182 W. THALBITZER. 
me to discontinue my work in order to hasten home. During the 
following years I dived deep into this work and published some 
specimens thereof in scientific periodicals (cf. the literature list). I was 
fortunate enough once more to be able to confer with М’ Johan 
Petersen who left Ammassalik for good in 1915 and settled near 
Copenhagen, and finally, in 1920, to meet at his home a young 
native from the same place baptized by the name of Sufia, daughter 
of my friend Quttugiak baptized by the name of Jôrgen. She stayed 
here for some weeks on passing through from Greenland’s east coast 
to its west coast — а trip that in olden time was made by umiak 
along the coast round Cape Farewell, now by steamer via Copen- 
hagen — and though belonging to the modern generation that has 
rejected the ancient Eskimo civilization she had still acquired some 
special knowledge hereof and of the forms of expression of past times 
through her naturally inquiring spirit. With her also I revised part 
of my records. 
What then was the outcome of all these exertions? — I have 
already spoken of my principles on translation (p. 158). Out of 
scientific considerations I have laid stress on the linguistic task and 
aimed at an exact rendering, even though it may deviate from the | 
artistic — the latter would have had more of “spirit and truth”, 
if we could control the subjectivity of our own spirit in its relation 
to that of the Eskimo. As it is, however, the road goes literally 
through the words, namely from the polysynthetic “word-sentences” of 
the Eskimo to our analytic mode of expression. This in itself requires 
a certain art, but the result does not become exactly artistic. It may 
become “scientific”, more or less correct, but for all that — what 
guarantee can we have that our strongly analytic sentences patched 
together from little words provide the proper equivalents for the 
Eskimo conglomerate? that our grammatical reflection covers the 
picture and feeling in the Eskimo soul? 
The interpretation was troublesome, even for the natives. In the 
first instance the context is undeniably very incoherent in a large 
number of these poems (especially in the petting songs and the epic- 
lyrical poems). Then there is the uncertainty of the verbal tradition. 
The words were very often garbled, lines had fallen out or were re- 
modelled, the original sense of the poem had been forgotten and its 
remnants only rendered as if by rote. And yet it is a strange fact 
that several very old poems are preserved in variations that are a 
good deal alike from all corners of Greenland. 
My informants and interpreters were again and again in doubt 
or quite in the dark as to the obscure passages in the transmitted. 
Now, it is characteristic of the Eskimo that he likes to reflect on 
