524 W. THALBITZER. 
IL FROM THREE WEST GREENLAND DISTRICTS 
Egedesminde (Aausiaait), Jakobshavn (Ilulissat) and Umanak (Oommannag). 
The following selection from my earlier contributions to Eskimo 
folk-lore, noted on my first journey to N.W. Greenland (Phon. Study, 
1904, р. 271—387), shows that even as late as the year 1900 it was 
possible to find interesting traces of the unwritten literature of old 
West Greenland dating back to pagan days. Here were not only 
customs and traditions in prose but short poems and drum-songs, the 
latter especially prevalent in lonely hamlets on one of the deep North 
Greenland fjords within the area of the Danish colonies. 
In the northern part of civilized West Greenland, the old-fashioned 
petting-songs, agaulit, are now rare, probably disappearing with the 
old Eskimo custom of carrying the child on the back in the hood 
(amaut). During the year 1900—01 I made note of some children’s 
games, nursery rhymes and rigmaroles still reminiscent of the old 
customs and I am here republishing some of the most characteristic 
of these with a few explanatory notes and amendments. 
As children in their games and songs are often more conservative 
than adults, many old-fashioned children’s games, especially ball-games 
or something of a like nature seem still to exist. One among these 
seems to be a relic of the сис festivals (the ajagaq-game) in far- 
away Alaska to which reference has already been made in the first 
part of this work.’ I shall add two more presently (nos. 286—287). 
Fragments of juridical and other drum-songs (piseq, tiwaneq) 
were found in no small numbers throughout two of the most northerly 
districts, north of the great Noossuag peninsula (Nugsuaq on the map), 
but still within the confines of the Danish administration and mission 
of which Upernawik was then the northernmost district. 
Near the hamlet of Oommannätsiag in the mighty fjord of 
Oommannaq (Umanak) I witnessed an old-fashioned kind of dance 
accompanied by song and the beating of а drum or tambourine 
resembling a dance-form mentioned about 200 years ago from Southern 
Greenland by Hans Egede”, later also described to us by H. Rink.” 
I am referring to the special West Greenland ring or chain dance 
combining the drum dance of the Eskimo with the ring dance of 
the Middle Ages,* such as we know it in its latest form, the dance 
which in Northern Europe accompanied folk-songs and is still to be 
1 First Part рр. 655—658 and 663. 
2 H. Egede (1741), a girl’s dance or game “in which the players form a circle 
holding hands” p. 93 ef. illustration. 
3 Rink (1877) pp. 276—277 with illustrations drawn by a native Greenlander 
(figs. 121—122). See also Thalbitzer and Thuren, Dans i Grønland (1911). 
4 The Greenland form of the dance was described by me in an article in »Til- 
skueren”, 1903, pp. 500—501, and later collaborating with Hj. Thuren (1911) I 
“ave a fuller account of it. Thuren who had personally seen and described 
the Faroe folk-dance urged the hypothesis that the Eskimo in Greenland had 
learned ring dancing from the Norsemen in the latter part of the Middle Ages. 
This seems to be confirmed by the fact that the regular route from Norway to 
Greenland lay over the Færoes. See JAKOB JAKOBSEN: ‘“‘Færosk Sagnhistorie” p. 6. 
