FOOTNOTES:
[1] Hans Egede. Trans.
[2] Sæter==mountain châlet. Trans.
[3] The Eskimos call themselves inuit—that is to say, ‘human beings’; all other men they conceive as belonging to a different genus of animals.
[4] North of the 68th degree they could kill seals and whales in plenty from the ice all the winter through; and this is a method of hunting which they must have learnt further north, where it would be the most important of all for them.
[5] Gustav Storm: Studies on the Vineland Voyages, Extracts from Mémoires de la Société Royale des Antiquaires du Nord, 1888, p. 53.
[6] The Eskimos themselves have several legends as to their encounters with the old Norsemen. See Rink: Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, pp. 308-321.
[7] Some writers have concluded from the mention of ‘troll-women’ in the ‘Flóamannasaga’ that so early as the year 1000, or thereabouts, Thorgils Orrabeinsfostre must have encountered Eskimos on the south-east coast of Greenland. But, as Professor Storm has pointed out, the romantic character of this saga forbids us to base any such inference upon it. It must also be remembered that the extant manuscript dates from no earlier than about 1400, long after the time when the Norsemen had come in contact with the Eskimos on the west coast. Even if the Eskimos are meant in the passage about the troll-women, which is extremely doubtful, it may very well be a late interpolation.
[8] Saabye: Greenland; being extracts from a Journal kept in that country in the years 1770 to 1778. London: 1818.
[9] Meddelelser om Grönland. Pt. 10, p. 58. Copenhagen: 1889.
[10] Norwegian, sennegræs. Trans.
[11] The Indians of the North-West and the Tchuktchi—and even, if I am not mistaken, the Koriaks and the Kamtchatkans—use the same harpoon, with a line and large bladder, in hunting sea animals, throwing the harpoon from the bow of their large open canoes or skin-boats. It seems probable, however, that they have learned the use of these instruments from the Eskimos.
[12] In North Greenland there is yet a third and larger form of the harpoon, which is used in walrus-hunting, and is hurled without a throwing-stick; it has instead two bone knobs, one for the thumb and one for the fore-finger.
[13] As to the different forms of the throwing-stick among the Eskimos, see Mason’s paper upon them in the Annual Report, &c. of the Smithsonian Institution for 1884, Part II. p. 279.
[14] In some places—for example, in the most southern part of Greenland and on the East Coast—there is only a hollow for the thumb, while the other side is smooth or edged with a piece of bone in which are notches to prevent the hand from slipping.
[15] On this point, see even such early authors as Cook and King, A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, &c., 3rd ed., ii. p. 513, London, 1785.
[16] It is remarkable that the inhabitants of St. Lawrence Island do not seem to use the kaiak at all. They have large open skin-boats (baidars) of the same build as those of the Tchucktchi. (Compare Nordenskiöld, The Voyage of the Vega, ii. p. 254, London, 1881.)
[17] While the paddle is being pushed out sideways, until it comes at right angles to the kaiak, it is held slightly aslant, so that the blade, in moving, forces the water under it, and acquires an upward leverage.
[18] Hœttesœl, the full-grown male of the Klapmyts (bladder-nose). It has a hood over its nose, which it can inflate enormously.
[19] When a seal is killed, each of the kaiak-men in the neighbourhood receives a piece of its blubber, which he generally devours forthwith.
[20] ‘When they have seen our dissolute sailors quarrelling and fighting, they regard such behaviour as inhuman, and say: “They do not treat each other as human beings.” In the same way, if one of the officers strikes a subordinate, they at once exclaim: “He behaves to his fellow-men as if they were dogs.”’
[21] Dalager, Grönlandske Relationer, Copenhagen, 1752, pp. 15-16.
[22] Dogs, however, must be added to the list, and, in the case of the North and East Greenlanders, dog-sledges.
