Part 44

Asiatic: Steller 1743 Cranz 1779 Blumenbach 1795 Lawrence 1822 Von Wrangell 1839 Morton 1839 McDonald 1841 Latham 1850 Pickering 1854 Wilson 1863 Rae 1865, 1877-78, 1886 Markham 1865, 1875 Whymper 1869 Peschel 1876 Kuhl 1876 Petitot 1876 Topinard 1877 Virchow 1877 Dall 1877 Palmer 1879 Henry 1879 Dawson 1880 Quatrefages 1882, 1887 Elliot 1886 Flower 1886 Brown 1888 Ratzel 1897 Hrdlička 1910, 1924 Thalbitzer 1914 Fürst and Hansen 1915 Wissler 1917 Mathiassen 1921 Bogoras 1924, 1927

American: Prichard 1847 Rink 1873, 1888 Holmes 1873 Wilson 1876 Grote 1877 Krause 1883 Ray 1885 Virchow 1885 Keane 1886, 1887 Brown 1888 Murdoch 1888 Chamberlain 1889 Quatrefages 1889 Boas 1907, 1910 Wissler 1917

European or connected with Europe: Lartet and Christy 1864 Dawkins 1866 Hervé 1870 Abbott 1876 De Mortillet 1883 Testut 1889 Boule 1913 Sollas 1924, 1927

Opposed to Europe: Brown. Burkitt. Déchelette. Flower. Geikie. Keith. Laloy. MacCurdy. Rae. Steensby. Wilson. Hrdlička (1910).

Miscellaneous and indefinite: Gallatin 1836 Richardson 1852 Meigs 1857 Grote 1875 Abbott 1876 Nordenskiöld 1885 Keane 1886 Quatrefages 1887 Nansen 1893 Tarenetzky 1900 Nadaillac 1902 Jenness 1928

ASIATICS

Steller, 1743:[208] Several references which indicate that Steller regarded the Eskimo as related to the northeastern Asiatics.

Cranz, 1779:[209] Points out the resemblances of the Eskimo (and their product) to the Kalmuks, Yakuts, Tungus, and Kamchadales, and derives them from northeastern Asia (forced by other peoples through Tartary to the farthest northeast of Asia and then to America).

Blumenbach, 1781:[210] The first of the five varieties of mankind "and the largest, which is also the primeval one, embraces the whole of Europe, including the Lapps, * * * and lastly, in America, the Greenlanders and the Esquimaux, for I see in these people a wonderful difference from the other inhabitants of America; and, unless I am altogether deceived, I think they must be derived from the Finns."

But in his "Beiträge zur Naturgeschichte," 2d ed., Göttingen, 1806, Blumenbach classes both the Lapps and the Eskimo with the Mongolians (Anthr. Treatises of Blumenbach, Lond., 1865, p. 304): "The remaining Asiatics, except the Malays, with the Lapps in Europe, and the Esquimaux in the north of America, from Bering Strait to Labrador and Greenland. They are for the most part of a wheaten yellow, with scanty, straight, black hair, and have flat faces with laterally projecting cheek bones, and narrowly slit eyelids."

Von Wrangell, 1839:[211] "* * * ihre sclavische Abhängigkeit von den Rennthier-Tschuktschen beweist, dass die letztern spätere Einwanderer und Eroberer des Landes sind, welches sie jetzt inne haben."

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Lawrence, 1822:[212] "The Mongolian variety * * * includes the numerous more or less rude, and in great part nomadic tribes, which occupy central and northern Asia; * * * and the tribes of Eskimaux extending over the northern parts of America, from Bering Strait to the extremity of Greenland. * * *

"The Eskimaux are formed on the Mongolian model, although they inhabit countries so different from the abodes of the original tribes of central Asia."

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Latham, 1850:[213] "Our only choice lies between the doctrine that makes the American nations to have originated from one or more separate pairs of progenitors, and the doctrine that either Bering Strait or the line of islands between Kamskatka and the Peninsula of Alaska, was the highway between the two worlds--from Asia to America, or vice versa. * * * Against America, and in favor of Asia being the birthplace of the human race--its unity being assumed--I know many valid reasons. * * * Physically, the Eskimo is a Mongol and Asiatic. Philologically, he is American."

