Part 47

And both in the west and in the east the most pronounced Eskimo characteristics exceed similar features in the Indian, indicating independent development. Such characteristics involve the stature (taller in the west, shorter in the east than that of the Indian); the size of the head (everywhere averaging higher in the Eskimo); dolichocephaly, height of the head, its keel shape (all more pronounced in the eastern and now and then a western Eskimo than in any Indian group); the face, nose, orbits, and lower jaw; with the relative proportions and other characteristics of the skeleton. All these point to functional and other developments within the Eskimo groups and none suggest a large Indian admixture.

It is well known that more or less blood mixture takes place among all neighboring peoples where contact is possible, even if otherwise there be much enmity. Such enmity, often in an extreme form, existed everywhere it seems between the Eskimo and the Indian, as a result of the encroaching of the former on the latter; there are many statements to that effect. Within historic times also there are no records of any adoptions or intermarriages between the two peoples. Nevertheless where contact took place, as on the rivers and in the southwest as well as the southeast of the Eskimo territory, some blood mixture, it would seem, must have developed. The Indian neighbors show it, and it would be strange if it remained one-sided. But of a mixture extensive enough to have materially modified the type of the Eskimo in whole large regions, such as the entire Bering Sea and most of the far northeast, there is no evidence and little not only probability but even possibility. Nothing approaching such an extensive mixture is shown by the near-by Indians; and it would be most exceptional in people of this nature if a much greater proportion of the mixture was into the Eskimo.

Finally, a mixture of diverse human types, unless very old, may be expected to leave numerous physical signs of heterogeneity and disturbance, none of which is shown by either the western or eastern Eskimo. Such groups as that of the St. Lawrence Island, or that of Greenland, are among the most homogeneous human groups known. The range of variation of their characters is as a rule a strictly normal range, giving a uniform curve of distribution, which is not consistent with the notion of any relatively recent material mixture.

4. _The indications._--The indications of the data and observations presented in this volume may be outlined as follows:

The Eskimo throughout their territory are but one and the same broad strain of people. This strain is fundamentally related to that (or those) of the American Indian. It is also uncontestably related to the yellow-brown strains of Asia.

In many respects, such as pigmentation, build of the body, physiognomy, large brain, fullness of forehead, fullness of the fronto-sphenotemporal region, largeness of face and lower jaw, height of the nose, size and characteristics of the teeth,[285] smallness of hands and feet, etc., the Eskimos are remarkably alike over their whole territory. They differ in details, such as stature, form of the head, and breadth of the nose. But the distribution of these differences is of much interest and probably significance. Higher statures, broader heads, and broader noses are found especially in the west, the latter two particularly in the Bering Sea region; low group statures, narrow heads and narrow noses reach, with few exceptions, their extremes in the northeast. Between the two extremes, however, there is no interruption, but a gradation, with here and there an irregularity. These conditions speak not of mixture but rather of adaptation and differentiation.

They strongly suggest a moderate stream of people, rooted in Asia, of fairly broad and but moderately high head, of a good medium stature, with a mesorrhinic nose (and hence probably originally not far northern), and with many other characteristics in common, reaching America from northeasternmost Asia after the related Indians, spreading along the seacoasts as far as it could, not of choice, or choice alone, but mainly because of the blocking by the Indian of the roads toward the south and through the interior; and gradually modifying physically in adaptation to the new conditions and necessities; to climate, newer modes of life, the demands of the kayak, and above all to the results of the increased demands on the masticatory organs.

The narrowness, increased length and increased height of the Eskimo skull, without change in its size or other characteristics, may readily be understood as compensatory adaptations, the development of which was initiated and furthered by the development and mechanical effects of the muscles of mastication.

A similar conclusion has been reached in my former study on the central and Smith Sound Eskimo (1910). It has been approached or reached independently by other students of the Eskimo, notably Fürst and Hansen (1915) in their great work on the East Greenlanders. It is a conclusion of much biological importance for it involves not merely the development but also the eventual inheritance of new characters.

Former authors, it was seen, have advanced the theories of an American origin of the Eskimo. This could only mean that he developed from the American Indian. And such a development would imply physical and hereditary changes at least as great as those indicated in the preceding paragraphs, and in less time. A differentiation commenced well back in Asia, geographically and chronologically, and advancing, to its present limits, in America would seem the more probable.