[23] When several are hunting in company, there are fixed rules to determine to whom the game belongs. If two or more shoot at a reindeer, the animal belongs to him who first hit it, even if he only wounded it slightly. As to the rules for seal-hunting, Dalager says: ‘If a Greenlander strikes a seal or other marine animal with his light dart, and it is not killed, but gets away with the dart, and if another then comes and kills it with his darts, it nevertheless belongs to the first; but if he has used the ordinary harpoon, and the line breaks, and another comes and kills the animal, the first has lost his right to it. If, however, they both throw at the same time and both harpoons strike, the animal is cut lengthwise in two, and divided between them, skin and all.’ ‘If two throw at a bird simultaneously, it is divided between them.’ ‘If a dead seal is found with a harpoon fixed in it, if the owner of the harpoon is known in the neighbourhood, he gets his weapon back, but the finder keeps the seal.’ Similar rules seem also to be in force upon the east coast.
[24] The skins used, as before-mentioned (p. 45) are usually those of the saddleback seal or hood seal; but the skin of the bearded seal is also used, and occasionally that of the ringed seal or even of the mottled or common seal (Phoca vitulina).
[25] Meddelelser om Grönland, pt. 10, p. 94.
[26] It sometimes happened, too, that he got others to do this for him; but the affair must always take the form of a capture or abduction. Similar customs, as is well known, formerly prevailed in Europe, and have even, in certain places, survived down to our own day.
[27] W. A. Graah, Narrative of an Expedition to the East Coast of Greenland, London, 1837, pp. 140-143.
[28] Holm, Meddelelser om Grönland, pt. 10, p. 96.
[29] Holm, Meddelelser om Grönland, pt. 10, p. 103.
[30] Dalager states that, in his time, on the west coast, ’scarcely one in twenty of the Greenlanders had two wives, very few three, and still fewer four; I have, however, known a man who had eleven.’—Grönlandske Relationer, p. 9.
[31] Angekok==medicine-man, or priest.
[32] Dalager: Grönlandske Relationer, p. 9.
[33] Holm: Meddelelser om Grönland, pt. 10, p. 96.
[34] Holm: Meddelelser om Grönland, pt. 10, p. 102.
[35] W. A. Graah, Narrative of an Expedition to the East Coast of Greenland, London, 1837, p. 135.
[36] Compare P. Egede, Efterretninger om Grönland, p. 107; and Holm, Meddelelser om Grönland, pt. 10, p. 91.
[37] Although, as we have seen, the Eskimos are not greatly delighted at the birth of daughters, they do not, like so many other primitive people, make a habit of killing female children.
[38] As stated on p. 28, green top-knots are worn by unmarried women who have had children.
[39] One reason of this is also to be found in natural selection, for the half-castes are now generally regarded as handsomer than the pure-bred Eskimos, and are consequently apt to be preferred in marriage.
[40] Holm: Meddelelser om Grönland, pt. 10, p. 100.
[41] Paul Egede was for many years a missionary in Greenland, but had at this time (1756) returned to Copenhagen.
[42] Efterretninger om Grönland.
[43] Pauia or Pavia is the Eskimo corruption of Paul.
[44] [Evidently the earthquake at Lisbon.—Trans.]
[45] Probably the Dutch and English.—[Surely rather the French and English.—Trans.]
[46] Doubtless America.
[47] Danish, hundrede.
[48] Danish, tusinde.
[49] The most important contribution to our knowledge of Eskimo art in its primitive condition is to be found in Captain Holm’s instructive account of the Eskimos at Angmagsalik, Meddelelser om Grönland, pt. 10, p. 148, &c., with illustrations.
[50] Near Cape Farewell.
[51] The ipak is an extension of the sleeping-bench (generally square) on which they place the lamp with its wooden stand.
[52] Cheap Nuremberg or Swiss clocks are among the articles of luxury which commerce has introduced into Greenland; they are to be found in the remotest corners of the country.
[53] Which is very low in the genuine Eskimo huts.
[54] As to the constitution of the soul see also Paul Egede, Efterretninger om Grönland, p. 149, and Cranz, Historie von Grönland, p. 258.
[55] Paul Egede says expressly (Efterretninger om Grönland, p. 126) that the natives make no distinction between tarrak and tarnek (tarnik), and he himself uses the two words indifferently. See also the same work, p. 92.
[56] Historie von Grönland, p. 257.
[57] See Holm, Meddelelser om Grönland, pt. 10, p. 112.
[58] A similar idea is also current on the west coast (compare Meddelelser om Grönland, pt. 10, p. 342), but seems there to have reference to the ordinary soul of the deceased. The distinction between the soul and the name cannot, therefore, be sharply drawn among the different tribes.
