6 HJALMAR THUREN. 
many centuries has gone to the making of these completed strophes, 
which European musicians would find it far from easy to reproduce 
quite accurately. On the other hand, we may certainly say that 
the tone-consciousness of the East Greenlanders does not stand upon 
the same level as their sense of rhythm, though it cannot be denied 
that they have a discriminating ear. ; 
Up to the present but few melodies from East Greenland have 
been published. A melody noted by A. P. Berggreen (1870) and 
Frithjof Nansen! is stated by the latter to have come from East 
Greenland, but this does not seem to be quite so certain (cf. p. 42). 
Two drum tunes were noted down in 1887 by J. Fabricius from 
songs repeated by the present colonial governor, Johan Petersen”, 
and 2 melodies were recorded by W. Thalbitzer. The first of the 
last-mentioned melodies was from a phonographic record taken in 
1902 by С. Kruuse”, the other? from material brought home by W. 
Thalbitzer from Ammassalik (1905—06). This material, which is 
published in the following part of this work, contained 67 melodies 
noted down on the spot and 37 phonographic records with melodies. 
The last have been deciphered by W. Thalbitzer and the author of 
the present paper.” 
As in most cases an A (435 wave-lengths) was blown into the 
phonograph before the beginning of the melody, we were able in 
writing this off to set the phonograph to the speed used when the 
tunes were played and thus frequently know the absolute pitch. 
For practical reasons, however, the melodies have often been trans- 
posed, so as to avoid using any preliminary sign as far as possible. 
The original key is then indicated before each transposed melody, 
and for the melodies which have been determined tonometrically 
the scale of the melody is also given at approximately the original 
level. The indications given are not absolutely exact, as I have pre- 
supposed, in order to make the intervals more readily seen, that the 
middle tone (tonus currens) falls on a tone in our chromatic scale. 
Calculations in hundreds (cents) will be discussed below. 
Subdivision of the melody. The East Greenlanders have songs 
for single voices and for choruses, and in both cases the refrain 
' Fridtjof Nansen, Eskimoliv, р. 171 (Kristiania 1891). 
? Meddelelser om Grenland X, p. 156 (1887). 
3 Ibid. XXXI, p. 306 (1904). 
+ «Illustreret Tidende” Copenhagen. 19 1906. 
> Last autumn we published 4 melodies of this material in the “Zeitschr. d. inter- 
nat. Musikgesellschaft” XII, 2 (W. Thalbitzer und Hjalmar Thuren, Musik aus 
Ostgrönland, Eskimoische Phenogramme). 
