All anthropological research on the Eskimo has naturally one ultimate object, which is the clearing up of the problems of the origin and antiquity of this highly interesting human strain; and it may well be asked what further light on these problems has been shed by the studies here dealt with. To show this with a proper perspective it will be requisite to briefly review the previous ideas on these problems.

Origin of the Name "Eskimo"

According to Charlevoix (Nouv. France, III, 178), the term "Eskimo" is a corruption of the Abenaki Indian Esquimantsic or the Ojibway Ashkimeg, both terms meaning "those who eat raw flesh." In the words of Captain Hooper,[202] "Neither the origin nor meaning of the name 'Esquimaux,' or Eskimo, as it is now spelled, is known. According to Doctor Rink, the name 'Esquimaux' was first given to the inhabitants of Southern Labrador as a term of derision by the inhabitants of Northern Labrador, and means raw-fish eater. Dall says the appellation 'Eskimo' is derived from a word indicating a sorcerer or shaman in the language of the northern tribes."

For Brinton,[203] as for Charlevoix, the term "Eskimo" is derived from the Algonkin "Eskimantick," "eaters of raw flesh." According to Chamberlain,[204] Sir John Richardson (Arctic Searching Exp., p. 203) attempts to derive it from the French words ceux qui miaux (miaulent), referring to their clamorous outcries on the approach of a ship. Petitot (Chambers Encyc., Ed. 1880, IV, p. 165, article Esquimaux) says that at the present day the Crees, of Lake Athabasca, call them Wis-Kimowok (from Wiyas flesh, aski raw, and mowew to eat), and also Ayiskimiwok (i. e., those who act in secret). In Labrador the English sometimes call the Eskimo "Huskies" (loc. cit., p. ix. 7. Chambers Encyc., article Esquimaux. See Hind. Trav. in Int. of Labr., loc. cit., and Petitot loc. cit., p. ix.) and Suckemos (Richardson, Arctic Searching Expedition, p. 202) and Dall (Proc. Am. Ass. Adv. Sci., 1869, p. 266) says that in Alaska the Tinneh Indians call them "Uskeeme" (sorcerers).

The Eskimo call themselves "Innuit," said to be the plural of in-nu, the man, hence "the people"; the same being as a rule the meaning of the name by which the various tribes of the Indian call themselves.

On the Asiatic coast the Eskimo is known as the "Yuit," "Onkilon," "Chouklouks," or "Namollo"; while in the east appears the name "Karalit."

None of this has thrown any light on the origin of the Eskimo.

Opinions By Former and Living Students

Origin in Asia.—Many opinions on the origin of the Eskimo have been expressed by different authors. Among the earliest of these were those of missionaries, such as Crantz (1779), and of the early explorers, such as Steller, v. Wrangell, LÜtke and others. They were based on the general aspect of the Eskimo, particularly that of his physiognomy; and seeing that in many features he resembled most the mongoloid peoples of Asia they attached him to these, which meant the conclusion that he was of Asiatic derivation. Quite soon, however, there began to appear also the opinions of students of man. The first of these was that of Blumenbach, as expressed in his Inaugural Thesis of 1781. In this thesis, more particularly its second edition, he classifies the Eskimo expressly as a part of the Caucasian or white race. But after obtaining an Eskimo skull and an Eskimo body he changes his opinion and in 1795-1806 he comes out with a definite classification of the Eskimo as a member of the Mongolians; and a similar conclusion, with its implied or expressed consequence of a migration from Asia to America, has been reached since, mainly on somatological but also in part on linguistic and cultural bases, by a large number of authors, including Lawrence, Morton, Pickering, Latham, Flower, Peschel, Topinard, Brinton, Virchow (1877), Quatrefages and Hamy (1882), Thalbitzer, Bogoras and numerous others. With all of this, the conception of the Asiatic origin of the Eskimo has not passed the status of a strong probability, lacking a final conclusive demonstration.

A chronological list of the more noteworthy individual statements is given at the end of this section.

Origin in America.—Since the earlier parts of the nineteenth century the opinion began to be expressed that the Eskimo is not of Asiatic but of American origin. Already in 1847 Prichard tells us that there are those who "consider them as belonging to the American family," and he plainly favors this conception.

