Part 45

Rink, 1875:[235] "If we suppose the physical conditions and the climate of the Eskimo regions not to have altered in any remarkable way since they were first inhabited, their inhabitants of course must originally have come from more southern latitudes, * * * it appears evident on many grounds that such a southern tribe has not been a coast people migrating along the seashore, and turning into Eskimo on passing beyond a certain latitude, but that they have more probably emerged from some interior country, following the river banks toward the shores of the polar sea, having reached which they became a coast people, and, moreover, a polar-coast people. The Eskimo most evidently representing the polar-coast people of North America, the first question which arises seems to be whether their development can be conjectured with any probability to have taken place in that part of the world. Other geographical conditions appear greatly to favor such a supposition * * *. The rivers taking their course to the sea between Alaska and the Coppermine River, seem well adapted to lead such a migrating people onward to the polar sea. * * *

"The probable identity of the 'inlanders' with the Indians has already been remarked on. When the new coast people began to spread along the Arctic shores, some bands of them may very probably have crossed Bering Strait and settled on the opposite shore, which is perhaps identical with the fabulous country of Akilinek. On the other hand, there is very little probability that a people can have moved from interior Asia to settle on its polar seashore, at the same time turning Eskimo, and afterwards almost wholly emigrated to America.

"On comparing the Eskimo with the neighboring nations, their physical complexion certainly seems to point at an Asiatic origin; but, as far as we know, the latest investigations have also shown a transitional link to exist between the Eskimo and the other American nations, which would sufficiently indicate the possibility of a common origin from the same continent."

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Rink, 1875:[236] "The author, who has traveled and resided in Greenland for 20 years, and has studied the native traditions, of which he has preserved a collection, considers the Eskimo as deserving particular attention in regard to the question how America has been originally peopled. He desires to draw the attention of ethnologists to the necessity of explaining, by means of the mysterious early history of the Eskimo, the apparently abrupt step by which these people have been changed from probably inland or riverside inhabitants into a decidedly littoral people, depending entirely on the products of the Arctic Sea; and he arrives at the conclusion that, although the question must still remain doubtful, and dependent chiefly on further investigations into the traditions of the natives occupying adjacent countries, yet, 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. * * *

"When we consider the existing intercourse between the inhabitants on both sides of Bering Strait, we find many circumstances to justify the conclusion that those traditions of the Greenland Eskimo refer to the origin of the Eskimo sledge dog from the training of the Arctic wolf, to the first journeys upon the frozen sea, and to intercourse between the aboriginal Eskimo and the Asiatic coast."

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Rink, 1886:[237] "Grönland kann ja nur von Westen her seine eskimoische Bevölkerung empfangen haben. Dasselbe lässt sich mit Wahrscheinlichkeit auch von den nächsten Nachbarländern jenseits der Davisstrasse annehmen, und wenn wir diese Vermutung weiter erstrecken, gelangen wir zum Alaskaterritorium als der wahrscheinlichen Heimat der jetzt so weit zertreuten arktischen Volkes. Zunächst findet diese Annahme eine Bestätigung darin, dass die Eskimos hier nicht auf die Küste beschränkt, sondern auch längs der Flüsse ins Binnenland verbreitet sind, nur dass der ungeheure Fischreichtum dieser Flüsse es möglich gemacht haben kann, dass hier ursprünglich eine noch viel grössere Bevölkerung, als jetzt, sich sammelte, welche durch Auswanderung das notwendige Kontingent zur Entstehung der auf die Meeresküste beschränkten Stämme geliefert haben kann."

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Wilson, 1876:[238] "Some analogies confirm the probability of a portion of the North American stock having entered the continent from Asia by Bering Strait or the Aleutian Islands; and more probably by the latter than the former. * * *

"In this direction, then, a North American germ of population may have entered the continent from Asia, diffused itself over the Northwest, and ultimately reached the valleys of the Mississippi, and penetrated to southern latitudes by a route to the east of the Rocky Mountains. Many centuries may have intervened between the first immigration and its coming in contact with races of the southern continent; and philological and other evidence indicates that if such a northwestern immigration be really demonstrable, it is one of very ancient date. But so far as I have been able to study the evidence, much of that hitherto adduced appears to point the other way. * * *

"With Asiatic Esquimaux thus distributed along the coast adjacent to the dividing sea; and the islands of the whole Aleutian group in the occupation of the same remarkable stock common to both hemispheres: The only clearly recognizable indications are those of a current of migration setting toward the continent of Asia, the full influence of which may prove to have been more comprehensive than has hitherto been imagined possible. * * *"

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Grote, 1877:[239] Regards the Eskimo as the original inhabitants of North America and believes they extended down to 50° in the eastern and 60° in the western part of the continent.

