The Caribou Eskimos/Part 2/Chapter 2

European elements. Since the coming of the white man to these regions the influence of his culture upon that of the Eskimos has naturally been extensive. In the Descriptive Part there has often enough been occasion to point this out, and we have seen how this influence is gaining more and more ground. In nearly all cases. however, it is a question of a pure and simple importation of objects, from sewing needles to high-power rifles and gramophones. The elements which are due to the absorption of European ideas, and which may therefore be said to be really organically absorbed into the culture of the Caribou Eskimos, are extremely small in number.

The use of metal may be included among these, where the Eskimos themselves work it, but this use has not given impulse to the development of any real metal technique. The plane is an implement which the Caribou Eskimos themselves make from an imported idea. whereas the saw, at any rate nowadays, is always purchased.^[1] In a previous chapter a deerskin frock open at the front, and a folding cap, have been described, both of European, or rather Canadian, cut: but it is doubtful whether these garments, which are only of little. suitability to the climate, will ever spread beyond the immediate vicinity of the trading posts. The square flat bags of cloth which occur sporadically among the Eskimos, including those under discussion here, must be regarded as being originally European, not only as to material but also in shape, although, as the bead embroidery shows, the route has often lain viâ the Indians. The principal cultural acquisition apart from the knowledge of metal is undoubtedly the fishing net and the technique of net-making.

An element which is fairly widely diffused among the Eskimos, the fingered glove, I also consider to be originally European. Table ​A 55 shows the distribution of mittens and gloves among the Eskimos. Gloves are found everywhere except in Greenland south of Melville Bay. This limitation to the diffusion alone argues against their being taken to be of genuine Eskimo origin. It is true that Lyon says that "at Igloolik, on our first arrival, we found a few pair of fingered gloves, very neatly made";^[2] but it must be remembered that the Iglulingmiut were not by any means entirely outside the sphere of European influence, when the "Fury" and the "Hecla" first cast anchor in their waters. They had several implements of iron, copper kettles, etc. which give evidence of trading intercourse to the south (cf. pt. I, p. 161), through which the idea of the glove may also have come to them. As to Alaska, Murdoch presumes that the glove was the result of Russian influence,^[3] and Jochelson is of the opinion that the Koryak learned to know it of the Tungus.^[4] The Salishan and Athapaskan tribes on the plateaux of British Columbia occasionally wear gloves; but they, too, seem to have been imported in historical times.^[5] Nor is there anything remarkable in an element such as the fingered. glove spreading quickly. Murdoch rightly points out how useful it is in winter when using the gun; but as a matter of fact it is of just as much importance to the archer, especially with the Eskimo form of arrow release. In the absence of gloves the bow must be bent with the bare hand.

Indian elements. Boas has drawn attention to the fact that certain legends and the appearance of the pipe among the Central Eskimos are obviously due to Indian influence.^[6] As far as is known, the Caribou Eskimos have never been in contact with the western Athapaskan tribes: Yellow Knife, Dogrib and Slavey. The only tribes calling for consideration in this respect are the Chipewyan, with whom they have had intercourse during the past two hundred years, and the Cree, whom they met before that time and occasionally later too.

Whence these legends came cannot be discussed here. As regards the pipe, there is reason to believe that the Cree, and not the Chipewyan, have given the Eskimos the idea. Whereas it is only during later years that the sub-arctic Athapaskans have learned to smoke tobacco, the habit is much older among the sub-arctic Algonkian tribes, as for instance is shown by the fact that tobacco smoking is an important part of the religious rites of both the Cree and the Naskapi. The ​"monitor" form, which is displayed by the Eskimo pipes at Hudson Bay and in Labrador, in fact principally belongs to the north-easterly Algonkian tribes.^[7] Pipes of this kind have spread over the Barren. Grounds to the Iglulik and Netsilik groups, whereas the Copper Eskimos seem to have been ignorant of tobacco until recent years, and in the Mackenzie area we already meet the Asiatic pipe coming from the west.

Besides pipes, a number of other elements must, in consequence of their distribution, be presumed to have been absorbed from the Indians. These are the conical tent, snowshoes, the two-handed scraper, the smoking and frying of meat, the tongued bags, the women's hair stick (?), ear ornaments of several strings of beads, the painting of skin with ochre, the whistle, double-curve, disk, triangle and zigzag ornamentation, and possibly the custom of setting up a pole by the grave. The circumstances attached to the occurrence of these elements will be dealt with in the following.

In the last chapter various reasons were advanced for believing that the ridge tent is older than the conical tent. The distribution of the latter among the Eskimos, as shown in Table A 3, is limited to northern Alaska and the Central regions, where, however, it is rather uncommon outside the Barren Grounds. Among the Netsilik Eskimos it is most common among the inland people at Back River. It seems doubtful whether the temporary shelter "made of a few converging poles forming a cone", as used in southern Baffin Land before sufficient skins can be procured for one of the ordinary tents, is to be regarded as a real conical tent, and this form is still more doubtful in Labrador, from which region we only have uncertain indications of its existence.

Between the conical tents of the Western and the Central Eskimo tribes there are, however, certain essential differences which have already been touched upon and which make it natural to define between two different sub-types. The western one is remarkable for its comparatively short poles which, about half way up from the ground, are held together by a ring against which a number of still shorter poles are leaned. The sheet consists of more than one piece or is laid over the frame in a spiral and at the top has two "pockets” which take the points of the tent-poles. I shall make no attempt here to trace the history of this sub-type. In the conical tent of the Central Eskimos the poles are so long that at the top they project above the sheet, which always consists of one single piece. The erection of the frame is started by two of the poles being crossed and tied together, ​after which the others are made to rest in the fork thus formed; the ring and the shorter poles are entirely absent.

This latter sub-type most decidedly has the centre of its distribution in the southern part of the Barren Grounds, whereas it becomes more uncommon outside this area. In this there is a hint that its origin must be sought further south in North America. The diffusion of the conical tent there and in North Asia is shown in Table B 2. On the Pacific Coast it seems to be rare and only used as a temporary shelter, being displaced by the rectangular plank houses. Further to the south it becomes common away from the coast as far as northern California and, over the great Pacific plateaux, this area is directly connected with the huge stretch west of the Mississippi, from the extreme offshoots of the plains in the north (Beaver, Slavey) to the Mexican Gulf in the south (Comanche, Tonkawa), where the conical tent, the tipi, is the most characteristic dwelling. South and east of Hudson Bay the conical tent extends right to the Atlantic Ocean (Naskapi, Micmac, Penobscot), so that all in all it is essentially in the areas of North America which lie to the southeast of the Mississippi and the Great Lakes that the conical tent is missing.

If we take it that the conical tent and other older forms of dwelling have been displaced by the plank house on the North Pacific coast,^[8] there is no denying that a line seems to run directly from the American tent to the Asiatic forms of the same type, just as must be presumed with respect to the ridge tent (cf. p. 21 seq.). The winter tent of the Chukchi is a rather complicated erection which, however, has some points of resemblance to the conical tent, in a similar manner as the kibitka among the Mongolian and Turkish nomads in Central Asia. As soon as we come west of the Chukchi, however, we can trace the simple conical form without a break right from the Yukagir and Koryak to the Lapps in Scandinavia. As a temporary dwelling while hunting and clearing wood for cultivation, as a cooking shelter, etc. it still occurs in Esthonia and Finland, among the Volga Finns and, in a rather altered form, among the Votyak. As a regularly used dwelling in Asia it extends as far south as the Amur area, including northern Manchuria (Dauria above Usuri), and the Altai mountains; but it is still met with exceptionally among the Buryat, Mongols, and Kirgiz-Kazak^[9] and even in the Pamirs the Vakhan sometimes erect conical huts of branches on top of their flat house-roofs.^[10]

It is obvious that within such huge areas as are here concerned ​the tents, despite certain fundamental congruities, must also display many differences of detail. The most striking is the difference in the nature of the tent sheet, especially as to its being of skin, bark or, more rarely, of branches and mats. Presumably this means to a certain extent a difference of age between the types, in so far as the use of bark seems to be younger than the use of skin; but only to a certain extent, as the material is also dependent upon the geographical surroundings, and therefore its difference can only with difficulty be used in clearing up the genetic connection of the types. This applies particularly here, where we are dealing with Eskimo tents, in respect of which a covering of bark is precluded in advance.