[59] Throughout the footnotes to this chapter, Dr. Nansen is profuse in his acknowledgments of the assistance rendered him by Professor Moltke Moe. I have ventured to concentrate these recurrent acknowledgments into this one note, and shall refer to Professor Moe only where he figures as the authority for a statement of fact.—Trans.
[60] See also Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 311.
[61] Klemm, Culturgeschichte, iii. p. 77; Tylor, Primitive Culture (1873), ii. p. 4; Antiquarisk Tidsskrift, 1861-63, p. 118.
[62] It appears to me that exogamy between two of the same surname, which is found among many races (see p. [175]), can easily be explained on this principle, since the same name creates a close spiritual affinity, which may, like blood-affinity, act as a bar to marriage.
[63] See Holm, op. cit. p. 111, where examples of such re-christenings are given. Holm thinks that ‘the old names reappear when the deceased is quite forgotten.’ It seems to me more natural to suppose that this occurs as soon as a child has been called after the dead man.
[64] Nyrop, Mindre Afhandlinger udgivne af det philologisk-historiske Samfund, Copenhagen, 1887, pp. 147-150.
[65] Nyrop, op. cit. pp. 136 & 137.
[66] Liebrecht, Academy, iii. (1872), p. 322.
[67] Meddelelser om Grönland, pt. 10, p. 113.
[68] See Schoolcraft, in Antiquarisk Tidsskrift, 1861-63, p. 119, &c., also Andrée, Ethnographische Parallelen und Vergleiche, p. 180; Tylor, Early History of Mankind, p. 142.
[69] The reluctance prevailed among our forefathers. ‘Sigurd concealed his name because people believed in the old days that a dying man’s curse had great power, when he called his enemy by name.’—Sæmundar Edda, ed. by Sophus Bugge, p. 219.
[70] Information received from Prof. Moltke Moe.
[71] The way in which name and thing melt into one appears clearly, to mention one instance, in the Swabian custom of ‘throwing the names of three shrewish women’ into the wine, in order to turn it into good vinegar.
[72] Compare Nansen: The First Crossing of Greenland, i., p. 328; abridged edit., p. 160.
[73] As to the significance of the name and its mention among the different races, compare Kristoffer Nyrop’s comprehensive essay, ‘The Power of the Name,’ in Mindre Afhandlinger udgivne af det philologisk-historiske Samfund, Copenhagen, 1887, pp. 119-209. See also B. Gröndahl in Annaler for nordisk Oldkyndighed, 1863, p. 127, &c.; Moltke Moe, in Letterstedtske Tidsskrift, 1879, p. 286, &c.; S. Grundtvig, Danmarks gamle Folkeviser, ii. p. 339, &c.; H. Spencer, Principles of Sociology, vi. p. 701.
[74] Compare Rink, Aarböger for nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie, 1868, iii. p. 202.
[75] Compare Paul Egede, Efterretninger om Grönland, p. 149.
[76] Holm, Meddelelser om Grönland, part 10, p. 113.
[77] Communicated to me by Moltke Moe.
[78] See on the same subject Paul Egede, Efterretninger om Grönland, p. 117. According to some accounts, witches and ‘wicked people’ go to the over-world.
[79] Communicated by Moltke Moe. Compare also J. Flood, Grönland, Kristiania, 1873, p. 10, note. Similar notions are said to be current in Bavaria and in the Marquesas islands. Compare Liebrecht, in the Academy, iii. (1872), p. 321.
[80] P. Egede, Efterretninger om Grönland, p. 109. See also H. Egede, Det gamle Grönlands nye Perlustration, p. 84. Cranz, Historie von Grönland, p. 301.
[81] Meddelelser om Grönland, part 10, p. 106, note.
[82] Tylor, Primitive Culture (1873), i. p. 472.
[83] This conception of a second death, or the death of the soul, is found among many races: Hindus, Tartars, Greeks, Kelts, Frenchmen, Scandinavians, Germans, &c.
[84] Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii. p. 44.
[85] Knortz, Aus dem Wigwam, Leipzig, 1880, p. 133; compare p. 142.
[86] It is interesting to note that the Alaska Eskimos seem to believe in a being similar to this tornarssuk of the east coast of Greenland, with long tentacles, &c. See Holm: Meddelelser om Grönland, part 10, p. 115, note 1.