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Krause, 1883:[240] "Ueberblickt man nun die gegenwärtige Verbreitung der Eskimos in Asien, so wird man der Ansicht von Dall und Nordenskiöld beistimmen, dass die asiatischen Eskimo aus Amerika eingewandert sind und nicht, wie Steller, Wrangell, und andere vermutheten, zurückgebliebene Reste einer ehemals zahlreicheren, nach Amerika hinübergezogenen Bevölkerung. Immerhin würde durch die Annahme eines amerikanischen Ursprunges der jetzigen Eskimobevölkerung die Möglichkeit früherer Wanderungen in entgegengesetzter Richtung nicht ausgeschlossen sein, nur giebt die gegenwärtige Verbreitung keinen Anhalt für eine solche, und historische Beweise fählen."

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Ray, 1885:[241] "Of their origin and descent we could get no trace, there being no record of events kept among them. * * *

"That they have followed the receding line of ice, which at one time capped the northern part of this continent, along the easiest lines of travel is shown in the general distribution of a similar people, speaking a similar tongue, from Greenland to Bering Strait; in so doing they followed the easiest natural lines of travel along the watercourses and the seashore, and the distribution of the race to-day marks the routes traveled. The seashore led them along the Labrador and Greenland coasts; Hudson Bay and its tributary waters carried its quota towards Boothia Land; helped by Back's Great Fish River, the Mackenzie carried them to the northwestern coast, and down the Yukon they came to people the shores of Norton Sound and along the coast to Cape Prince of Wales. They occupied some of the coast to the south of the mouth of the Yukon, and a few drifted across Bering Strait on the ice, and their natural traits are still in marked contrast with their neighbors, the Chuckchee. They use dogs instead of deer, the natives of North America having never domesticated the reindeer, take their living from the sea, and speak a different tongue. Had the migration come from Asia it does not stand to reason that they would have abandoned the deer upon crossing the straits."

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Keane, 1886:[242] "Dr. H. Rink, in the current number of the Deutsche Geographische Blätter (Bermen, 1886) * * * makes it sufficiently evident that their primeval home must be placed in the extreme northwest, on the Alaskan shores of the Bering Sea * * * the Aleutian Islanders, who are treated by Doctor Rink as a branch of the Eskimo family, but whose language diverges profoundly from, or rather shows no perceptible affinity at all to, the Eskimo. The old question respecting the ethnical affinities of the Aleutians is thus again raised, but not further discussed by our author. To say that they must be regarded as 'ein abnormer Seitenzweig,' merely avoids the difficulty, while perhaps obscuring or misstating the true relations altogether. For these islanders should possibly be regarded, not 'as abnormal offshoot,' but as the original stock from which the Eskimos themselves have diverged. * * * Doctor Rink himself advances some solid reasons for bringing the Eskimo, not from Asia at all, or at least not in the first instance, but from the interior of the North American continent. He holds, in fact, with some other ethnologists, that they were originally inlanders, who, under pressure from the American Indians, gradually advanced along the course of the Yukon, Mackenzie, and other great rivers, to their present homes on the Bering Sea, and Frozen Ocean."

No individual or decided standpoint on the question is taken in the author's Man, Past and Present, 1920 edition.