The manner in which the poles are joined together at the top is, on the other hand, independent of natural conditions. Wissler in particular has turned his attention to this point, with the result that we have good information regarding the tents of the Plains Indians, whilst Sirelius has fully described the Finnish-Ugrian forms; beyond these, however, there are big gaps in our knowledge. The first foundation of the tent frame is formed by tying together two, three, four or more poles. In North America the three-pole foundation has a much more limited diffusion than the four-pole foundation which occurs both east and west of it, and this might well indicate that the former is younger.^[11] In North Asia the conditions are difficult to read, possibly on account of defective information. The three-pole foundation is known to the Tungus, Yakut and Yeniseians, in Finland and among the Lapps, among the latter also in the particular form with poles cleft at the top which are met with in the hogan of the Navaho Indians. The four-pole foundation seems to be connected with the two-pole foundation by transitional forms in which the four poles are first tied together in pairs and which are known both from America (Penobscot) and Asia (Yakut). The two-pole foundation proper seems to belong to the northern area both in the new and in the old world: Dakota (apparently the eastern groups, Santee and perhaps Yankton), Ojibway and Cree, possibly also Chipewyan, who have borrowed the conical tent from the last-named,^[12] whereas we do not know much about the Naskapi form. With regard to North Asia it occurs among the Tungus, Ostyak, Samoyed, Vogul and Zyryan. It will be remembered that the Caribou Eskimo tent, too, has a two-pole foundation and thus it must be regarded as being very probable that they have received this type from the Cree, altered it in accordance with the natural conditions by omitting the smoke hole at the top, and let it pass on northwards to the tribes by the North​west Passage, where, however, the lack of wood prevented it from obtaining a firm footing.

It has previously been mentioned that nearly all the snowshoes (in fact there are very few of them) used by the Caribou Eskimos are made by and purchased from the Chipewyan. Only rarely is a pair of snowshoes made like those described pt. I p. 184, consisting of simple wooden slabs. There is no doubt that the snowshoe does not belong to the original Eskimo culture.^[13] Whilst it is entirely absent in isolated Greenland, it now occurs all the way from Labrador to Bering Strait and, of course, among the Chukchi and Koryak. In none of these cases, however, are they anything but more or less successful imitations of the snowshoes of the neighbouring Indians, for which reason they are, furthermore, usually narrow and unsymmetrical towards the west, but more round in Labrador. According to Murdoch, snowshoes have only become common at Point Barrow since the middle of the nineteenth century. In other words, we have a number of loans, mutually unconnected, in which the various Eskimo groups are concerned, and the snowshoe is always one of the net type.

The fact that the Caribou Eskimos also make snowshoes in the form of two wooden slabs cannot be the result of a geographical adaptation to special natural surroundings; this appears from the fact that they preferably use imported Chipewyan snowshoes, which in fact are much better. Nor is the reason a lack of material or of technical skill. The Caribou Eskimos, who from ancient times have been familiar with the use of babiche, who can secure wood enough for their enormously long sledges, and who know how to bend wood by means of steam, would of course also be able to make snowshoes of the net type. That they nevertheless do not do so would seem to provide reason for supposing historical motives and for more closely examining the diffusion of the wooden snowshoe. They seem to have been known to the Copper Eskimos; for one can hardly regard the "shields" which Collinson described from Cambridge Bay^[14] as anything but snowshoes. Otherwise they are not mentioned from the Eskimos. On the other hand they are known from the eastern Cree at Little Whale River,^[15] from the Malecite, Penobscot and, of bark in a wood frame, from the Iroquois at Grand River, Ontario.^[16] It is apparently in North America an eastern type which is especially met with among the ​Algonkians. I do not know it at all from the Athapaskans, whereas it is possibly connected with the fundamental forms of the ski in Eurasia. There seems to be reason for regarding the Caribou Eskimos' knowledge of this type as being the result of the ancient connection with the Cree.

The two-handed scraper is rare in the domain of Eskimo culture except among the Asiatic Eskimos, the Chukchi and the Koryak who, as the reindeer nomadism among the two latter peoples shows, have been very much exposed to outside influence. Otherwise outside of Barren Grounds it is only met with on the American side of Bering Strait,^[17] at Point Barrow,^[18] in Labrador^[19] and, strangely enough, at such an out of-the-way place as Northeast Greenland.^[20] At none of these places, however, is it the only type of scraper and it decidedly gives the impression of representing a foreign intrusion. It is not known from the Thule Culture.

As Hatt has pointed out, it is, on the other hand, characteristic of the sub-arctic peoples in Siberia and North America.^[21] In Table B 52 some data are collected showing the distribution of this type of scraper. In the Old World the obviously more highly developed subtype occurs most, with one or two inserted blades of iron or, farthest to the northeast, of stone; even in remote areas of Central and Western Europe (Tyrol, Ireland) there are implements which resemble these scrapers.^[22] The subtype which consists of a sharpened and, usually, wholly or partly split tubular bone of a big animal, and which in North America stretches from the North Pacific plateaux across Canada to Labrador and the land south of the Great Lakes, is doubtless older. In Ohio it occurs in the older, so-called Fort Ancient Culture; but otherwise there is only very little modern evidence with regard to southeast North America, so that its occurrence here in earlier times seems to be doubtful. On the North Pacific coast it seems to be unknown, and from the plains there are only two indications from the northern part (Crow, Arapaho). In California, deer rib, and, on the southwesterly plateaux, sharpened but not split tubular bones have been used as two-handed scrapers. Under these circumstances the two-handed scraper has probably come to the Caribou Eskimos from the Indians; but whether it came from the Cree or the Chipewyan cannot be decided owing to the mutual resemblance of the types.

Roasting meat by placing it by the side of the fire is also known to ​the Copper and Mackenzie Eskimos,^[23] and salmon smoking to the Netsilik tribes.^[24] Both forms of cooking are common among the Chipewyan, Cree and, I believe, all the sub-arctic Indians, so that it cannot be determined whence the Caribou Eskimos have learned them.

The only specimen of the peculiar tongued bags which I know of at all from the Eskimos is that described pt. I p. 221 seq. It is probably reasonable to regard it as an imported object; but nevertheless it is of equal interest to determine its origin. As far as I know, tongued bags do not occur among the Chipewyan, from whom I know of no other bag than the carrying net and bags of caribou legskin. The tongued type seems mostly to belong to a broad belt from the Algonkian tribes round the Great Lakes, across the northern plains to the tribes on the North Pacific plateaux. In CNM are two bags of exactly the same form as the Pâdlimiut specimen described, one (Hc 576) of red, the other (no number) of green cloth. Unfortunately there is no information as to the provenance of these rather old specimens; but, judging from their double-curve ornamentation, they seem more nearly to belong to the northern plains (Blackfoot?) and the Menomini-Potawatomi region south of the Great Lakes. Similar bags occur in these regions among the Menomini^[25] and Winnebago.^[26] The fact that they may now also be met with among the Kansa, with double-curve ornaments too, is apparently the result of more recent influence after the transfer to Oklahoma.^[27] There seems to be reason to believe that the tongued bag among the Caribou Eskimos means a loan or, rather, an importation from the northern Algonkian tribes, i. e. Cree.

To my knowledge hair sticks are not found among other Eskimos outside the Barren Grounds than the Netsilik tribes and the Iglulik group, from the latter of which they are already mentioned by Parry.^[28] Hair sticks directly corresponding to those of the Eskimos. are not found among the neighbouring Indians. Hearne expressly says that the Chipewyan never bind their hair.^[29] Of the Cree Indians Mackenzie says that "their hair is divided on the crown, and tied behind, or sometimes fastened in large knots over the ears",^[30] a form of hair dressing which resembles that used by the women of the Caribou Eskimos when they do not wear hair sticks. On the other hand the Naskapi and Montagnais women bind their hair about two flat ​pieces of wood,^[31] which possibly may have some connection with the hair sticks.

Ear ornaments of several strings of beads have formerly been worn by the Cree,^[32] from whom they seem to have spread to the Caribou Eskimos and on to the Netsilik group. A simple form of this type is described by King from Back River, where the women wore "portions of ermine skin, cut into narrow pieces about two inches in length".^[33] The long bead ornaments of the Labrador Eskimos presumably go back to Algonkian influence too. The Eastern Eskimo decorations must not be confused with the bead strings of the Alaskan Eskimos, which are not fastened together to the lobe of the ear but hang separately from the edge of the ear. The same method of placing them is met with on the North Pacific coast and the interior of British Columbia.

The painting of skin with ochre is not known in Greenland, nor does it seem to occur in Labrador, in Baffin Land nor in the Netsilik area. The Copper Eskimos colour skin with ochre in order to use it for insertion in the seams of their festival dress, but do not actually paint ornaments. Among the Western Eskimos from Mackenzie River to Bering Strait painting of skin is met with again. Both the Chipewyan, Cree and other sub-arctic tribes paint skin with ochre and vegetable colours, so that it is probably from these that the Caribou Eskimos have learned it; it is impossible, however, to determine from which tribe.