[87] Tartok means properly ‘dark.’ Among the Eskimos of Southern Alaska, the same word, taituk, means ‘mist.’ In East Greenland târtek means ‘black.’ (Compare Rink: Meddelelser om Grönland, part 11, p. 152.)
[88] Rink: Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, p. 44. In Scotland a singing in the ears is called ‘the dead-bell,’ and portends the death of a friend. Hogg: Mountain Bard, 3rd ed. p. 31.
[89] Tredie Continuation, &c., p. 74.
[90] Holm, however, tells us (Meddelelser om Grönland, part 10, p. 105), that on the east coast the body is sometimes dragged out through the house-passage by means of a thong looped around the legs. In such cases, I take it, the dread of touching the body must have conquered the dread of taking it out through the passage, for if it is taken through the window it must be lifted and handled. By dragging it with the feet foremost and pointing outwards they probably think to hinder the soul from effecting a re-entrance.
[91] From information given me by Moltke Moe. Compare also Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 372.
[92] Morris and Magnússon, The Saga Library, vol ii. ‘The Ere-Dwellers,’ p. 88.
[93] See Moltke Moe’s paper in the Norske Universitets-og Skoleannaler, 1880, and the works there cited.
[94] Holm, Meddelelser om Grönland, part 10, p. 107.
[95] Hans Egede, Det gamle Grönlands nye Perlustration, p. 83.
[96] See P. A. Gödecke’s translation of the Edda, p. 170, and notes on p. 335.
[97] Paul Egede, Continuation af Relationerne, &c., p. 45; Hans Egede, Grönlands nye Perlustration, p. 118; Rink, Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, pp. 40, 466.
[98] The Dakota Indians relate that on the way to Wanaratebe there is a wheel which rolls with frightful velocity along the bottom of the abyss below the mountain ridge mentioned on p. 239. To this wheel are bound those who have treated their parents despitefully. See Liebrecht, Gervasius Otia Imperialia (1856), p. 91, note.
[99] Reference communicated by Moltke Moe.
[100] See Sophus Bugge, Mythologiske Oplysninger til Draumekvædi, in Norsk Tidsskrift for Videnskab og Literatur, 1854-55, p. 108-111; Grimm, Mythologie, p. 794; Liebrecht, Gervasius Otia Imperialia, p. 90. Compare also H. Hübschmann, Die parsische Lehre vom Jenseits und jüngsten Gericht, in Jahrbücher für protestantische Theologie, v. (Leipzig, 1879), p. 242.
[101] Compare H. Hübschmann, op. cit., pp. 216, 218, 220, 222.
[102] Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii. 50. Compare, too, the Indians’ conception of a mountain ridge as sharp as the sharpest knife (see p. [239]). It is of course possible that the Indians may have got this idea from the Eskimos, or more probably, perhaps, from the Europeans after the discovery of America.
[103] Sophus Bugge, op. cit., p. 114.
[104] Tylor, op. cit., p. 50. Compare Knortz, Aus dem Wigwam, p. 142.
[105] Communicated by Moltke Moe, from his unpublished collection of folk-tales. See also a tale reported from Flatdal in Fedraheimen, 1877, No. 18; a Hardanger tale (watered down) in Haukenæs’s Natur, Folkeliv og Folketro i Hardanger, ii., 233. Danish variants in Kl. Berntsen, Folke-Æventyr, I. (Odense, 1873) p. 116; Et. Kristensen, Jyska Folkeminder, v. 271.
[106] Rink, Meddelelser om Grönland, part 11, p. 17. Compare Boas, Petermann’s Mittheilungen, 1887, p. 303; Rink and Boas, ‘Eskimo Tales and Songs,’ in Journal of American Folk-Lore, 1889 (?), p. 127.
[107] Note by Glahn in Crantz’s Historie von Grönland, Copenhagen, 1771, p. 348. Rink, Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, p. 440; Danish edit. pp. 87, 166, suppl. p. 44.
[108] Communicated by Moltke Moe.
[109] I. 551, 553.
[110] Rink, Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, p. 440; Danish edit. p. 87.
[111] Compare Sophus Bugge, op. cit., p. 115.
