Language and Folklore. 249 
former is almost identical with no. 55. In no. 88, a wedding formula, 
the concluding portion is almost identical with no. 86. Naturally, I 
_ should have found many examples of the same prayer with different 
people if I had been able to collect a larger material. 
Most of these prayers are undoubtedly ancient, and transmitted 
from generation to generation, though through infrequent channels: 
in secret, in out of the way clefts or valleys, in the depths of the 
fiord, or out in the sea. They could not die out, they were too valu- 
able and too deeply rooted in the soul of the community. They were 
transmitted with veneration through the same families, and amongst 
the same huts and mountains. 
According to the contents they are comprised mainly in three 
groups. The largest group comprises those prayers which are intended 
to procure the man good luck with his hunting, and the next group 
includes those which are to secure, or restore, the individual’s health. 
A third large group is concerned with the first breach of the taboo after 
the time of mourning is over, for example during the moment when 
the sorrowing wife first has to fetch water from the rivulet or the sea, 
or when the sorrowing husband first has to go out in his kaiak or out 
on the ice to catch seals. But there are different and more special groups, 
as will be seen from my material. One formula (no. 81) for example, 
concerns the hunter’s throwing board: Might it (the weapon) not miss 
its object! Others (nos. 79—80) concern the boat he has built: this 
boat is symmetrical and sits well on the water, and sails fast! — 
The wife in travail charms her own womb: the gull’s womb be mine 
(i. e., I would that mine might bear as easily). In order to become 
pregnant, the wife places a round stone on her body, as an amulet, 
after having charmed it (nos. 89—90). Such a rare stone is consid- 
ered as having fallen from the heavens down into the bosom of the 
earth. — Kattuarajee charms the amulet of his umiak (no. 80). Holm 
mentions a magic charm or chant, which is chanted over a tupilak 
in order to endow it with life (First Part, p. 100). 
The value of the magic prayer is, of course, to some extent pro- 
portionate to the owner’s individuality, to his subjective confidence in 
it, his experience of its having served him well, and his consequent 
desire to use it. If the prayer has more than once proved ineffective, 
he loses interest in it. The price testifies to the good faith of the 
seller (if he is honest) and to the interest of the purchaser. Anit- 
tänge bought his hunting formula (no. 65) with the foreshaft of a 
lance, the lateral point of a bird-dart, and a dipper. Kättuarajee paid 
two seal-skins for one charm (no. 79), for another the flesh of a 
common seal and a large seal-skin for a pair of trousers, and for a 
third (no. 66) a head-cloth (for his wife). Огущалааа paid for a charm 
(no. 54) with a wooden tray; the same charm had previously been 
paid for with beads and a seal-skin. Teemiartissaq had paid for one 
of her charms with a hunting-line (no. 55); and for another (no. 87) 
which she had bought from old Ilinnuakkee, (known from Holm’s 
expedition, see First Part, pp. 6—7), she had paid the meat of a 
bearded seal, and its intestines. 
Certain of these charms almost have the character of “cheap 
household remedies,’ which are meant to save the poor or sick 