The Caribou Eskimos and the Pacific tribes^[34] are the only ones in the Eskimo stock who know the whistle. From the latter there is no detailed description; but in all probability the one they have has been borrowed from the Northwest Indians who have quite a number of different whistles.^[35] Among the northern Athapaskans the whistle occurs among the Slavey (VI D 47, ONM) and, according to what I was told by the Chipewyan, it was also used by this tribe. Several northern Algonkian tribes like the Cree, Blackfoot, etc. have a sort of flageolet.^[36] It is presumably from one of the sub-arctic Indian tribes that the Caribou Eskimos have their whistle.

Besides among the Caribou Eskimos, the double-curve ornament is found on bead embroidery from the Iglulik group and, although apparently very rarely and only in quite modern times, from the Labrador and Copper Eskimos.^[37] Otherwise the northeastern, Algonkian ​region is the classic land of the double-curve ornament, as has been shown by Speck's comprehensive works. From there it has spread — apparently in recent times — not only to the northern plains but also to Athapaskan tribes such as the Chipewyan and Loucheux.^[38] Across the plateaux in British Columbia its offshoots have reached the Pacific coast.^[39] As in these cases it is apparently a question of quite modern culture borrowing, of which the Algonkian tribes and, doubtless, the Cree in particular form the actual source,^[40] and as furthermore the double-curve ornament must be fairly old among the Eskimos at Hudson Bay, as it is only exceptionally converted into floral designs like those among the Indians nowadays, there is no small probability that the Caribou Eskimos have taken it from the Cree and let it pass on to the north.

Disk-shaped, triangular and zigzag ornaments are, like the doublecurve, only used in conjunction with bead embroidery and by this alone reveal their foreign origin. They do not occur among other Central tribes than those which know the double-curve. In West Greenland bead embroidery, triangles and zigzag lines also occur sometimes; but they certainly have nothing to do with those under discussion. Bead embroidery in West Greenland has had an independent development and both there and in the Central Eskimo regions this form of decoration is of such late date that mutual influence may be regarded as being precluded. Among the sub-arctic Indians the double-curve and floral ornamentation is so prevalent that other motives can only be found with difficulty. And yet all those mentioned occur among the Cree.^[41] There is not material enough at hand to decide whether they are also known to the Chipewyan; but as ornamentation among them is on the whole at a decidedly lower stage than among the Cree, it seems to be most reasonable to regard the latter as the teachers of the Caribou Eskimos on this point too.

None of the nearest kinsmen of the Caribou Eskimos erect a pole ​by the side of the grave. From Hopedale in Labrador mention is made of a grave in a fissure in the rock "marked by a pole";^[42] otherwise, however, this custom does not seem to occur here either. It may be Indian, probably not taken from the Chipewyan who originally simply abandoned the bodies,^[43] but from the Cree, of whom Robson writes that "near the grave is fixed a pole with a deer-ſkin, or ſome other ſkin, at the top".^[44] The Naskapi plant a branch by the grave,^[45] so that the grave at Hopedale may have been the result of influence. from them. Far to the west, on St. Lawrence Island, the Eskimos erect a pole of driftwood obliquely at the end of the grave "so as to project at an angle like the bowsprit of a ship";^[46] but in other cases. the pole here is laid on the ground. When carrying the body the pole is inserted through the bands which wind it, in order to keep it stretched out. The analogy with the custom among the Caribou Eskimos is therefore not so complete that any connection may be assumed without further evidence. In many places in Asia, too, a pole is set up by the grave.

In now concluding the reference to the Indian elements in the culture of the Caribou Eskimos, there is reason for emphasising once more that, in those cases where it was possible to trace them back to a particular tribe, it was to the Cree and not to the Chipewyan. This quite conforms to the historical facts, as the connection with the latter is scarcely 200 years old, whereas the intercourse with the Cree, now practically at an end, is much older. On the other hand, warning must certainly be given against exaggerating Indian influence. Only very few of the Indian elements have really become naturalised: the ornaments are only used in combination with bead embroidery; snowshoes are by no means worn by all and still fewer make them themselves; nor is the smoking of meat known to all, and of tongued bags and whistles I have only seen the specimens here described, and no others. What has found a footing from the south is on the whole scattered and incidental.

Caribou Eskimo Culture proper. After having eliminated the features which are due to inheritance from the former coast ​people, borrowings from the Eskimo neighbours and European and Indian influence, there remains a culture which may be described as the Caribou Eskimos' real or original culture. This does not mean, of course, that a long and intricate history has not preceded its creation. It is in fact the threads of this that we will seek to unravel, and quite a particular interest seems to be attached to it.

The Caribou Eskimos' culture proper is connected with the interior, and it has already been stated in the introduction of the Descriptive Part that it differs from other forms of Eskimo culture, in that at any rate no directly visible connection leads from a coast life to existence in the interior, whereby we would be able to take it that there had been an earlier habitation of the coast followed by a migration into the country. On the contrary, the lines which can be followed lead just in the opposite direction. Under these circumstances the problem of the Caribou Eskimos' relationship to their kinsmen is in all essentials concentrated in the question of whether they really represent an original Eskimo inland population which has never in the perspicuous past been led out to the coast by the course of developments. The answer can only be given after a careful analysis of the culture.

It is important to begin at once by stating that among all its elements there is not one which occurs exclusively among the Caribou Eskimos. Thus there is no reason to believe that any of them might be due to a special adaptation to the geographical surroundings of this group. If they are geographically conditioned, it must at any rate be for a wider circle. We must therefore first of all examine their distribution among the Eskimos as a whole, but restricting ourselves to the material culture. That the Chukchi and Koryak are drawn into the investigation owing to the almost wholly Eskimo culture of their coast groups is only natural, as it is the culture and not the language which in this case draws the boundaries.

The most important literary sources are given in the tables. When there is more than one from West Greenland I have, however, out of considerations of space, taken the liberty of only citing my work on the Ethnography of the Egedesminde District, where additional references will be easily found.^[47] As the description of the Greenland implement types for the most part is based upon the material in the CNM, it has not been necessary to refer separately to this.^[48] On the other hand, reference has regularly been made to typical examples from at least the Central Eskimo regions in the museum. Material from ​foreign museums has been principally, but not exclusively, cited, when typical material was not at hand either in CNM or the literature.

Snow house and shelter. The distribution of the snow house is shown in Table A 1. From this it appears, as Steensby has also previously pointed out,^[49] that this form of dwelling is so to say only missing in those places where a milder climate makes it unpractical or — in those cases where there is also a permanent earth lodge — where the extent of the winter ice is so slight that a special dwelling while on journeys is superfluous. Out towards the periphery of the Eskimo region the snow house is abandoned almost gradually. At Mackenzie River and in northern Alaska it has almost quite disappeared and has partly been replaced by square snow shelters, but its reappearance among a single Koryak tribe, the Kerek, indicates that it has formerly been known to the Siberian Eskimos, the Chukchi and the other Koryak as well. In southern Alaska, on the southern part of the Altlantic coast of Labrador, and in southern Greenland. the climate makes a barrier to its diffusion. In West Greenland — and the same thing applies I believe to southern Alaska — the settlements are furthermore so close together and the journeys in winter are so short, that special dwellings on journeys are almost superfluous. Several finds of snow knives as far south as the Arctic Circle, however, show that the snow house has formerly been in use in West Greenland, and it is said that a few hunters there are still able to build primitive snow houses if overtaken by darkness or storm.

The wide distribution might in itself indicate that the snow house is an old element of Eskimo culture. But as on the other hand it is quite special climatic or cultural conditions which bring about the limitation of its diffusion, we must, in order to be able to give a definite answer, first see whether this corresponds to the results obtainable by other means. It may then be stated at once that the snow house was known so far back as the period of the Thule Culture.^[50] To proceed further we must first separately consider the elements which altogether form this type of dwelling: the use of snow as a material, the dome shape, the window, the platform and the doorway.

The snow conditions the regularly built-up dome which forms the snow house proper; but the same material is also used for another form of dwelling which is mentioned from the Colville Eskimos, the Malemiut, and the Kerek. This consists of a domed foundation of ​branches, presumably bent willows, which is covered with skin like a tent, and over this is laid a covering of snow. It does not appear from the description, but Professor Bogoras has personally informed me that the Kerek cut regular snow blocks. It is a type which requires very much less technical skill to build than the usual snow house, and this alone argues that it is the elder of the two. The circumstance that the presence of a foundation throws a bridge between the snow house proper and other dwellings, in casu the dome-shaped tent, also points in this direction. That this primitive form has survived in Alaska and Northeast Asia is naturally a consequence of the fact that the necessary willows were easily accessible; but this alone is not sufficient explanation, as for instance the Caribou Eskimos have quite the same opportunity of procuring the material. It is more probable that one of the main reasons of its retention in the western regions is that these regions, from the point of view of snow house technique, lie very remotely, or in other words, that the snow house has come to Alaska from the east. And in fact it would be most natural that such a pronouncedly Arctic form of dwelling had originated in the extreme, woodless region by the Northwest Passage.