[112] Noted by Moltke Moe.
[113] Holm, Meddelelser om Grönland, part 10, p. 144.
[114] Compare K. Knortz, Aus dem Wigwam, p. 130. H. de Charencey (Melusine, i. 225) mentions (quoting from Malthæus, Hidatsa Grammar, 1873, Intr. p. xvii.) that the forefathers of the Minnetarees, a tribe belonging to the Missouri region, lived at the bottom of a great lake, and climbed up to the surface of the earth by help of a big tree, which ultimately broke, so that many of them had to remain below. (From an unpublished manuscript by Moltke Moe.) This legend presents an even closer analogy to that of the ignerssuit, who dwell under the sea.
[115] See J. Krohn, Finska Litteratur-Historie, 1st Part, Kalevala (1891), p. 165. Moltke Moe has directed my attention to this similarity, and has lent me the MS. of an as yet unpublished essay on legends of this class. As a rule, the connection between earth and heaven is effected by a great tree, by which people climb up and down. The myth of such heaven-trees is to be found in almost every quarter of the world. We find it in Scandinavia (Ygdrasil) no less than in Polynesia, Celebes, Borneo, New Zealand, &c. Among the Vogulians, the son of the first two human beings (see above) transforms himself into a squirrel, climbs up a tree to heaven, and afterwards climbs down again. (Compare A. Lang, Myth, Ritual and Religion (1887). i. 182, note 2.) Among the Indians the first man climbs into a tree, in chase of a squirrel, and so reaches heaven, whence he returns with the elements of civilisation, or, according to some, in order to take his sister up with him again. (Compare Tylor, Early History of Mankind (2nd ed.), p. 349.) The gipsies on the borders of Transylvania have a legend of a great tree from which flesh fell down to earth, and from whose leaves human beings sprang forth (H. von Wlislocki, Märchen und Sagen der transsilvanischen Zigeuner, No. 1.) There is probably some connection between these myths and the Greenland legend; it is quite natural that in the Eskimo version the tree should have disappeared.
[116] Compare A. Lang, Myth, Ritual, and Religion, i. 181.
[117] Compare J. Krohn, op. cit., pp. 163-173.
[118] Communicated by Moltke Moe. Others relate that it was the ugly children whom Eve concealed, or that she was ashamed of having so many. (See Faye, Norske Folkesagn, 2nd ed. p. xxv.; Söegaard, Fra Fjeldbygderne, p. 102; Dölen, 1862 (III.) No. 17; Storaker and Fuglestedt, Folkesagn fra Lister og Mandals Amt, p. 51; Finn Magnusen, Eddalæren, iii. p. 329; Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, 4th ed. iii. 163, &c.) The legend is originally Jewish, and may be traced to the Rabbis; see, for example, Liebrecht on Gervasius Tilberiensis Otia Imperialia, p. 70.
[119] Paul Egede gives a somewhat different account of the ignerssuit’s fall from human estate. They ‘formerly dwelt upon earth, until the time of the great flood, which caused the earth to capsize, so that what had formerly been uppermost was now below.’—Continuation af Relationerne, p. 96.
[120] This suggests our Norwegian ‘draug’ which sails in a half boat (i.e. a boat split in two longitudinally); and it does not seem impossible that we may here trace the influence of the old Scandinavian settlers.
[121] Paul Egede: Efterretninger om Grönland, p. 172.
[122] Legends of dog-men being widely spread over the world (they are found, for instance, among the Greeks), it is possible that the Eskimos may have received them from some other quarter, and applied them to the Indians, who, they knew, claimed descent from a dog.
[123] Compare Tobler: ‘Ueber sagenhafte Völker des Altertums,’ &c., in Zeitschrift der Völkerpsychologie, vol. xviii. (1888), p. 225.
[124] See Hammer, Meddelelser om Grönland, part 8, p. 22; E. Skram in Tilskueren, October, 1885, p. 735. As to kivitut, see also Rink, Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo.
[125] See Arnasen, Íslenzktar Þjóðsōgŭr, ii. 160-304, translation by Powell and Magnússon (London, 1866), pp. cxlvi, and 101-231. Maurer Isländische Volkssagen, p. 240; Carl Andersen, Islandske Folkesagn, 2nd ed., p. 258.