An origin of the Eskimo in Europe, during the last glacial invasion, would not only push into the hazy far past the same changes as here dealt with, but it would at the same time fail to explain the physical differences within the Eskimo group, and deny any substantial changes in him during the long time of his migration toward the American northern coasts.

Absolute proofs of the origin of the Eskimo, as of that of the various strains of the Indians, are hardly to be expected. Such origins are so gradual and insidious that they would escape detection even if watched for while occurring; they are noticed only after sufficient differences have developed and become established, which takes generations. The solving of racial origins must depend on sound scientific induction.

Such induction may not yet be fully possible in the case of the Eskimo. The evidence is not yet complete. But with the present and other most recent data there is enough on hand for substantial indications. The evidence shows that barring some irregularities, due possibly to later intrusions or refluxes, the farther east in the Eskimo territory the observer proceeds the more highly differentiated and divergent the Eskimo becomes, and there is a greater gap between him and his Indian neighbors, as well as other races. Proceeding from the east westward, conditions are reversed. In general the farther west we proceed the less exceptional on the whole the Eskimo becomes and the more he approximates the Indian, particularly the Indian of Alaska and the northwest coast. As this can not, in the light of present evidence, be attributed alone to mixture, it is plain that if it were possible to proceed a few steps farther in this direction the differences between the Eskimo and the Indian would fade out so that a distinction between the two would become difficult if not impossible.

The facts point, therefore, to an original identity of the source from which were derived the Indian, more particularly his latest branches, and the Eskimo, and to the identification of this source with the palaeo-Asiatic yellow-brown people of lower northern Asia. The differentiation of the Eskimo from this source must have proceeded over a fairly long time, and probably started already it would seem on the northern coasts of Asia, where conditions were present capable of beginning to shape him into an Eskimo; to be carried on since in the Bering Sea area and especially in the Seward Peninsula and farther northward and eastward. In a larger sense the cradle of the Eskimo, therefore, while starting probably in northeast Asia, covered in reality a much vaster region, extending from northern Asia and the Bering Sea to the far American Arctic.

FOOTNOTES:

[283] Hrdlička, A., The Peopling of Asia. Proc. Am. Philos. Soc., LX, 535 et seq. 1921; and The Peopling of the Earth. Ibid., LXV, 150, et seq. 1926.

[284] Contrib. Anthrop. Central and Smith Sound Eskimo. Anthrop. Papers Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 1910.

[285] See Amer. J. Phys. Anthrop., VI, Nos. 2 and 4. 1923.

SUMMARY

What is the substance of the results of all these new observations and studies on the western Eskimo, who is the main subject of this report? In large lines this may be outlined as follows:

1. The western Eskimo occupied, uninterrupted by other people (save in a few spots by the Aleuts), the great stretch of the Alaskan coast from Prince William Sound and parts of the Unalaska Peninsula to Point Barrow, all the islands in the Bering Sea except the Aleutians and Pribilovs, and the northern and western coasts of the Chukchi Peninsula in Asia.

They extended some distance inland along the Kuskokwim and Yukon Rivers; along the interior lakes and rivers of the Seward Peninsula; along a part of the Selawik River, most (perhaps) of the Kobuk River, and apparently along the whole Noatak River, communicating over the land with the lower Colville Basin. But no traces of original Eskimo settlements have ever been found in the true Alaska inland or along those parts of the Alaska rivers that constitute the Indian territory.

2. The present population is sparse, with many unpeopled intervals, and not highly fecund, but, except when epidemics strike, it no more diminishes; children and young people are now much in evidence, hygienic and economic conditions have improved, and the people in general are well advanced in civilization. Their condition and morale are rather superior, in places very perceptibly so, to those of the majority of the Alaska Indians.

3. Except where there has been more contact with whites, a large percentage of these Eskimo are still full bloods. They are a sturdy, cheerful, and liberal yet shrewd lot. They intermarry and mix not inconsiderably among themselves (between villages). Some of the white traders have married Eskimo women and raised promising families. Where larger numbers of whites were or are in proximity clandestine mixture is apparent. The better educated show often decidedly good mental, mechanical, business, and artistic abilities. In the isolated localities, such as St. Lawrence Island, the people have apparently escaped the period of demoralization that so often attends the passing from the old to new conditions.