The snow house with an inside foundation is, as already stated, of particular interest in that it stands midway between the snow house proper and the simple domed tent and thus marks the former as a specialised form of the latter. Murdoch has earlier en passant indicated a development of a tent,^[51] and Steensby, who otherwise does not seem to have known the primitive snow house, directly names the domed tent as the original form.^[52] As Table A 3 shows. dome-shaped tents without a snow covering occur in the Mackenzie area, on the American side of the Bering Strait, and among the Pacific Eskimos. We can thus follow the domed house all the way round in the Western Eskimo region and, in a specialised form, as a genuine snow house, onwards right to Greenland. The question is now whether anything can be decided as to the age of the dome-shape in comparison with other forms of Eskimo dwellings.

A great deal has been written about these from time to time and with a discouraging result, in so far as nearly every author has come to a new conclusion. Sarfert, whose theories of autochtonous develop​ment as a result of local, geographical environment have been referred to earlier in this work, arranges them in a smooth line of development, of which the starting point is the rectangular house in Alaska which, through the wood being replaced with whale bones. further to the east, becomes round in form, whereas in Greenland it has been possible to retain it on account of the comparatively easy access to driftwood.^[53]

Mathiassen has recently turned to a similar supposition regarding genetic connection between square and round houses. He considers the form to be solely the result of different materials, wood and whale bones, but does not venture to say which is the elder; he seems, however, to be most inclined to regard the rectangular wood house as the original form.^[54] This view, like that of Sarfert, rests upon the argument that a round wooden house and a square whale bone house are self-contradictory. This, however, will not bear closer criticism and is obviously due to the fact that no attention has been paid to the house-forms of the neighbouring peoples. Among them are types which in some cases are so closely related to those of the Eskimos that a genetic connection with them is obvious.^[55] What is wanted is not to theorise a local development which possibly may have taken place, but to find that which has actually taken place, and this is not done by surrounding a culture with fences.

Steensby had his attention turned towards more southerly forms of dwellings in North America when, in his earlier work on the origin of Eskimo culture, he sought to show that the house of the Mackenzie Eskimos was the same as the earth lodge of the Missouri tribes "with purely insignificant changes".^[56] Here the defect in the method lay in the fact that attention was solely paid to American conditions.

When dealing with Siberian house forms both L. von Schrenck and Jochelson have advanced the idea that they stood in genetic connection with the Eskimo houses which, however, were dealt with as a group without any attempt to differentiate between the various types.^[57] A differentiation is, however, indispensable. This was first acknowledged by Thalbitzer, who also refers to the possibility of Asiatic influence. Besides the round and the rectangular type, he also reckons with a "cross or pear shaped" house which is represented by the Mackenzie and Cape York house, and this he compares with the Siberian "earth-tent".^[58]

​In his later work Steensby,^[59] in conformity with the whole of its construction, seeks for both Asiatic and American sources and with this is obviously on the right path — i. e. from a methodological point of view, whereas the results scarcely hold good. The theory of the connection of the Mackenzie house with the Missouri earth lodge is abandoned and, instead, it is connected with the earth house of the Gilyak. The Mackenzie house then gave rise to the development of the rectangular houses both in Alaska and in Greenland. The round buildings, both snow house and whale bone house, are on the other hand traced back to the tent. This brings us to the proving of a stratification of the culture which is one of the greatest merits of Steensby's work. In accordance with his view of cultural development among the Eskimos as a whole, he regards the round form as being the original one, the rectangular houses as having immigrated later.

Finally, in contrast to this, König^[60] has maintained that the round. houses have a pronouncedly central diffusion as compared with the marginal spread of the rectangular ones, which he considers indicates that the latter were the oldest.

I have purposely refrained from commenting upon all these widely different hypotheses as to culture borrowings and age succession, in order that they might be dealt with together. It will be seen that the Mackenzie house has played a certain part in the discussion. The characteristic feature of this house is that three niches with platforms are grouped round a common centre room from which the entrancepassage runs. In order to explain this remarkable deviation from the ordinary, square house as used by the Gilyak, Steensby refers to the cold, out of regard to which the surplus space between the platforms is filled in. This explanation is impossible, however; for a house can be made warmer by making it smaller, but not by creating bigger wall-areas and cold corners. In this case it seems to be much more reasonable to regard the Mackenzie house as having originated through building together three smaller, rectangular houses of the Point Barrow type in the same manner as the Eskimos further to the east often build their snow houses together. This view is shared by Mathiassen^[61] and is confirmed by the fact that in northern Alaska there are also houses which obviously have come about by building two together.^[62]

Thalbitzer's comparison of the Mackenzie house with the dwell​ing of the Polar Eskimos is based upon a superficial resemblance in the ground-plan and extends neither to the technique used in building nor to the utilisation and arrangement of the inside space. I quite agree with Mathiassen in regarding the Cape York type as another local variant of the dwelling, in this case of the whale bone house.^[63]

There remain only the round type and the rectangular house. Both Steensby and König regard the rectangular houses in Alaska and in Greenland as being related and, to a certain degree, build their hypotheses upon this view. But is it correct? Having regard to the fact that not one single ruin of a rectangular house has ever been found in the Central regions, it seems very improbable.^[64] A. E. Nordenskiöld has already mentioned the possibility that the rectangular houses in Greenland originated from Norse influence, as I myself have indicated later.^[65] Let this be as it may; so much is obvious, that if the rectangular houses in the east and west are not correlative, the foundation of König's relative dating falls away.

On the other hand, Steensby's hypothesis has not come out of the debate so unscathed that its correctness with regard to the ages may be assumed without further examination. The fact that the link with the rectangular house is sought in Asia is, as we have seen, due to an erroneous view of the Mackenzie house, and, in simultaneously rejecting the possibility of a connection with the house types of the Northwest Indians, he is acting on a basis that is altogether insufficiently well-founded. A priori there is at least as much reason for assuming Northwest Indian influence as Gilyak influence. The tribes about the Lower Amur have in many respects a fairly high culture; but, in order to understand it, one must reckon with the nearness of China; in other respects, on the other hand, they are remarkable for a retention of old-fashioned elements, which does not indicate any particularly expansive culture. The North Pacific coast of America. with its mild climate, its splendid timbers and its immense wealth of fish, is, on the other hand, predestinated by nature to become an early culture centre and it will doubtless be found in the future that this fact has played an essential part, not only in developments in northwestern America but also in parts of northeastern Asia.

The rectangular houses among the Western Eskimos are in direct geographical connection with the rectangular houses which extend right from Alaska southwards to northern California. All these dwellings are, like the Eskimo dwellings, partly dug down into the ground ​and inside are furnished with platforms.^[66] With regard to construction there is, it is true, a great difference between the Eskimo type which we find in its most primitive form at Point Barrow, and the big plank buildings of the nearest Indian peoples, the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian; but from central Washington southwards we find smaller wooden houses which, with their vertical wall-boards and lack of interior timbering, are surprisingly like the Point Barrow type.^[67] The principal difference between them is that the Indian forms have no entrance passageway; this, however, conforms with the fact (to which we shall presently revert) that the entrance passage in the Alaskan house has apparently been taken from earlier types for practical reasons. Just this divided diffusion of the simple, rectangular houses, interrupted partly by the peculiar "shedlike" type at Puget Sound and Juan de Fuca Strait, which are perhaps connected with the advance of the Salish to the coast, and partly by the more developed forms among the three principal peoples, the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian, argue an inner connection which points in the direction of the North Pacific coast as the home of the rectangular house of the Western Eskimos, as it has been for many of their other culture elements (their rich wood-carving, the grotesque masks, the potlatch feasts, slavery, the raven myths, head trophies, the finer development of basket work etc. etc.).

Under these circumstances it can hardly be doubted that the round type of dwelling is the oldest among the Eskimos and this is fully confirmed when we now turn to examine its distribution. Among the Eskimos it has two types, the dome shaped house proper, such as the snow house and its predecessor the dome shaped tent, and the category of earth lodges that is signified by the whale bone house. It is true that the latter also has the dome shape; but at any rate those examined by Mathiassen on the Fifth Thule Expedition and those described by Nelson from the Asiatic side of the Bering Strait have at the bottom a separate wall of stones and whale skulls, on which the roof frame of whale ribs and jaws is erected. Despite the arch which the roof thus naturally assumes, this type of dwelling must rather be described as a conical-roof lodge. That the simple dome form is the elder of the two subtypes would, from a technological point of view, at any rate for the present seem to be so sufficiently probable that we will first examine the distribution of the conical-roof lodge.