[126] P. Egede, Efterretninger om Grönland, p. 172; Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. 391; Tobler, op. cit., p. 238; Liebrecht in The Academy, iii. (1872), 321.
[127] P. Egede, Continuation af Relationerne, p. 97; H. Egede, Grönlands Perlustration, p. 117.
[128] Compare Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 332, and the authorities there cited. See also Moltke Moe in Letterstedtske Tidsskrift, 1879, pp. 277-281.
[129] H. Egede, Grönlands Perlustration, p. 117; P. Egede, Continuation af Relationerne, p. 47; Rink, Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, p. 471; Meddelelser om Grönland, part 10, pp. 290, 342.
[130] Rink and Boas, Journal of American Folklore (1888?) p. 124.
[131] F. Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, 1879, pp. 17-25; J.C. Müller, Geschichte der americanischen Urreligionen, pp. 134, 65.
[132] P. Egede, Continuation af Relationerne, pp. 32, 80; Efterretninger om Grönland, pp. 127, 106. H. Egede, Grönlands Perlustration, p. 117.
[133] Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. 355; A. Lang, La Mythologie (Paris, 1886), pp. 204, 206; Smithsonian Institute, Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1879-80, p. 45. The choice between day and night in the Greenland form of the myth may possibly be borrowed, directly or indirectly, from the biblical cosmogony.
[134] Christaller in Zeitschrift für afrikanischen Sprachen, I. 1887-88, pp. 49-62. Compare also Bleek, Reineke Fuchs in Afrika (Weimar, 1870): Tylor, op. cit., p. 355; A. Lang, op. cit., p. 203.
[135] Hans Egede, Grönlands Perlustration, p. 117; P. Egede, Continuation af Relationerne, pp. 20, 60. As to washing in urine (see p. [29]), I may remark that it seems to have been a custom of untold antiquity. We find allusions to it even in the sacred writings of the Parsees. Thus it is said (Vendidad, 8, 13) that corpse-bearers shall wash themselves with urine ‘not of men or women, but of small animals or beasts of draught.’
[136] P. Egede, Continuation af Relationerne, p. 16; H. Egede, Grönlands Perlustration, p. 121; Rink, Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, p. 236; Holm, Meddelelser om Grönland, part 10, p. 268.
[137] A. Lang, Custom and Myth, p. 132; Tylor, Primitive Culture i. 288.
[138] Compare Rink, Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, pp. 237, 440. Danish ed. suppl. p. 44. Liebrecht in Germania, vol. 18 (1873), p. 365.
[139] Holm, Meddelelser om Grönland, part 10, p. 142.
[140] This myth is so strikingly like the Greenland legend that there can scarcely be a doubt of their having sprung from the same source. Among the Khasias to love your mother-in-law is the direst sin, while among the Greenlanders it is worst to love your sister.
[141] Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. 354. See also A. Lang, Myth Ritual, and Religion, i. p. 128.
[142] P. Egede, Efterretninger om Grönland, pp. 150, 206.
[143] Holm, Geografisk Tidsskrift (Copenhagen, 1891), xi. 16. The idea that rain is due to the overflow of a lake in the over-world may possibly be traceable to more southern regions, where agriculture and artificial irrigation are practised, and where accordingly the mountain lakes have been dammed up. In the Greenland myth there is also mention of the lake being closed by a dam. (Compare Egede and Cranz.)
[144] See Schwartz, Die poetischen Naturanschauungen, i. pp. 138, 259; ii. p. 198; Schmidt, Das Volksleben der Neugriechen, i. p. 31; Belgisch. Museum, v. p. 215; Ign. Goldziher, Der Mythos bei den Hebräern, p. 88.
[145] This idea recurs in several parts of the world. Compare Christ’s forty days’ solitude in the wilderness.
[146] So in original (Trans.).
[147] Holm, Meddelelser om Grönland, part 10, p. 131.
[148] Angekoks, too, might be of either sex, but women seem always to have been in the minority among them.
[149] Holm, Meddelelser om Grönland, part 10, p. 135; Rink, Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, pp. 53, 151, 201, 461; N. Egede, Tredie Continuation af Relationerne, pp. 43, 48; P. Egede, Efterretninger om Grönland, p. 18, &c.