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1851:[214] "Just as the Eskimo graduate in the American Indian, so do they pass into the populations of northeastern Asia--language being the instrument which the present writer has more especially employed in their affiliation. From the Peninsula of Alaska to the Aleutian chain of islands, and from the Aleutian chain to Kamskatka is the probable course of the migration from Asia to America--traced backwards, i. e., from the goal to the starting point, from the circumference to the center."

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Pickering, 1854:[215] "The Arctic Regions seem exclusively possessed by the Mongolian race."

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Wilson, 1863:[216] "The same mode of comparison which confirms the ethnical affinities between the Esquimaux and their insular or Asiatic congeners, reveals, in some respects, analogies rather than contrast between the dolichocephalic Indian crania and those of the hyperborean race."

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Markham, 1856:[217] "The interesting question now arises--whence came these Greenland Esquimaux, these Innuit, or men, as they call themselves, and as I think they ought to be called by us? They are not descendants of the Skroellings of the opposite American coast, as has already been seen. It is clear that they can not have come from the eastward, over the ocean which intervenes between Lapland and Greenland, for no Esquimaux traces have ever been found on Spitzbergen, Iceland, or Jan Mayen. We look at them and see at once that they have no kinship with the red race of America; but a glance suffices to convince us of their relationship with the northern tribes of Siberia. It is in Asia, then, that we must seek their origin."

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Whymper, 1869:[218] "That the coast natives of northern Alaska are but Americanized Tchuktchis from Asia, I myself have no doubt."

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Peschel, 1876:[219] "The identity of their language with that of the Namollo, their skill on the sea, their domestication of the dog, their use of the sledge, the Mongolian type of their faces, their capability for higher civilization, are sufficient reasons for answering the question, whether a migration took place from Asia to America or conversely from America to Asia, in favor of the former alternative; yet such a migration from Asia by way of Bering Strait must have occurred at a much later period than the first colonization of the New World from the Old one * * *.

"It is not likely that the Eskimo spread from America to Asia, because of all Americans they have preserved the greatest resemblance in racial characters to the Mongolian nations of the Old World, and in historical times their migrations have always taken place in an easterly direction."

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Kuhl, 1876:[220] "Bilden so die Eskimo in der Sprache das Bindeglied zwischen America und Asien, so ist dies noch viel mehr der Fall in Bezug auf ihren Typus: dieser stimmt bei den Polarvölkern diesseits und jenseits der Beringsstrasse 'zum Verwechseln' überein, wie denn auch ein beständiger Verkehr hinüber und herüber stattfindet. Hierin liegt der unwiderstehliche Beweis, dass diese Polarvölker wenigstens von einer Herkunft sind und dass eine Einwanderung von einem Continente in das andere hier stattgefunden hat. Haben wir nun die Wahl, entweder die Eskimo aus Asien nach America, oder die Tschuktschen, die dort auf der Asiatischen Seite wohnen, aus America einwandern zu lassen--wofür sich auch Stimmen erhoben haben--so werden wir keinen Augenblick zweifelhaft sein: eine spätere Rückwanderung eines einzelnen Stammes in das Land der Väter wäre immerhin denkbar; aber wer über die Tschuktschen hinweg die Sache in's Grosse sieht, kann für die Urzeit nur eine Einwanderung von Asien nach America, nicht umgekehrt, annehmen, und hierfür finden wir ausser den allgemeinen Gründen, welche uns der Verlauf unserer Untersuchungen nahe gebracht, noch zwei besondere Beweise bei den Eskimo: einmal können wir die Spur ihrer Wanderungen historisch verfolgen, und diese wären nach Osten gerichtet, sodass sie Grönland, mit dem heute ihr Name so eng verbunden ist, zuletzt erreichten (S. 209); sodann haben die Eskimo allein unter den Americanischen Stämmen das Mongolische Gepräge ganz unversehrt bewahrt--dies bliebe unerklärlich, wenn sie Americanische Autochthonen wären * * * Einen deutlichen Hinweis auf die Urheimath Asien enthalten auch die Wanderungen der Stämme durch das Americanische Continent, soweit wir dieselben verfolgen können."

