Language and Folklore. 161 
Epic lyrical poems. — This group really embraces three or four 
different species of poems. 
The first numbers (nos. 1—15) are a kind of nursery rhymes 
which I call petting-songs recited with a particular accent and pitch, 
but devoid of real tones. The Greenlanders call them ara:itin (in 
the singular ава’ from the verb ararpa: ‘pets the child’, or from 
ава: ‘the petting of the child, its being petted’; ‘the petting-song of the 
Fig. 19. Qilertaanalik, in his fur-jacket viewed in front. (W.T. phot. June 1906.) 
child which is recited for its sake’). These little poems are generally 
made for a certain occasion, either the child’s first naming, or its first 
dressing or its first attempt at kaiaking. The purpose herewith of 
the mother or father is to instil into the soul of the child a certain 
vitality. 1 
The petting singing which is therefore a sort of magic or charm 
is so performed that the old man or woman lifts the child by taking 
hold with one hand under one of the child’s armpits, and with the 
1 They may be identical with the “magic chants” which G. Holm mentions and 
parallels with the charms, or magic prayers cf. First Part, pp. 88 and 305 (no. 53.) 
XL. 11 