[150] Compare Carl Andersen, Islandske Folkesagn og Eventyr, 2nd edit. (1877) pp. 144-149. It is interesting to compare these Icelandic tales with the East Greenland legend related by Holm (Meddelelser om Grönland, part 10, p. 303), which is very similar in matter, though of course adapted to the conditions of life in Greenland. Analogous tales are also to be found in Norway, according to Moltke Moe, who has directed my attention to this remarkable similarity.
[151] Rink, Tales and Traditions of the Eskimos, p. 42.
[152] One of the characteristics of the ilisitsoks, as well as of the angekoks, is that they breathe fire. In the mediæval legends, and even in more recent European folk-lore, this faculty was attributed to the Devil, and was often extended to those who had sold themselves to him. The Greenland fire-breathing is probably connected with this mediæval superstition. The ilisitsoks, moreover, when seen by the angekoks during their exorcisms, are observed to be black from the hands up to the elbows—a trait which may also have its origin in the popular European conception of the Devil and his host as black in colour.
[153] Hans Egede, Grönlands Perlustration, p. 116.
[154] Compare Holm, Meddelelser om Grönland, part 10, p. 118.
[155] Holm, Meddelelser om Grönland, part. 10, p. 119.
[156] Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, p. 51; Danish ed. suppl. p. 194.
[157] As regards the greater part of these myths, the theory that they were invented independently in different parts of the world seems quite inadmissible; the coincidences are too numerous and too characteristic. Examples may be cited, indeed, of the same invention having been made independently by different races remotely situated from each other; but they are remarkably rare. On the other hand, it is surprising how certain tools, cultivated plants, and arts or accomplishments have been handed on from people to people over immense tracts of the earth. (Compare Peschel, Abhandlungen zur Erd-und Völkerkunde, 1877, i. p. 468).
[158] Glahn, Nye Samling af det kongelige norske Videnskabelige Selskabs Skrifter, i. 1784, p. 271. Rink, Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, pp. 45, 391, 439; Kleinschmidt, Den grönlandske Ordbog, p. 33.
[159] See Moltke Moe’s Introduction to Qvigstad and Sandberg: Lappiske Eventyr og Folkesagn, p. vii; Nyrop, Mindre Afhandlinger udgivne af det philologisk-historiske Samfund, Copenhagen, 1887, p. 193; Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 319.
[160] I must not omit to note, however, that similar conceptions are to be found in different parts of the world. In Tahiti, Oromatus, the mightiest of spirits, is said to have come into existence in this way, and among the Polynesians generally the souls of children are regarded as being especially dangerous. (Compare F. Liebrecht, in The Academy, iii. 1872, p. 321.) One of my reasons for thinking that the Greenlanders may have borrowed their angiak from the Scandinavians is that, so far as I can ascertain, other Eskimo tribes have no such belief—at least it cannot be common among them. There is no mention of the angiak even among the legends collected by Holm on the east coast. On the other hand, there are several apparently more primitive myths of ordinary children who are turned into monsters. (Compare Meddelelser om Grönland, part 10, p. 287; Rink, Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, p. 258; Danish ed. suppl. p. 125.) One of these, who on the east coast is the child of the moon by a human mother (Meddelelser om Grönland, part 10, p. 281), has on the west coast become an angiak. This is, no doubt, a late recasting of the legend—a theory which is borne out by the fact that variants occur on the west coast in which the angiak is an ordinary child.
[161] Communicated by Moltke Moe.
[162] Rink, Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, p. 126; Holm, Meddelelser om Grönland, part 10, p. 276.
[163] Rink, Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, Danish ed. suppl. p. 119.
[164] P. Egede, Continuation af Relationerne, p. 19; Efterretninger om Grönland, p. 55; Rink, Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, p. 145; Meddelelser om Grönland, part 11, p. 20, Suppl. p. 117.
[165] Castrén, Ethnologiske Foreläsningar, Helsingfors, 1857, p. 182.
[166] Meddelelser om Grönland, part 11, Suppl. p. 117.
[167] C. Andersen, Islandske Folkesagn, 1877, p. 205.
[168] The Iroquois, however, have a legend of seven boys who were transformed into birds and flew away from their parents. They have also a tale of a young man who goes out fishing and comes upon some boys who have put off their wings and are swimming. They give him a pair of wings which enable him to fly away with them; but they afterwards take his wings away from him and leave him helpless. Compare Rink, Meddelelser om Grönland, part 11, p. 21.