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Brown, 1881:[243] "The Eskimo are therefore an essentially American people, with a meridional range greater than that of any other race. * * *

"It is also clear that this migration has always been from west to east, as also has been that of the Indian tribes; * * *

"Did these hyperboreans come from Asia or are they evolutions, differentiations, as it were, of some of the other American races? That all of the American peoples came originally from Asia, is, I think, an hypothesis for which a great deal might be said. Unless they originated there or were autochthonic, an idea which may at once be dismissed; they could scarcely have come from anywhere else, * * * but the central question is whether the Eskimo are of a later date than the Indians or are really Indians compelled to live under less favorable conditions than the rest of their kinsfolk. The latter will, I think, be found to be the most reasonable view to adopt. * * *

"Doctor Rink seems not far from the truth when he indicates the rivers of Central Arctic America as the region from whence the Eskimo spread northward. * * *

"It is not at all improbable that the original progenitors of the race may have been a few isolated families, members of some small Indian tribe, or the decaying remnants of a larger one. Little by little they were expelled from their hunting and fishing grounds on the original river bank until, finding no place amid the stronger tribes, they settled in a region where they were left to themselves. * * *

"It may, however, be taken as proved that the Eskimo are in no respect and never were a European people; that they are not and never were an Asiatic one, except to the small extent already described; that the handful of people settled on the Siberian shore migrated from America, and that it is very probable the Eskimo came from the interior of Arctic America, Alaska more likely than from any other part of the world."

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Virchow, 1877:[244] "Ich möchte namentlich darauf aufmerksam machen, dass diejenigen, welche den nächsten Anknüpfungspunkt für die Urbevölkerung Amerika's bei den Eskimo's suchen, welche ferner die Sprache und die Formen der Eskimo's nach Asien hinein verfolgen, leicht ein petitio principii machen dürften, insofern als es wohl sein könnte, dass sie ein späteres Phänomen für ein früheres halten. Warum sollte nicht die Einwanderung der Eskimo's von Asien erst erfolgt sein, nachdem längst andere Theile des Continents ihre Bewohner erhalten hatten?"

1878:[245] "Nun ist es sehr bemerkenswerth, dass gegenüber dieser physiognomischen Aehnlichkeit der Eskimos und der Mongolen eine absolute Differenze Zwischen ihnen in Bezug auf die Schädelkapsel existirt" (examined six living Greenland Eskimos).

1885:[246] "Verbinden wir dieses mit dem Umstande, dass die Sagen der Ungava-Eskimos stets nach Norden über die Hudson-Strasse verlegt werden, dass man im Baffin-Lande stets über die Fury- und Hecla-Strasse fort nach Süden als dem Schauplatz alter Sagen hinweist, und dass die westlichen Eskimos ebenso den Osten als das Land ihrer sagenhaften Helden und Stämme betrachten, so gewinnt die Vermuthung an Wahrscheinlichkeit, dass im Westen des Hudson-Bay-Gebietes die Heimath der weitverbreiteten Stämme zu suchen ist."

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Chamberlain, 1889:[247] "In a paper read before the Institute last year (Proc. Can. Inst., 3d. ser., Vol. V., Fasc. i., October, 1887, p. 70), I advanced the view that instead of the Eskimo being derived from the Mongolians of northeastern Asia, the latter are on the contrary descended from the Eskimo, or their ancestors, who have from time immemorial inhabited the continent of America."

* * * * *

Boas, 1901:[248] "All these data seem to me to prove conclusively that the culture of the Alaskan Eskimo is very greatly influenced by that of the Indians of the North Pacific coast and by the Athapascan tribes of the interior. This is in accord with the observation that their physical type is not so pronounced as the eastern Eskimo type. I believe, therefore, that H. Rink's opinion of an Alaskan origin of the Eskimo is not very probable. If pure type and culture may be considered as significant, I should say that the Eskimo west and north of Hudson Bay have retained their ancient characteristics more than any others. If their original home was in Alaska, we must add the hypothesis that their dispersion began before contact with the Indians. If their home was east of the Mackenzie, the gradual dispersion and ensuing contact with other tribes would account for all the observed phenomena. * * * On the whole, the relations of North Pacific and North Asiatic cultures are such that it seems plausible to my mind that the Alaskan Eskimo are, comparatively speaking, recent intruders, and that they at one time interrupted an earlier cultural connection between the two continents."

To which he adds in the second part of this work,[249] speaking of the Eskimo taboos: "It may perhaps be venturesome to claim that the marked development of these customs suggests a time when the Eskimo tribes were inland people who went down to the sea and gradually adopted maritime pursuits, which, however, were kept entirely apart from their inland life, although in a way this seems an attractive hypothesis."

