the habit of seeking out a dog's skull, which they use as a kaiak, in order to persecute and kill their kinsfolk—either their mother's later-born children, or, it may be, their mother's brothers, who, by reproaching her for her misconduct, have led her to conceal the birth. Sometimes, too, they pursue people in the form of a feather, a mitten, &c.[1] This conception is very like the belief in what is called utburden, which is very widespread in Norway. These are children who, being born in concealment and killed, have not received a name. They cannot rest, but, in the form of visible or invisible ghosts, they pursue either the mother or people who pass by the place where they have been laid.[2] The resemblance between this Norwegian conception and the Greenland superstition is so great that there is every probability of its having been imported into Greenland by the old Scandinavians.[3]
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ 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