Tuberculosis and venereal diseases are present but not prevalent; rachitis seems absent. The people show much endurance, but longevity as yet is not much in evidence. Alcoholism is almost nonexistent except on occasions when drink is provided by whites.

4. The region of the western Eskimo shows a former larger population of the same people. This is attested by many "dead" villages and old sites. And this population evidently goes back some centuries at least, for some of the remains are extensive and both their depth and their contents give the impression of prolonged duration; though seemingly all thus far seen could be comprised within the Christian era.

5. No habitations or remains belonging to a distinct people (Indians) have thus far come to light anywhere within the territory of the western Eskimo; and no trace has as yet been found of anything human that could be attributed to greater antiquity than that of the Eskimo. But the older beaches and banks where such remains might have existed have either been covered with storm-driven sands and are now perpetually frozen, or they have been "cut" away and lost; and there seems no hope for finding such remains in the interior away from the sea or streams, for such parts were never under recent geological conditions favorable for human habitation.

6. The now known remains consist of the ruins of dwellings and of accumulated refuse, the two together forming occasionally marked elevated heaps or ridges. Some of these ridges are over 18 feet deep. They contain many archeological specimens of stone, ivory, wood, and bone. The ivory in the older layers is more or less "fossilized." The upper layers of such remains usually contain some articles of white man's manufacture (copper, iron, beads); lower layers are wholly aboriginal. Indian artifacts occur in Eskimo sites only in the proximity of the Indian on the rivers.

7. The prevalent or later culture shown by the remains is fairly rich, of good to relatively rather high grade, and of considerable uniformity. There are numerous indications of extensive trade in various articles, particularly those of the Kobuk "jade."

8. On the Asiatic coast, in the northern parts of the Bering Sea, on the Seward Peninsula, in the Kotzebue region and at Point Hope, the deeper portions of the remains give examples of the higher and richer "fossil ivory culture." This is distinguished by many objects of high-class workmanship, and by curvilinear to scroll designs. The art appears to have distinct affinities with, on one hand, deeper Asia, and on the other with the northwest coast of America and even farther south. It is not clearly separated from either the contemporaneous or the later Eskimo art, yet it is of a higher grade and delicacy and much distinctiveness. It is not yet known where this art begins geographically, what preceded it, whence it was derived, just how far it reached along the coasts, or even what was its main center. It seems best for the present to reserve to it the name of the "fossil ivory art" (rather than Jenness's too limiting "Bering Sea culture"), and to defer all conclusions concerning it to the future.

9. It seems justifiable, however, to point to the significance of what is already known. This "fossil ivory art" especially, but also the general culture of the western Eskimo, are highly developed and differentiated cultures, denoting considerable cultural background, extended duration, and conditions generally favorable to industrial and artistic developments. It has, it is already ascertained, certain affinities in Asia. If this art and the attending culture were advancing toward America, as seems most probable, then the question of cultural influences and introductions from Asia to America will have to be reopened.

10. Due to the perpetually frozen ground and the consequent necessity of surface burials, the area of the western Eskimo was, until recently, relatively rich in skeletal remains lying on the surface. It is no more so now, due to storms, beasts, missionaries, teachers, and scientific collectors. But while only a scattering remains of the surface material, there is much and that of special importance lying in the ground, mostly self-buried or assimilated by the tundra. This material, which now and then is accompanied by interesting archeological specimens, calls for prompt attention; it will help greatly in clearing local and other problems.

Occasionally burials were made or dead bodies were left in old houses. These remains, too, may prove of special value.

11. Observations on both the living and the skeletal remains in the western Eskimo area, supplemented by those on the northern and northeastern Eskimo, are now ample enough to justify certain generalizations. These are:

_a._ Barring the Aleuts, who are Indian, the Eskimo throughout belong somatologically to but one family, and this family appears as a remarkably pure racial unit, somewhat admixed in the south with the Aleut, on the western rivers with the Indian, and in the east and a few spots elsewhere with recent white people.

_b._ Within this family there is observable a considerable cranial change, with moderate differences in nasal breadth, stature, and color, but the general characteristics of the physiognomy, and of the body and the skeleton, remain remarkably similar.