Boas, 1910:[250] "There is little doubt that the Eskimos, whose life as sea hunters has left a deep impression upon all of their doings, must probably be classed with the same group of peoples. The much-discussed theory of the Asiatic origin of the Eskimos must be entirely abandoned. The investigations of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, which it was my privilege to conduct, seem to show that the Eskimos must be considered as, comparatively speaking, new arrivals in Alaska, which they reached coming from the east."

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Clark Wissler, 1917.[251] Page 363: "The New World received a detachment of early Mongoloid peoples at a time when the main body had barely developed stone polishing."

Pages 361-362: "Our review of New World somatic characters revealed the essential unity of the Indian population. It is also clear that there are affinities with the Mongoloid peoples of Asia. Hence, we are justified in assuming a common ancestral group for the whole Mongoloid-Red stream of humanity. We have already outlined the reasons for assuming the pristine home of this group to be in Asia."

Page 335: "For example, the Eskimos, whose first appearance in the New World must have been in Alaska, spread only along the Arctic coast belt to its ultimate limits."

1918[252]. Page 161: "The most acceptable theory of Eskimo origin is that they expanded from a parent group in the Arctic Archipelago."

1922.[253] Pages 368, 396, 398: Identical in every word again with that of 1917.

FOOTNOTES:

[232] Prichard, James Cowles, Researches into the physical history of mankind, vol. V, p. 374. London, 1847.

[233] Rink, H., Die Verbreitung der Eskimo-Stämme. Congrès International des Américanistes, 1888, 221-22. Berlin, 1890.

[234] Rink, H., On the descent of the Eskimo. Mém. Soc. Roy. d. Antiquaires du Nord; Journ. anthrop. Inst, II, 1873, pp. 104, 106, 108.

[235] Rink, H., Tales and traditions of the Eskimo, pp. 70, 71, 72, 73. Edinburgh and London, 1875.

[236] Rink, H., On the descent of the Eskimo. In a Selection of Papers on Arctic Geography and Ethnology, Roy. Geog. Soc., pp 230, 232. London, 1875.

[237] Rink, H., Die Ostgrönländer in ihrem Verhältnisse zu den übrigen Eskimostämmen. Deutsch Geographische Blätter, IX, p. 229. Bremen, 1886.

[238] Wilson, Daniel, Prehistoric man, pp. 343-352. London, 1876.

[239] Grote, A. R., Buff. Daily Courier, Jan. 7, 1877 (q. by. R. Virchow, Z. Ethnol., Verh., IX, 1877, p. 69).

[240] Krause, Aurel, Die Bevölkerungsverhältnisse der Tschuktschenhalbinsel. Verh. Berl. Ges. Anthrop., etc., in Z. Ethn., XV, pp. 226-27. 1883.

[241] Ray, P. H., Ethnographic Sketch of the Natives. Report of the International Polar Expedition to Point Barrow, Alaska, pt. 2, p. 37. Washington, 1885.

[242] Keane, A. H., The Eskimo. Nature, XXXV, pp. 309, 310. London, New York, 1886-87.

[243] Brown, Robert, The Origin of the Eskimo. The Archaeological Review, I, No. 4, pp. 240-250. London, 1888.

[244] Virchow, R., Anthropologie Amerika's. Verh. Berl. Ges. Anthr., etc., Jahrg. 1877 (with Z. Ethnol., 1877, IX), pp. 154-55.

[245] ---- Eskimos. Verh. Berl. Ges. Anthr., etc., 1878, pp. 185-189 (with Z. Ethnol., 1878, X), p. 186.

[246] Virchow, R., Eskimos. Verh. Berl. Ges. Anthr., etc., 1885, p. 165 (with Z. Ethnol., 1885, XVII).

[247] Chamberlain, A. F., The Eskimo Race and Language. Proc. Can. Inst., VI, p. 281. Toronto, 1889.

[248] Boas, F., Eskimo of Baffin Land and Hudson Bay. Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., XV, pp. 369-370. 1907.