As regards California, Fritz Krause has been able to show that the rectangular house has made its way in from the north in com​paratively recent times and that not only this, but the simple conical bark tent too, is younger than the earth lodges with conical roof.^[68] In the state in question the latter have their proper centre in the Sacramento Valley, being as a rule furnished with a roof entrance when they serve as dwellings, but having an entrance passage in their capacity of ceremonial houses. North of San Francisco Bay the round house with entrance passage is only known as a dwelling from the Miwok, corresponding to the fact that the roof entrance seems principally to belong to the eastern and northeastern part of the region. The whole of the coast stretch north of central California is occupied by rectangular houses; some passages in legends from the Quinault, Bella Coola and Tsimshian may, however, indicate that the earth lodge with roof entrance has once been known,^[69] and further archæological research will possibly reveal ruins of this type.

Coming from the coast to the interior plateaux, we have an uninterrupted series of pit dwellings from the Carriers in British Columbia in the north until, in the south, it comes into direct connection with the just mentioned Californian region.^[70] It is true that the typical earth lodges on the plateaux have not a separate wall between the ground and the roof, but the whole of their construction with the four middle posts shows that they must nevertheless be regarded as being closely related to the conical-roof lodge, presumably changed by the pit being made especially deep. These plateau houses have their entrance through the roof. In recent years ruins of pit houses have been found in Utah.^[71] On the northeast shore of Great Salt Lake were found traces of round houses with four posts, which have been compared with the well-known "earth tent", hogan, of the Navaho, and from the vicinity of Kanab and Paragonah mention has been made of buildings similar to the round ceremonial chambers, or kiva, of the Pueblo tribes; the latter have a roof entrance. These finds are of the greatest interest because they indicate the connection between the pit dwellings on the North Pacific and the southwestern plateaux.

The oldest known culture on these plateaux is ascribed to the socalled "Basket Makers", whose dwellings are not known with certainty, but two of those authors who know this region best presume that they have been caves or pit dwellings.^[72] Round pit dwellings are at any rate characteristic of the younger "Slab House Culture" in the ​San Juan drainage,^[73] and this type has, as a ceremonial chamber, kiva, gone over into the modern Pueblo culture. The round kiva does not extend further south than to the watershed between Little Colorado and Gila-Salado Rivers and has apparently, as Fewkes thinks, made its way in from the north.^[74] The kiva has its entrance through the roof; in most recent times, however, some have been found in the northwest of New Mexico which have doubtless had their entrance through a passage.^[75] In the most southerly part of California there is a small area, likewise characterised by pit dwellings, some with roof entrance and others with passage ways; as for instance finds of pottery show, it is closely connected with the southwesterly plateaux, but is separated from the earth lodge region of North California by a stretch which is quite devoid of traces of earth lodges and pottery.^[76]

If we now proceed over the Pacific mountains we again meet with the conical-roof pit dwelling in the form of the Missouri earth lodge. It always has an entrance passage. Its centre is among the agricultural Caddoan and Siouan tribes, some of which, however, on the outskirts of the area (Osage, Skidi) did not adopt it until later, in fact until quite modern times.^[77] There is also some indication that still more remote tribes (Atsina, Cheyenne) may have known a kind of earth lodge;^[78] but whether this has had the same form as at Missouri cannot be stated. And it will only be through renewed investigations that the question will be made clear as to how we are to regard the sites of earth-lodges in eastern Nebraska found by Sterns;^[79] with their square pits and their presumed roof entrance they are quite exceptions to the rule in these regions. Earth lodges were also known east of the Mississippi. As Adair describes the winter dwelling or "hot-house", presumably from the Chickasaw, it has with the excavated floor, conical roof-form and entrance passage all the principal indications of the Missouri earth lodges.^[80] Furthermore, sunk and more or less earth covered conical-roof lodges have apparently been widely diffused in the southeast of North America, though presumably without entrance passage (Creek, Cheroki); these, together with rectangular houses, were even found in ​Florida at the mouth of St. Johns River.^[81] How the southeastern conically roofed houses are to be regarded in relation to the Missouri earth lodge is a problem that must be solved by the future.^[82] Here, where we merely have to determine the age of the round type in relation to the northwestern plank house, it is superfluous to go further on in this direction.

On the other hand we must now look towards Asia, principally of course to the northeast. Mathiassen has recorded finds of whale bone houses of the usual type, known from the Eskimos, within the area of the Asiatic Eskimos and the Chukchi; along the north coast of Siberia they extend right to the mouth of the Kolyma.^[83] The Yukagir, who live to the west of this, also had semi-subterranean earth lodges, although we have nothing to show their construction.^[84] I may also mention the large common houses of the Aleut, with roof entrances, which are apparently a local alteration of the usual type, obviously arising out of the building together of several small houses. The entrance passage was also known, however, and Dall believes he has archæologically proved that the roof entrance is a later feature.^[85] The winter dwelling of the Coast Koryak is an earth lodge with entrance through the roof; the construction is of wood, as in the very similar buildings on the plateaux of British Columbia; Jochelson, however, has drawn attention to the fact that the term used by the nomads for the dwelling of the coast people indicates that whale bones have formerly been used.^[86] In summer the entrance to the house is not through the roof but through a passageway. A similar type of house is met with among the Kamchadal^[87] and Kuril;^[88] among the former, however, the entrance passage was mostly only a ventilator channel which only the children used as an entrance, and it is doubtful whether the roof entrance was known to the Kuril at all.

The earth lodge of the Gilyak has an entrance passage, but differs from the more northerly forms in that there are hardly any real ​walls except the sides of the pit, which are, it is true, lined with boards; furthermore, the ground plan is almost quadratic, thus giving the roof a pyramid shape.^[89] The Sakhalin Ainu also have square earth lodges^[90] and it has previously been mentioned that a kind of rectangular pit-dwelling is to be met with among the lowest Japanese population to this day,^[91] and they are also known from Korea.^[92] There are, however, numerous sites of not only square but also of round earth lodges on Yezo, Honshu and Kyushu,^[93] and it will be an important task for Japanese archæology to make clear the difference of age between these two forms. On the mainland, there are ruins of earth lodges not only in the Gilyak and Gold areas at Amur^[94] but also in eastern Mongolia,^[95] and, according to an old Chinese record. the Manchu originally lived in "subterranean" dwellings.^[96]

From East Asia earth covered houses can be traced westwards across large parts of Siberia. The more settled Tungus and Buryat use, or have used, them^[97] and a medieval Russian source tells of the land of Baid, presumably the Altai Mountains, where people lived under the ground.^[98] It is only in more recent times that the Samoyed, Ostyak and Vogul have wholly or partly abandoned their semi-subterranean earth lodges.^[99] All these, however, like the sod-lodges of the Forest Lapps, seem to conform to those of the Gilyak in having a pyramid-shaped roof, and their relation to the conical-roof form will not be discussed here. The same applies to the origin of the earth lodge of the Coast Lapps; the fact that its roof in recent times had the same construction as the frame of the tent of the Mountain Lapps is possibly due to a secondary development, for, as Konrad Nielsen rightly points out, the nomad life of the Mountain Lapps represents a more advanced culture than the fisher life of the Coast Lapps.^[100]

​Without going into prehistoric conditions in Europe, it may in this connection be mentioned that round, semi-subterranean earth lodges have been widespread in this part of the world too. As is in itself natural, we know them not only from the northern and eastern parts, where sites have been found in Scandinavia, Finland and Central Russia,^[101] whence the Arabian author Ibn Dasta (prior to 913 A. D.) mentions earth lodges among the neighbours of the Bulgars, presumably the ancestors of the present-day Cheremiss,^[102] but they are also known from Spain, Italy and the Rhine districts and, at any rate in the latter cases, they were genuine conical-roof houses.^[103]

This hasty summary of the Eurasian earth lodges does not go deep enough to permit of any conclusions regarding the relationship between the type with the conical roof and that with the pyramidal roof, although it would be tempting to call the latter the younger.^[104] For the present problem it is only necessary to reckon with the East Asiatic and North American forms, and the answer to the question of their age in relation to the plank house of the Northwest Indians (and with this that of the Western Eskimos too) does not seem to be in doubt.

To briefly recapitulate the distribution, we have the square house in its most highly developed stage among the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian, whilst more simple forms of it are found both to the north and south of them. Round houses with a roof entrance are again found on both sides of the plank house: on the one hand among the Aleut (in an altered form), Koryak and Kamchadal, on the other hand the Pacific plateaux and parts of California. Earth lodges with an entrance passage remain still further out in the periphery; in East Asia they are only found among the Kuril and Gilyak, on the westerly North American plateaux and in California in the most southwesterly regions, but, very significantly, in such a form that the entrance passage is generally retained in the ceremonial houses, even if the ordinary dwellings have a roof entrance. East of the Rocky Mountains the passage type is, on the other hand, prevalent in the Missouri valley. On this basis it seems justifiable to set ​up the chronological order thus: the earth lodge with the entrance passage is the oldest, then comes the earth lodge with entrance through the roof, and youngest is the square plank house. For the sake of completeness it may be added that somewhere in this series, probably just before the plank house, the conical tent must be inserted. The position is, however, made obscure by the fact that this, in contrast to the other dwellings, is especially connected with a wandering life and therefore under certain circumstances has been able to spread particularly far afield, whereas it is doubtful whether it has ever gained a real footing among the fishermen on the North Pacific coast.