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Dall, 1877:[221] "I see, therefore, no reason for disputing the hypothesis that America was peopled from Asia originally, and that there were successive waves of emigration.

"The northern route was clearly by way of Bering Strait; * * * Linguistically, no ultimate distinction can be drawn between the American Innuit and the American Indian. * * * I shall assume, what is also assumed by Mr. Markham, that the original progenitors of the Innuit were in a very primitive, low, and barbarous condition. * * *

"I assume, then, that the larger part of North America may have been peopled by way of Bering Strait. * * * I believe that this emigration was vastly more ancient than Mr. Markham supposes, and that it took place before the present characteristics of races and tribes of North American savages were developed. * * *

"My own impression agrees with that of Doctor Rink that the Innuit were once inhabitants of the interior of America; that they were forced to the west and north by the pressure of tribes of Indians from the south; that they spread into the Aleutian region and northwest coast generally, and possibly simultaneously to the north; that their journeying was originally tentative, and that they finally settled in those regions which afforded them subsistence, perhaps after passing through the greater portion of Arctic America, leaving their traces as they went in many places unfit for permanent settlement; that after the more inviting regions were occupied, the pressure from Indians and still unsatisfied tribes of their own stock, induced still further emigration, and finally peopled Greenland and the shores of northeastern Siberia; but that these latter movements were, on the whole, much more modern, and more local than the original exodus, and took place after the race characteristics and language were tolerably well matured. * * *

"I conclude that at present the Asiatic Innuit range from Koliuchin Bay to the eastward and south to Anadyr Gulf. * * *

"To the reflux of the great wave of emigration, which no doubt took place at a very early period, we may owe the numerous deserted huts reported by all explorers on the north coasts of Asia, as far east as the mouth of the Indigirka. At one time, I thought the migration to Asia had taken place within a few centuries, but subsequent study and reflection has convinced me that this could not have been the case. No doubt successive parties crossed at different times, and some of these may have been comparatively modern."

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Rae, 1878:[222] "All the Eskimos with whom I have communicated on the subject, state that they originally came very long ago from the west, or setting sun, and that in doing so they crossed a sea separating the two great lands.

"That these people (the Eskimos) have been driven from their own country in the northern parts of Asia by some unknown pressure of circumstances, and obliged to extend themselves along the whole northern coast line of America and Greenland, appears to be likely, and that the route followed after crossing Bering Strait was of necessity along the coast eastward, being hemmed in by hostile Indians on the south, and driven forward by pressure from the west * * *.

"Such were my opinions 12 years ago, and their correctness has been rather confirmed than otherwise, by all that we have since learned. * * *"

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1887:[223] "Professor Flower said that his investigation into the physical characteristics of the Eskimos led him to agree entirely with Doctor Rae's conclusions derived from other sources. He looked upon the Eskimos as a branch of the North Asiatic Mongols (of which the Japanese may be taken as a familiar example), who in their wandering across the American continent in the eastward direction, isolated almost as perfectly as an island population would be, hemmed in on one side by the eternal polar ice, and on the other by hostile tribes of American Indians, with whom they rarely, if ever, mingled, have gradually developed special modifications of the Mongolian type, which increase in intensity from west to east, and are seen in their greatest perfection in the inhabitants of Greenland. * * *

"Doctor Rae also thinks that the Eskimos came from across Bering Strait from Asia. Their traditions and many other things point in that direction, and they are in no way related to the ancient cave men of Europe."

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Dawson, 1880:[224] Eskimo: "On the eastern side of the continent these poor people have always been separated by a marked line from their Indian neighbors on the south, and have been regarded by them with the most bitter hostility. On the west, however, they pass into the Eastern Siberians, on the one hand, and into the West-coast Indians, on the other, both by language and physical characters. They and the northern tribes at least of West-coast Indians, belong in all probability to a wave of population spreading from Bering Strait."