[249] Ibid., XV, pt. 2, pp. 569-570. 1907.

[250] Boas, Franz, Ethnological Problems in Canada. Jour. Roy. Anthrop. Inst. Great Britain and Ireland, XL, p. 534. London, 1910.

[251] Wissler, Clark, The American Indian. New York, 1917.

[252] ---- Archæology of the Polar Eskimo. Anthrop. Papers, Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., XXII, pt. 3, p. 161. New York, 1918.

[253] ---- The American Indian. New York, 1922.

EUROPEAN

Dawkins, 1866:[254] "The sum of the evidence proves that man, in a hunter state, lived in the south of Gaul on reindeer, musk sheep, horses, oxen, and the like, at a time when the climate was similar to that which those animals now inhabit. To what race did he belong? In solving this the zoological evidence is of great importance. The reindeer and musk sheep now inhabit the northern part of the American Continent and are the principal land animals that supply the Esquimaux with food. The latter of these has departed from the Asiatic Continent, leaving remains behind to prove that it shared the higher northern latitudes of Asia with the reindeer, and this latter has retreated farther and farther north during the historical period. May not the race that lived on these two animals in southern Gaul have shared also in their northern retreat, and may it not be living in company with them still? The truth of such a hypothesis as this is found by an appeal to the weapons, implements, and habits of life of the Esquimaux. The fowling spear, the harpoon, the scrapers, the marrow spoons are the same in the ice huts of Melville Sound as in the ancient dwellings of southern Gaul. In both there is the same absence of pottery; in both bones are crushed in the same way for the sake of the marrow, and accumulate in vast quantities. The very fact of human remains being found among the relics of the feast is explained by an appeal to what Captain Parry observed in the island of Igloolik. Among the vast quantities of bones of walruses and seals, and skulls of dogs and bears found in the Esquimaux camp, were numbers of human skulls lying about among the rest, which the natives tumbled into the collecting bags of the officers without the least remorse. A similar carelessness for the dead was also observed by Sir J. Ross and Captain Lyon. This presence, then, of human remains in the south of Gaul is another link binding the ancient people then living there to the Esquimaux. Their small size also is additional evidence.

"The only inference that can be drawn from these premises is that the people in question were decidedly Esquimaux, related to them precisely in the same way as the reindeer and musk sheep of those days were to those now living in the high North American latitudes. The sole point of difference is the possession of the dog by the latter people, but in the vast lapse of time between the date of their sojourn in Europe and the present day the dog might very well have been adopted from some other superior race, or even reduced under the rule of man from some wild progenitor. By this discovery a new people is added to those which formerly dwelt in Europe. The severity of the climate in southern Gaul is proved by the northern animals above mentioned. As it became warmer musk sheep, reindeer, and Esquimaux would retreat farther and farther north until they found a resting place on the American shore of the great Arctic Sea. Possibly in the case of the Esquimaux the immigration of other and better-armed tribes might be a means of accelerating this movement."

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Hamy, 1870:[255] "Il nous parait, comme à MM. de Quatrefages, Carter-Blake, Le Hon, etc., que les caractères anatomiques des races de Furfooz et de Cro-Magnon doivent leur faire prendre place dans le groupe hyperboréen."

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Dawkins, 1874[256]: In 1866, Boyd Dawkins, on the basis of the resemblances between the implements of the Eskimo and those of the later prehistoric man of Europe, advances the idea that the Eskimo were close kin to the palaeolithic man of Europe, before the scientific forum. In his Cave Hunting he says: "Palaeolithic man appeared in Europe with the arctic mammalia, lived in Europe along with them, and disappeared with them. And since his implements are of the same kind as those of the Eskimos, it may reasonably be concluded that he is represented at the present time by the Eskimos, for it is most improbable that the convergence of the ethnological and zoological evidence should be an accident."

1880:[257] "The probable identity of the cave men with the Eskimos is considerably strengthened by a consideration of some of the animals found in the caves. * * *

"All these points of connection between the cave men and the Eskimos can, in my opinion, be explained only on the hypothesis that they belong to the same race * * *."

The cave man: "From the evidence brought forward in this chapter, there is reason to believe that he is represented at the present time by the Eskimos."

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