We have thus at last come to the conclusion that the round form of house is the original one among the Eskimos, and will now continue with the details of the building of the snow house. The distribution of the window is shown in Table A 2. It occurs everywhere, but in two forms, either of ice or of skin, usually gut skin. The latter belongs partly farthest to the west, partly farthest to the east at the same places as the permanent winter houses of earth and wood. Only among the Colville Eskimos, on Baffin Land and among the Iglulingmiut (but not among the Aivilingmiut) does the skin window appear together with the snow house, which apparently has something to do with the fact that there the snow house is covered with skin on the inside. And yet the Iglulingmiut sometimes use ice windows too, and on the whole it is clear that these and snow houses are closely related to each other. This is not saying, however, that the window is just as old as the snow house. As long as a snow house is comparatively new a window is superfluous, as sufficient light penetrates the walls to enable one to sew and, in fact, to read by it. The question of the window must for the present remain open, because for one reason its diffusion outside the Eskimo region does not give any definite answer. It is not otherwise found in North America.^[105] In Siberia the Yakut and Ostyak have windows of ice and fish-skin; but these people are among the most advanced in North Asia and have also been in contact with still higher forms of culture.

Among the Eskimos the platform is closely connected to the winter dwelling. It is only occasionally found in tents, in which case it is nearly always in tents early in spring or late in autumn, but not in summertime proper (apart from the Angmagssalingmiut). It also seems to be connected with another characteristic feature of the Eskimo winter dwelling, i. e. the sinking of the floor below the surface of the ground, whether the floor is of earth or snow. Even if ​the sinking of the floor does not actually make the platform necessary, the ice-cold air which collects near the floor would at any rate make it a comfort. The platform is found everywhere among the Eskimos except on the west coast of Alaska and, as far as can be judged, on the Pacific coast and the Aleutians; it does, however, occur so far south as Norton Sound and Lower Yukon.^[106] Otherwise the sleeping place in these regions is divided by beams from the remainder of the floor. On Kodiak the same was the case in the small chambers which opened into the common room where the fire-place was,^[107] and the Aleutian house was arranged in the same manner, except that there was no fire-place.^[108] On the other hand the platform is found in the earth lodges of the Asiatic Eskimos,^[109] the Chukchi^[110] and Koryak.^[111] This diffusion marks the platform as a common element in Eskimo culture. Its absence in South Alaska is one of the many features which mark the special position of this region, to which we shall revert later.

The entrance passage is also an element which occurs everywhere and, as already shown, is older than the entrance through the roof. The fact that it is most frequently missing on snow houses built on journeys is merely a consequence of the saving of time and, if the house is used for any lengthy period, as in case of bad weather, it will be provided with a makeshift passage in the course of a day or so.^[112] There is no correlation between entrance passage and lamp on the one hand and roof entrance and fire on the other: the Caribou Eskimos and the population of South Alaska burn fires, but have entrance passages, whilst the Aleut use lamps and have their entrance through the roof.

If we now finally summarise the results of our examination of the snow house it may presumably be definitely stated: it is diffused everywhere among the Eskimos where climate or special cultural conditions do not apply, and it occurs in its most primitive form in Alaska, which indicates that it belongs to the east, presumably in the woodless, central region. The dome shape, the platform and the entrance passage are each commonly diffused elements and — but per​haps with the exception of the platform — obviously very old in Eskimo culture. On the other hand the construction without a supporting skeleton (and the window?) may be regarded as being younger, so that all in all the snow house may be described as a highly developed dwelling, appearing on the basis of very old elements.

Mathiassen considers the temporary shelters as being characteristic of the modern culture in the Central regions, because they are "superfluous for Eskimos who have permanent winter houses into which they can move in the fall".^[113] The correctness of this depends. upon how one takes the word shelter, the [qᴀrmᴀq] of the Eskimos. If by this is to be understood dwellings of fairly regularly built stone walls and skin roof, no objection can be taken to the statement quoted; but if one follows the meaning which the Eskimos themselves place. in the word, the matter assumes another aspect (Table A 4). There is use for simply built shelters for caribou hunters etc., even if there are permanent winter houses, as we see both on Southampton Island and in Greenland. Shelters of snow walls have a distribution corresponding to that of the snow house, and in Alaska they are sometimes built of wood. As quite a temporary dwelling the shelter is obviously a common Eskimo element of culture, even though information regarding it is lacking in some places, and it is so closely connected with hunting that it undoubtedly is of very great age.

Platform furniture. It is a common practice everywhere that the Eskimos spread hay or twigs over the platform in order to make a soft bed. It is probably this custom which has led to the development of the platform mats which are particularly connected with the snow house and which must not be confused with the actually plaited straw mats used in South Alaska, apparently with the mats of the North Pacific coast as a pattern. The object of the snow house mat is to prevent the heat from melting the surface of the platform so much that the skin rugs freeze to it. As this rarely happens in the course of one night, the mat is mostly used when the snow house is lived in for a long time at a stretch. Its distribution is shown in Table A 5; that it has hitherto not been known from the western tribes is probably connected with the infrequent use of the snow house among them. On the other hand a similar form is used by the Chukchi.

The platform mat has two forms, either of baleen strips or of bundled twigs. The former is characteristic of the Thule Culture and its whaling,^[114] whilst the latter is used by the present-day Central tribes. In so far the baleen type might be taken to be the oldest; but ​on the other hand the mat of bundled twigs seems to be more simple as it does not require any particular knowledge (in casu of whaling) and may merely be regarded as the common, loose platform covering of branches, tied together because in winter it is almost impossible to procure new ones. In the following we will repeatedly come across the remarkable circumstance that, when the same element occurs in two forms, of which one belongs to the Thule Culture and the other the culture of the present-day Central tribes, the latter will very often be the most simple and sometimes actually the oldest. That this holds good in this instance too is confirmed by the occurrence of the mat of branches far to the west among the Chukchi.

Regarding the distribution of platform skin and sleeping rugs there is nothing to say other than that they are of course used everywhere, except where European bed clothing has now been adopted. Only in the south of Alaska are the skins substituted by the plaited mats just referred to.

The "urine scraper" is an implement that is not referred to in the earlier literature. Apart from the Caribou Eskimos, it is known to the Iglulik and Netsilik groups and was also known to the now extinct inhabitants of Southampton Island.^[115] It is always made of a caribou scapula, and some scrapers of this material from the Thule Culture are large enough to have been used as "urine scrapers".^[116] It is probable that they represent a special element of Central culture.

Bags and containers for food, water, etc. The various large and small skin bags which the Caribou Eskimos use for preserving may, according to kind, be summarised under three different categories: (1) Seamless bags made of a whole-flayed animal skin (to which presumably are related bags of musk-ox and bearded seal stomach, which, however, I have never seen from these tribes); (2) bags sewn together at the edge; and (3) bags of split birds' feet, usually conical in shape, more rarely flat, in which case they resemble (2). Bags of sewn-up bird's heads presumably also come under (3); I have not seen any of these, however, and therefore can say nothing about the technique. At any rate this applies to certain bags of fish skin in so far as these are known to the Caribou Eskimos (see pt. I p. 196).

Seamless bags (cf. Table A 6), which are mostly used for blubber but for many other purposes too, apparently are generally diffused over the whole of the Eskimo region.

Something similar seems to apply to the edge-sewn bags (cf. Table A 7), even though proof of their presence is lacking as regards ​some districts. In Alaska they have presumably been displaced by the bag of strips of gut skin.

There is every reason to believe that bags of birds' feet (cf. Table A 8) are also a commonly diffused Eskimo type. Their use in all groups cannot be proved, but it must be remembered that swans' feet, owing to their size, are most suitable as material, and nowhere is the swan a very common bird.

The rectangular, trough-shaped wooden trays are common from Greenland to the Pacific (cf. Table A 9). They do not seem to have been used by the people on Southampton Island nor are they used by the Polar Eskimos; this, however, may simply be the result of lack of wood. The latter use instead the shoulder blade of a walrus. At Angmagssalik oval trays are used. It is possible that the perishable material is the cause of its not being known from the Thule Culture either.