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Quatrefages et Hamy; 1882:[225] "Les Esquimaux ou Eskimos, qui se nomment eux-mêmes Innuits, constituent dans la série mongolique un groupe exceptionnel, qui diffère à maints égards de ceux qui viennent de passer sous nos yeux, mais dont l'origine asiatique n'est plus aujourd'hui contestée et dont les affinités occidentales frappent de plus en plus les observateurs spéciaux."

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Brown, 1888:[226] "It is only when we come to the region beginning at Cape Shelagskii and extending to the East Cape of Siberia that we find any traces of them. This tract is now held by the coast Tchukchi, but it was not always their home, for they expelled from this dreary stretch the Onkilon or Eskimo race who took refuge in or near less attractive quarters between the East Cape and Anadyrskii Bay."

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Ratzel, 1897:[227] "If we ask whence they came, Asia seems most obvious, since between the American and Asiatic coasts of Bering Straits, intercourse has always been ventured upon even in the rudest skin-boats. * * *

"Ethnographic indications also point predominantly to the west. * * *

"But we have an equal right to suppose a migration from America into Asia."

Thalbitzer, 1914:[228] "I still believe (like Rink), that the common Eskimo mother-group has at one time lived to the west at the Bering Strait, coming originally from the coasts of Siberia."

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Fürst and Hansen, 1915:[229] "We are to some extent acquainted with the diffusion of the Eskimos over the earth, and know that they could not have come directly from Europe and that Greenland was populated from the west, one may naturally conclude, as has often been concluded before, that their descent is from the west, in other words from Asia, though the time at which such an immigration took place and the racial type which they then possessed must remain still more hypothetical than immigration itself."

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Mathiassen, 1927:[230] "We must therefore imagine that the Thule culture, with all its peculiar whaling culture, has originated somewhere in the western regions, in an Arctic area, where whales were plentiful and wood abundant, and we are involuntarily led toward the coasts of Alaska and East Siberia north of Bering Strait, the regions to which we have time after time had to turn in order to find parallels to types from the Central Eskimo finds. There all the conditions have been present for the originating of such a culture, and from there it has spread eastward right to Greenland, seeking everywhere to adapt itself to the local geographical conditions. And it can hardly have been a culture wave alone; it must have been a migration. The similarities between east and west are in many directions so detailed that it is difficult to explain them without assuming an actual migration of people from the one place to the other."

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Jochelson, 1928:[231] "In discussing the question of former Eskimo occupation of the Siberian Arctic coast a very remote period of time is not meant, so that in this sense the assumed recent Eskimo migrations from Asia into America and vice versa do not interfere with the general theory of the Asiatic origin of the American population."

FOOTNOTES:

[208] Steller, G. W., Journal, 1743. Transl. and repr. in Bering's Voyages, Am. Geog. Soc. Research, ser. I, 2 vols., vol. II, p. 9 et seq. New York, 1922.

[209] Cranz, David, Historie von Grönland, Frankf. and Leipz., 1779, 300-301.

[210] Blumenbach, J. F., Be generis humani varietate nativa. 2d ed., Goettingen, 1781; in The anthropological treatises of J. F. Blumenbach, Anthr. Soc. Lond., 1865, p. 99, ftn. 4.

[211] Von Wrangell, in Baer and Helmersen's "Beiträge zur Kenntniss des Russischen Reiches," pp. 58-59. St. Petersburg, 1839.

[212] Lawrence, W., Lectures on physiology, zoology, and the natural history of man, pp. 511-513. London, 1822.

[213] Latham, Robert Gordon, The Natural history of the varieties of man, pp. 289-291. London, 1850.

[214] Latham, Robert Gordon, Man and his migrations, p. 124. London, 1851.

[215] Pickering, Charles, The races of man, p. 7. London, 1854.

[216] Wilson, Daniel, Physical ethnology. Smithsonian Report for 1862, p. 262. Washington, 1863.

[217] Markham, C. R., On the origin and migrations of the Greenland Esquimaux. J. Roy. Geog. Soc., XXXV, p. 90. London, 1865.

[218] Whymper, Frederick, Travels in Alaska and on the Yukon, p. 214. New York, 1869.