[169] It has hitherto been supposed that there are no traces of such intercourse except in the Eskimo legends (mentioned in Chapter I.), of their encounters with the old Scandinavians, and in the three following words: nîsa for nise (porpoise), kuánek for kvanne (angelica) and kalâlek (meaning Greenlander). The derivation of nîsa (old Norse nisa) and kuánek seems probable enough, though some doubt is thrown on the latter by the fact that in Labrador the word is applied to an eatable seaweed. Kalâlek was supposed to be the same as the Norwegian skrælling—the name given by our forefathers to the Eskimos, which in an Eskimo’s mouth would sound something like kalalek. It is rather surprising, however, to find the same word among the Eskimos of Alaska in the form of katlalik or kallaaluch, meaning an angekok or chieftain (Rink, Meddelelser om Grönland, part 11, Suppl. p. 94; Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, Danish ed. suppl. p. 200). It is possible, however, that the word may have been imported into Alaska from Greenland in modern times. Another thing which, as it seems to me, may possibly be a relic of the old Scandinavians, is the cross-bow which Holm found upon the east coast, and which was formerly in use on the west coast also. So far as I know, it is not found among the Indians.
[170] Missionary activity in Greenland, then a possession of the Norwegian crown, was commenced in 1721 by Hans Egede, who to that end set on foot a combined commercial and missionary company in Bergen. This mission was afterwards supported by the Danish-Norwegian Government, and after the separation of 1814, by which Denmark retained the Norwegian possessions of the Faroe Isles, Iceland, and Greenland, by the Danish Government alone. Ten years after Egede’s arrival in the country, Count Zinsendorf, who had heard of his mission, despatched three Moravian brethren to Greenland. These also formed a little congregation, and the German or Hernhutt mission has likewise obtained a footing. It has now a few stations in the Godthaab district, and one or two in the extreme south of the country. The peculiarity of these Hernhutt communities, so far as I could gather, is that in them the natives have sunk to an even greater depth of misery than elsewhere.
[171] Compare Paul Egede, Efterretninger om Grönland, pp. 117, 162.
[172] Niels Egede, Tredie Continuation af Relationerne, pp. 32, 45.
[173] Paul Egede, Efterretninger om Grönland, p. 221.
[174] P. Egede, Efterretninger om Grönland, p. 21; compare also p. 25.
[175] That a man should have a woman-boat, which was formerly the general rule, is now regarded as a conclusive proof of exceptional wealth and capability; for he must of course catch many seals in order to have enough skins for it. Compare ante p. 85.
[176] It must be mentioned, however, that accidental circumstances, such as the removal of some good hunters to other places, had contributed in some measure to this great falling off.
[177] An allusion to the well-known nautical superstition.—Trans.
[178] For instance, by causing the natives to wear worse clothes, and to live all the year round in their damp, insanitary houses, where the germs of disease find the best possible soil to flourish in, by introducing European articles of diet, and so forth.
[179] It is strange that the Greenlanders have in great measure escaped syphilis, which is usually one of the first gifts we confer upon those primitive people whom we select as subjects for our experiments in civilisation. It is found only in one place, Arsuk in South Greenland, where they try to isolate it. It is only of recent years that it has been introduced, but from what I hear it appears to have spread, and it seems probable that it will continue to do so, and in course of time affect the whole population.
[180] Just as I am sending this to press there appears Gejerstam’s Kulturkampen i Herjedalen, in which the author argues, as I do, that our school teaching has been the ruin of the Lapps, by weakening their interest in the business of their lives.
[181] Crowns, the krone being equal to 1s. 1½d.—Trans.
Transcriber’s Notes:
Apparent printer’s errors have been corrected. Hyphenation has been standardised except where the meaning would be affected e.g. ‘re-cover’. All other inconsistencies are as in the original. Apparent typographical errors have been corrected. s. and d. (currency) all italicised for consistency. Original accentuation has been retained. Original spelling has been retained with some exceptions e.g. secresy to secrecy, song-writting to song-writers, Rosetti to Rossetti, ubringing to upbringing, translater to translator.