_c._ The changes in the skull affect mainly the vault, which, in dimensions, ranges through all the intermediary grades from moderately broad, short, and moderately high to pronouncedly narrow, long, and high, and in form from moderately convex over the top to markedly keel shaped.

The distribution of skull form is somewhat irregular, but in general the broader and shorter heads predominate in the Asiatic and the southwestern and midwestern American portions of the Eskimo region, while the longest and narrowest heads are those of parts of the Seward Peninsula, and especially those from an isolated old settlement near Barrow with those of Greenland (exclusive of the Smith Sound), Baffin Land, and, judging from other data, also eastern Labrador. More or less transitional forms are found between the two extremes, without there being anywhere a clear line of demarcation.

The breadth of the nose, too, averages highest in the Asiatic, Bering Sea, and the more southern Eskimo of the Alaska coast, the least along the northern Arctic coast and in the northeast. The stature is highest along the western Alaska rivers and parts of the coast, least in Greenland and Labrador.

The skin, while differing within but moderate limits, is apparently lightest along parts (at least) of the northern Arctic.

12. The whole distribution of the physical characteristics among the Eskimo strongly suggests gradual changes--within the family itself; and as the long, narrow, high skull with keeled dome, occurring in a few limited localities in the west but principally in southern Greenland and neighboring territories, appears to be the farthest limit of the differentiation which finds no parallel in the neighboring or other peoples, while the form found in northeastern Asia, the Bering Sea, and southwestern Alaska is near to those of various surrounding peoples, the inevitable resulting deduction is that, in the light of our present knowledge, the origin of the Eskimo is to be looked for in the western rather than the northern Arctic or the northeastern area, and that particularly in the northern Bering Sea and the adjacent, particularly perhaps the northern, Asiatic region. The author is, therefore, led to regard the area between 160° west and 160° east longitude and 60° to 75° north latitude as containing the primal Eskimo-genic center, and as the source of the oldest Eskimo or proto-Eskimo extensions, while the larger part of the Eskimo differentiations is in all probability American.

13. The earlier notions relating to the western Eskimo, namely, those that would attribute his physical characteristics to a large admixture with the Indian, are now untenable for the following reasons:

_a._ The distribution of the western Eskimo traits and measurements does not indicate any important heterogeneous mixture.

_b._ The groups most distant from the Indians, such as the St. Lawrence or Diomede islanders and the Asiatic Eskimo, show very nearly the same somatological characteristics as the rest of the southwestern and midwestern groups.

_c._ Among the western Eskimo there are no data, no traditions, and no linguistic or cultural evidence of any considerable Indian admixture.

_d._ The western contingents of the family do not represent a physical resultant or means of the more narrow and long-headed type with the neighboring Indians of Alaska (or elsewhere in the north), but they equal or even exceed the Indians in the principal features of the skull, face, and in other particulars.

14. The nearest physical relatives of the Eskimo are evidently some of the Chukchi, with probably some other north Asiatic groups; their nearest basic relatives in general are, according to many indications, the American Indians. The two families, Indian and Eskimo, appear much, it may be repeated, like the thumb and fingers of one and the same hand, the hand being the large, original palaeo-Asiatic source of both. But the Eskimo are evidently a younger, smaller and still a more uniform member; which speaks strongly for their later origin, migration and internal differentiation.

15. With his numbers, purity of blood, approachability, present facilities of language, many of the young speaking good English, and other favorable conditions, the Eskimo offers to anthropology one of its best opportunities for a thorough study of an important human group, adapted to highly exceptional natural conditions. His food, mode of life, the climate, and isolation, give promise of interesting conditions of the internal organs, perhaps even blood, and of physiological as well as chemical and pathological peculiarities. This opportunity, together with the excellent and important opportunities for archeology in the Bering Sea and neighboring regions, should be utilized to the possible limit within the present generation, for the western Eskimo, on one hand, is rapidly becoming civilized, changing his food, clothing, housing, and habits; is also becoming more mixed with whites; and is most assiduously exploiting the archeological sites in his region for the sake of the income that comes to him from the ever-rising demand for beads, etc., and from "fossil" ivory.

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