162 W. THALBITZER. 
other under its posteriors. Teemiartissaq, e. g. recollected having seen 
the old and almost deaf man Kalia in Sermilik perform this cere- 
mony, singing his ава’ over little Kippakee (Texts no. 6). 
The child’s name is often used as a motive, it is the petting 
motive, in several cases it seems to be the whole origin of the poem; 
further, the song refers to the child’s personal qualities or some 
situation where it has cried or smiled or said something, or where 
the old people have smiled at it and said something. 
The source of this species of poetry seems to be the very situa- 
tion of the mother rocking her baby — rocking it in the hood on 
her back or in her arms? — or the baby sucking at her breast. Some 
remark, the name or the nickname are often linked together in short 
rhythmical lines with other similar exclamations used in various 
situations of the mother’s and baby’s intercourse, for the child often 
sucks its mother through several years, and during the intimate com- 
munion there is easily developed a special baby language of which 
there are many traces found in these little poems. Incoherent and 
disconnected as their contents are, strangers do not readily understand 
them, only the mother holds the key to their complete comprehen- 
sion. Some of the poems I recorded are very little but baby patter, 
and with hardly any sense, but by their rhythm and hummed accent 
they serve to please the baby or lull it to sleep. Without a doubt the 
same magical effect is ascribed to these little poems on every later 
occasion when they are sung over the child (arat'iyo or arasit-ino) 
as the first time. 
Originally the genuine petting-songs are no doubt quite short 
consisting only of two or three words connected with the baby’s 
name like those I recorded near Cape Farewell in 1914 (see the sup- 
plement). From this form the longer and slightly more elaborate 
poems have developed which make the stepping stone to the epic 
nursery-rhymes which were sung to sooth the baby and lull it to rest. 
I presume that the first eight or ten numbers from Ammassalik are 
genuine petting poems addressed to some individual baby. Those 
that come next have perhaps also been composed and used in some 
family as a petting song for a baby but have passed into ordinary 
tradition as everyman’s property and have in the course of time been 
added to or changed about. They form a transition stage to the 
ditties, or epic-lyrical poems, and usher in their phalanx. 
1 Rocking a baby in the arms is called md’c-:artino; the meaning may also be 
extended to “soothing” a hunted animal, i. e. saying a magic prayer e.g. to lure 
a bear. Also ardl‘ino ‘to pet it’ is used of alluring game, from which arale’‘{aq 
‘bait for luring fish.” In a jocular way а woman’s “seductive wiles” are called 
her alluring song (aRa‘ta’). 