Table A 10 shows the distribution of round wooden bowls or dishes. Here, too, we have a generally diffused element and in this case there are finds which prove the presence of the type in the Thule Culture.^[117]

The water pail among the Eskimos is either (1) of skin, or (2) of wood with an edge of baleen or bent wood, or finally (3) of cooperage which, however, only occurs in Greenland and is undoubtedly to be credited to early European influence.^[118] Mathiassen has dealt with the diffusion of type (2), which he shows all the way between East Greenland and the Bering Strait;^[119] to this may be added the Pacific Eskimos,^[120] the Aleut,^[121] Chukchi^[122] and Koryak.^[123] The skin vessel is, as Table A 11 shows, just as widely spread and even in places where there is easy access to wood, such as in Labrador and among the Koryak. Possibly it is a type which has come from regions where wood was scarce. It is reasonable to suppose that it is older than the tub of wood or baleen, which requires whaling, or at any rate no small technical skill in making a sufficiently thin lath of wood. The manner in which the wood or baleen edging is sewn together also undoubtedly points in the direction of a prototype of skin.

In the Descriptive Part it has been mentioned that the Caribou Eskimos have probably known water bottles of skin for travelling use This element is not often referred to in the literature. (Table A 12); but what there is gives evidence of a sporadic diffusion over the whole ​region. It would therefore seem likely that in reality it occurs or has occurred everywhere, at any rate where sledge journeys are made (for the ice-shoeing on the runners and because one often suffers from thirst on sledge journeys).

The large urine tubs are well-known from the eastern and western border regions of the Eskimo territory, where urine tanning is practised. Besides the tubs, however, another form of night-pot is known, for as the Eskimos sleep naked, it is not entirely a pleasant matter to have to get out of bed in a snow house. These small urine vessels are hardly mentioned in the literature and now I should think they have everywhere been displaced by empty meat cans. In this form I know them from the Polar, Iglulik, Caribou and Netsilik Eskimos. Occasionally we find them mentioned from Point Barrow.^[124] Among the Chukchi and Koryak they have a special purpose among the nomads, who use urine for attracting the reindeer.^[125] On account of this very defective information nothing can be said definitely about their distribution.

Implements for serving food and drink. The meat fork is known from the Thule Culture.^[126] It is remarkable that it is not mentioned from the Western Eskimos in modern times (cf. Table A 13); its occurrence in archæological finds from the Mackenzie area and the Bering Strait shows, however, that too much weight must not be attached to this circumstance. In almost all cases the meat fork is a slightly curved, rather pointed stick. The pronged form: among the Chukchi and the hook among the Caribou Eskimos seem to be purely local inventions.^[127] Otherwise the meat fork is apparently a commonly used and old element of the culture.

The marrow extractor also goes back to the time of the Thule Culture^[128] and is a widely spread implement among the Eskimos (cf. Table A 14).

It appears from Table A 15 that dippers and ladles occur among all Eskimos, but in various forms. Both in the western and eastern areas the bowl is as a rule oval and has a rather long handle; it is true that more angular bowls are met with in Greenland, but still these are of a type which very closely resembles the oval one. The dippers in the finds from the Thule Culture are also like this.^[129] In contrast are the modern broad and angular ladles with a very short ​handle which are used by the Central Eskimos nowadays; there the form seems to be adapted to the shape of the root of the musk-ox horn which serves as material. Mathiassen, no doubt justly, regards the Central Eskimo ladle as a local and late variant.

The water dipper is also found everywhere (cf. Table A 15). In the Central and eastern areas it is as a rule of skin, more rarely of baleen or wood, made in the same manner as the water pails and, as in that case, the skin type must be regarded as being the oldest of the two. The western tribes often make their water dippers of wood, fossil ivory or horn, in forms which can only with difficulty be distinguished from the ladle. It would thus seem that in this we have the oldest type which, in the more easterly areas, had divided into two, each suited to its own purpose, viz. the soup ladle and the water dipper. This can hardly be the case, however. A specialisation like that indicated would certainly have transformed the original type, but there would have been no reason for changing materials, as in the central and eastern areas there are respectively sufficient horn and wood available. Furthermore, in Alaska there are also real dippers with edges made of a thin slab of wood that is continued in the handle.^[130] The skin and the horn or wood dipper are rather two types independent of each other, the former presumably being just as old as the skin pail, whereas the latter has the same root as the oval ladle of horn or wood.

Ordinary spoons seem evenly distributed over the whole of the Eskimo region (cf. Table A 16). On the other hand it is clear that they are not always original forms, for instance in Labrador and among the Chukchi. The spoon of unworked mussel shell is particularly primitive. Bogoras maintains that the spoon was originally lacking among the Chukchi, but there is reason for regarding this as having been caused by a later culture loss; A. E. Nordenskiöld found a spoon of antler in the ruins at Irkaipii,^[131] and the Koryak have spoons which in no way give the impression of being particularly Europeanized. Finds from ancient times in Greenland and the Central regions^[132] furthermore show that the spoon must be looked upon as an original element in Eskimo culture.

Attention was drawn in the Descriptive Part to the circumstance that the occurrence of the fish spoon among the Caribou Eskimos is rather problematic and that at any rate it is possible that it is only known to the coast population. Its diffusion among the Eskimos is shown on Table A 17, from which it appears that extremely little is ​known of this implement, but on the other hand it extends over the whole region from the Chukchi to East Greenland. The fish spoon. has not been found from the Thule Culture period, but there are certain circumstances which indicate that it really belongs there and that, among the Caribou Eskimos (the coast group) as well as among the Netsilik tribes, it represents an inheritance from it. For the fact is that in many ways the Thule Culture reveals a connection with North Asia and, to some extent, the North Pacific coast of America. The only spoons in North America which somewhat resemble the fish spoons of the Eskimos are found just on this coast in the form of the flat berry spons of the Northwest Indians; real fish spoons, however, are met with in the Old World among tribes such as the Gilyak,^[133] Yakut^[134] and Lapps.^[135]

The sucking tube is a generally diffused culture element (cf. Table A 18). From the big Thule find at Naujan Mathiassen mentions a cut piece of goose bone which is probably a sucking tube,^[136] whereas the present-day Iglulik Eskimos always use a caribou bone. It is very doubtful, however, whether any weight may be attached to this slight difference.

Striking and thrusting weapons. The only striking weapon known to the Caribou Eskimos is the sling. It does not seem as if they ever use the simple clubs which otherwise are in common use among Eskimos. The sling is apparently a generally diffused and old element in Eskimo culture (cf. Table A 19), even if it is now in most places reduced to a plaything. The few and scattered places where there are no records of them are presumably merely a result of defective investigation.

Eskimo culture knows two kinds of bows, one of baleen, usually in two superimposed pieces, the other of wood, antler or musk-ox horn with a backing of sinew-cord.^[137] Murdoch has made the latter type the subject of a comparative investigation which I have since attempted to carry on as regards the eastern forms, so that the following sub-types can be set up according to the nature of the backing: primary and secondary eastern, primary and secondary arctic, south​western and Asiatic.^[138] As Table A 20 shows, these kinds of backing may in various ways be combined with bow staves of different materials and forms.

Wood is apparently always preferred as a material when it can be procured. Wooden bows are known even from places so poor in wood as Southampton Island and Iglulik. This preference for wood conforms to the fact that, according to Mathiassen's archæological investigations, it seems to be the original material, whereas bows of antler and horn are a later, Central form.^[139] The double curve of the stave is particularly pronounced as regards the antler bows, although single curved staves of the same material are not rare. That the double curve is the later of the two can scarcely be doubted. Wooden bows with reflex wings occur among the Western and Copper Eskimos, then disappear over a long stretch but appear again in Labrador and Greenland; like the baleen bows, they may be taken to be a type belonging to the Thule Culture, pointing over the Bering Strait towards Asia. The bows of southern Alaska, with the round grip and the flat, elliptical wings, are clearly influenced from the North Pacific coast.

Among all these forms the bow of the Caribou Eskimos occupies a primitive place. The stave is of wood except in one case, and this particular bow is, significantly enough, made of two pieces in quite another manner to the typical antler bows of the Iglulik group and the Northwest Passage. The curve is always simple and the backing is of a primitive, eastern type, although not in the latter's most simple, primary form. In one respect the above antler bow differs from everything otherwise known from the Eskimos, the stave being pierced for the string instead of having notches. On the whole I only know of this manner of fastening the string from two other places in America, widely separated both from the Eskimos and from each other: the Mid-Atlantic coast of North America, whence it is mentioned by Purchas,^[140] and the area round the Lower Amazon in South America.^[141]

The arrow heads (Table A 21) had, I was told, conical tangs, which must be regarded as being older than the oblique scarf-face with which the arrow heads of the Central tribes are now usually ended.^[142] In the previous chapter it was said that barbed arrow heads apparently do not belong to the original culture of the Caribou Eskimos. On the ​other hand they are characteristic of the Thule Culture, especially its older and more westerly phase, and Mathiassen has sought to show a development leading from the barbed head over to the most simple, lanceolate head now used mostly by the Central tribes.^[143] We must not forget, however, that the occurrence of intermediate forms does not in itself justify the setting up of any development sequence. Lanceolate arrow heads of bone occur among other tribes in the circumpolar region, under such circumstances that a connection with those of the Eskimos cannot in advance be rejected. We must reckon with the possibility that the lanceolate bone head is a form independent of the other.