Between 1873 and 1890 the American origin of the Eskimo is repeatedly asserted by Rink, who for 16 winters and 22 summers lived with the eastern Eskimo, first as a scientific explorer and later as royal inspector or governor of the southern Danish settlements in Greenland (preface by R. Brown to Rink's Tales and Traditions, 1875). In this opinion, briefly, the Eskimo were derived from the inland Indian tribes of Alaska; without referring to the origin of the Indian.

Rink's authoritative opinion was followed or paralleled by Daniel Wilson (1876), Grote, Krause, Ray, Keane, Brown, and others. In 1887 Chamberlain expresses the somewhat startling additional theory that it was not the Eskimo who was derived from the Mongolians but the Mongolians from the Eskimo or their American ancestors. And in 1901-1910 Boas comes to the conclusion that the Eskimo probably originated from the inland tribes (Indian?) in the Hudson Bay region.

An interesting case in these connections is that of Rudolf Virchow. In 1877 (see details at the end of this section) he expresses the belief in the Eskimo coming from Asia; in 1878 he seems to be uncertain; and in 1885 he comes out in support of the opinion that the original home of the Eskimo may have been in the western part of the Hudson Bay region. Among later students of the problem, Steensby[205] and Birket-Smith[206] incline on cultural grounds to this hypothesis.

Wissler, not explicit as to the Eskimo in 1917 (The American Indian), in 1918 (ArchÆology of the Polar Eskimo) finds, after Steensby, the most acceptable theory of the Eskimo origin to be that "they expanded from a parent group in the Arctic Archipelago"; but in 1922, in the second edition of his The American Indian, he repeats word for word his opinion of 1917, which appears to favor an Asiatic derivation.

Origin in Europe—Identity with Upper Palaeolithic man.—About the sixties of last century growing discoveries in France of implements, etc., of later palaeolithic man brought about a realization that not a few of these implements and other objects, particularly those of the Magdalenian period, resembled like implements and objects of the Eskimo; from which, together with the considerations of the similarities of fauna (reindeer, musk-ox, etc.), and of climate, there was but a step to a more or less definite identification of the Magdalenians and Solutreans with the Eskimo. In 1870 Pruner-Bey[207] claims a similarity between Solutrean and Eskimo skulls. In 1883 these views received the influential support of De Mortillet (see details). In 1889 the theory receives strong support from the characteristics of the Chancelade (Magdalenian) skeleton which Testut declares are in many respects almost identical with those of the Eskimo. And within the next few years the notion is upheld by Hamy and HervÉ. It remains sympathetic as late as 1913 to Marcellin Boule, and finds most recent champions in Morin and Sollas.

However, there were also many who opposed the effort at a direct connection of the upper palaeolithic man of Europe and the Eskimo. Among these were Geikie, Flower, Rae, Daniel Wilson, Robert Brown, DÉchelette, Laloy. At present the theory is supported mainly by Morin and Sollas, opposed by Steensby, Burkitt, Keith, MacCurdy, and others; while most students of the Eskimo ignore the question.

Other hypotheses.—Besides the preceding ideas which attribute the origin of the Eskimo to Asia, or America, or old Europe, there were also others that failed to receive a wider support; and there were authors and students who remained undecided or were too cautious to definitely formulate their beliefs. Some of the former as well as the latter deserve brief mention.

Gallatin, in 1836, mainly on linguistic grounds, recognizes the fundamental relation of the Eskimo and the Indian and seems inclined to the American origin of the former, but makes no clear statement to that effect. For Meigs (1857), who probably followed an earlier opinion, the Eskimo came "from the islands of the Polar Sea." C. C. Abbott (1876) saw Eskimo in the early inhabitants of the Delaware Valley. To Grote (1875, 1877), the Eskimo were "the existing representatives of the man of the American glacial epoch"; they were modified Pliocene men. NordenskiÖld (1885) follows closely Meigs and Grote; the Eskimo may be "the true autochthones of the Polar regions," having inhabited them from before the glacial age, during more genial climate. Keane (1886) believed the Eskimo developed from the Aleuts. For De Quatrefages (1887), man originated in the Tertiary in northern Asia, spread from there, and some of his contingents may have reached America and been the ancestors of the Eskimo; the western tribes of the latter being a mixture of the Eskimo with Asiatic brachycephals. Nansen (1893) avoids a discussion of the origin of the Eskimo; and the same caution is observable more or less in most modern writers.

The following chart of the more noteworthy opinions regarding the origin of the Eskimo will show at a glance the diversity of the views and their lack of conclusiveness.

Theories as to the Origin of the Eskimo

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."

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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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."

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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.

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