[219] Peschel, Oscar, The races of man, pp. 396-97. New York, 1876.

[220] Kuhl, Dr. Joseph, Die Anfänge des Menschengeschlechts und sein einheitlicher Ursprung, pp. 315-16. Leipzig, 1876.

[221] Dall, W. H., Tribes of the extreme northwest. U. S. Geog. and Geol. Survey, I, pp. 93-105. Washington, 1877.

[222] Rae, John, Eskimo Migrations. Jour. Anthrop. Inst. Great Britain and Ireland, VII, pp. 130-131. London, 1878.

[223] Rae, John, Remarks on the Natives of British North America. Jour. Anthrop. Inst. Great Britain and Ireland, XVI, p. 200. London, 1887.

[224] Dawson, J. W., Fossil men and their modern representatives, pp. 48-49. Montreal, 1880.

[225] Quatrefages, A. de, et Hamy, E. T., Crania ethnica. Les crânes des races humaines, p. 437. Paris, 1882.

[226] Brown, Robert, The origin of the Eskimo. The Archaeological Review, I, No. 4, pp. 238-289. London, 1888.

[227] Ratzel, Friedrich, The history of mankind, II, pp. 107-108. London, 1897.

[228] Thalbitzer, W., The Ammassalik Eskimo. Meddelelser om Grønland, vol. XXXIX, pt. 1, p. 717. Copenhagen, 1914.

[229] Fürst, Carl M., and Fr. C. C. Hansen, Crania Groenlandica, p. 228. Copenhagen, 1915.

[230] Mathiassen, Therkel, Archaeology of the central Eskimos. Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition 1921-1924, p. 184. Copenhagen, 1927.

[231] Jochelson, W., Peoples of Asiatic Russia. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., p. 60. New York, 1928.

AMERICAN

Prichard, 1847:[232] "A question has been raised, to what department of mankind the Esquimaux belong. Some think them a race allied to the northern Asiatics, and even go so far as to connect them with the Mongolians. Others, with greater probability, consider them as belonging to the American family. All the American writers eminent for their researches in the glottology of the New World, among whom I shall mention Mr. du Ponceau and Mr. Gallatin, are unanimous in the opinion that the Esquimaux belong to the same great department of nations as the Hunting Tribes of North America."

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Rink, 1890:[233] "* * * kann es wohl keinem Zweifel unterworfen sein, dass die Eskimos den sogenannten Nordwest-Indianern an der Küste Alaskas und weiter südwärts am nächsten stehen. Es dürfte deshalb der Untersuchung werth sein, ob sie nicht auch wirklich als das äusserste nördliche Glied dieser Völkerstämme zu betrachten wären. Man hat angenommen, dass diese letzteren, dem Laufe der Flüsse folgend, vom Binnenlande zur Küste gekommen sind. Sie lernten dann, theilweise und um so mehr wohl, je weiter nach Norden sich ihren Lebensunterhalt aus dem Meere zu verschaffen. Die Eskimos endigten damit, sich ausschliesslich der Jagd auf dem Meere zu widmen, und erlangten dadurch ihre merkwürdige Fähigkeit, allen Hindernissen des arktischen Klimas Trotz bieten zu können. Betrachten wir demnach, wie man vermeintlich noch jetzt die Spuren der Veränderungen beobachten kann, denen sie nach und nach unterworfen worden sind, indem sie sich, unserer Vermuthung zufolge, nach Norden und Osten verbreiteten."

Rink, 1873:[234] "As far as can now be judged, the Eskimo appear to have been the last wave of an aboriginal American race, which has spread over the continent from more genial regions, following principally the rivers and watercourses, and continually yielding to the pressure of the tribes behind them, until at last they have peopled the seacoast. * * *

"The author explains some of the most common traditions from Greenland as simply mythical narrations of events occurring in the far northwest corner of America, thereby pointing to the great probability of that district having been the original home of the nation, in which they first assumed the peculiarities of their present culture."

Captain Pim also expressed his belief that "the Eskimo were pure American aborigines, and not of Asiatic descent."

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