in others 
this occurs during 
a refrain of special 
form. —Another mode 
of expression, which 
resembles  ecstasy, 
may mark а woman’s 
rendering of a short, 
innocent children’s 
song (see fig. 9). 
Much more art 
is required in the 
rendering of a little 
children’s song than 
one would think from 
merely looking at the 
notes or reading the 
single words. It is 
not only that the 
whole of the singing 
is marked by the 
deepest feeling in the 
voice and makes use 
of the finest modul- Fig. 9. Qiltoriaq Sanneego Kummeer, 
ations in appealing the wife of Mitsuarniayya, singing a children’s song. 
(W. T. phot.) 
to the fantasy of the 
listening child, but the recitative songs (whether written for the child 
or for the adult) also use modulations of the voice which are inter- 
mediate between speech and song, on the borderland between both. 
These modulations are inherent in the poetic tradition. They consti- 
tute a whole group of the poetry in the unwritten literature of the 
Ammassalik Eskimo (formulas of enchantment are poems which 
belong to this group). Though they are neither pure song nor natural 