The real form of feathering among the Caribou Eskimos seems to be two tangential feathers. Three radial feathers seem, as previously shown, to be a foreign element and, if four feathers have ever been used — as I was told — it must presumably be a purely local type only known to them and the Netsilik Eskimos.^[144] From Table A 22 it will be seen that the common forms of feathering are either two tangential, two radial, sometimes slightly spiral, or three radial feathers. Of these the first is in all probability the oldest; it occurs over the whole of the region, being prevalent everywhere east of Hudson Bay, whereas in the more westerly areas it seems to have been thrust into the background by the three-feather type. This prevails over the whole of North America except on the southern part of the northwest coast and in the eastern part south of the Great Lakes; here, as among the Eskimos, it doubtless originated from Asia (cf. with this Table B 15). In North America two radial feathers are met with everywhere in the southeastern woodlands; but the decided westerly diffusion of this type among the Eskimos attaches it, as far as they are concerned, rather to the Asiatic occurrence among the Gilyak and Ainu (Table B 15). A complete absence of feathering of Eskimo arrows must be taken to be an outcome of degeneration.

Although information is lacking in many places as to which arrow release is used, we are justified in regarding the so-called Mediterranean release as being generally diffused, as it is always this that is mentioned when there is any record at all (cf. Table A 23). Only among the Chukchi does the secondary, and among the Koryak the primary, release occur as well.

​The quiver occurs everywhere among the Eskimos (cf. Table A 24). Whether it is made of caribou, fish or sealskin is apparently principally dependent upon what material is available; but as a rule sealskin is preferred, as it is most watertight. On the other hand the wooden quiver of the Kodiak Eskimos is quite a foreign element, whose prototype must be sought on the northern coasts of the Pacific, where we find cylindrical quivers for instance among the Kwakiutl^[145] and Nootka^[146] and, in a rather different form, in Asia among the Gilyak,^[147] Kuril^[148] and Ainu.^[149] In most cases the skin quiver consists of two compartments, one for the bow and one for the arrows, often with a tool-bag hanging to it for spare heads, feathers, etc. It will be seen that the quiver of the Caribou Eskimos must be regarded as a commonly used type.

The pointed but only slightly sharp-edged stiletto is, as far as can be seen (Table A 25), restricted to the eastern part of the Eskimo region, it only being known from Greenland and the Central Eskimos. In the Thule Culture there is another thrusting weapon, a narrow, two-edged bone dagger which is connected with the west,^[150] and I presume that it is also connected with the modern long and narrow, two-edged hunting knives of iron used in Greenland. The bone dagger has certainly come from the west, where it was used on the northwest coast before copper and iron daggers.^[151] Bone daggers have been brought to light by archæological investigations in British Columbia.^[152] Seeing that the stiletto has an easterly diffusion, rather sporadic, too — in West Greenland for instance it is hardly used any more except in the area about Cape Farvel, where it has been reintroduced from the east coast in recent times^[153] — it may be taken to be older than the bone dagger. The whole matter is, however, complicated by several circumstances: the early introduction of metal on the northwest coast, which did not happen without leaving traces upon the daggers of the Western Eskimos too; the importation of European dagger blades, adapted to local taste, in which the Hudson's Bay Company has played an important part; finally the uncertainty in archæological determinations, which may very well conceal stilettos under such terms as "large awl", "perforator", etc.

​The lance with a fixed head is generally diffused in Eskimo culture (cf. Table A 26). In most cases it is used in caribou hunting, the lance for aquatic mammals in the east being fitted with a joint between head and shaft. In Greenland, however, it is especially employed for seal hunting. It is also known from the Thule Culture.^[154]

In the table showing the distribution of the bird dart in Eskimo culture (Table A 27) darts are in a few cases shown as being used for other animals. This may be done without hesitation, as even the bird. dart proper is often used against small seals, etc. This is very common. in Labrador^[155] and sometimes happens in Greenland. The trident described by Jenness from the Copper Eskimos — there are similar weapons in the Thule collection, CNM — is used both for fishing and against birds^[156] and its name is identical with that which, at Hudson Bay, is used for the bird dart and of the same root as the term for this in Greenland.

There are two main types of bird darts, one with side prongs halfway along the shaft and as a rule only one point at the fore end, the other without side prongs but two or three points. Of these the latter must be regarded as being the oldest, as it occurs practically speaking everywhere and, as will be referred to later, is connected with similar forms among other peoples, whereas the other is missing in Labrador and the area between Hudson Bay and Mackenzie River and is a particular Eskimo type. The central gap in its diffusion and the circumstance that mixed forms with several points and with side prongs are found to the cast, seem to show that the bird dart with side prongs is an element from the west, connected with the Thule Culture. Thus we again meet the peculiar circumstance that not only do the Caribou Eskimos use an implement in its most primitive present form but that it is even more primitive than that belonging to the old Thule Culture.

In many respects the history of the throwing board is rather obscure. Its distribution is shown on Table A 28, from which it appears that it is of very little importance to the Central tribes. The Polar and Copper Eskimos do not use it at all, from the Netsilik group I only know the specimen described by Boas and from the Caribou Eskimos in the interior only a rather vague tradition. It would thus in itself be reasonable to regard the throwing board as an element belonging to the Thule Culture, and its absence from the Central regions as being caused by the later revolution of culture there. Against this, however, speak various circumstances, which may be summarised in the following manner:

​1. Its absence in the Central regions cannot be due to a single cause such as the disappearance of the Thule Culture, as the culture of the Polar Eskimos is in all its essentials a continuation of it;^[157] it is probable that several locally active causes have made themselves felt, for instance the decline of bird hunting and the undoubted impulse given to caribou and fox hunting through the introduction of guns and trading intercourse with the whites.

2. The throwing board is everywhere closely connected with the bird dart, which must be presumed to be older than the Thule Culture.

3. The certain Thule elements, which in North America can be traced outside the Eskimo area, are restricted to the west and only very few (the conical-roof earth lodge) extend so far to the south as the southwestern plateaux, whereas most are not known outside the southern part of the North Pacific area (whaling, floats for harpoons, the composite fish hook, urine washing etc.). On the other hand the throwing board is much more widely diffused, as for instance in large parts of South America, which indicates greater age. It must be strongly emphasised, however, that the whole subject requires further investigation, although at the present stage of our knowledge this will scarcely be practicable.

The three-pronged leister is diffused over the whole of the Eskimo region, the apparent gaps presumably only being due to defective information (Table A 29). Two forms can be distinguished, one (type I) with a number of barbs cut into the prongs themselves, the other (type II) with a single barb lashed to or inserted through the prong. It is the latter that is used by the Caribou Eskimos, but it also occurs right from Angmagssalik in the east to the Koryak in the west. It is known from the Thule Culture and is undoubtedly, as Mathiassen says,^[158] a very old type. What the position is with regard to type I will not be discussed here.

Barbed harpoons, by which is understood harpoons with heads which hold the quarry by means of their barbs, in contrast to the toggle-heads, which hold it by lying across the inside of the wound, occur among the Eskimos in two different forms, either with a conical tang or with a socket (cf. Table A 30). The former type is, as Mathiassen also states, widely diffused and certainly old; it is also known from the Thule Culture.^[159] The other also is commonly used, it is true, but in Mathiassen's opinion is a younger form arising out of a sort of degeneration of certain toggle-heads, it having been ​adapted to salmon fishing.^[160] This is very probable; yet it must be assumed that this development or "degeneration" has taken place under the very influence of the barbed head with conical tang, as otherwise it is difficult to explain the great resemblance in appearance and the change from toggle to the less effective barb principle.

We are so unfortunately placed that we do not know which of the two forms of barbed harpoon the Caribou Eskimos use or have used; this does not matter so much if only we recognise the old age of the barb principle. If barbed harpoons are so rare nowadays in the Central region, we must pay attention to two different circumstances which each contribute towards this state. One is that the bladder dart, which otherwise has a barbed head, has in Baffin Land and at Hudson Bay been provided with a toggle head.^[161] The other is that the fish harpoon, which also has a barbed head, has apparently been pushed very much into the background by the fact that the fish hook has gained ground, a circumstance which agrees with conditions among the sub-arctic Indians, as will be discussed in the next chapter.

Fish hooks and small implements connected with fishing. Several forms of fish hooks are known to the Eskimos. One type is composed of a curved shank with a straight or curved point of bone or iron, furnished with an inner barb; a separate sinker must be placed above it (type I). Another form consists of a (metal) hook, usually without barb, inserted in the lower part of a bone sinker (type II). There are also various jigs with several (metal) hooks (type III) and, furthermore, the most simple of all forms, the straight gorge (type IV). The distribution is shown in Table A 31. It cannot be stated definitely why the fish hook is missing at Angmagssalik though it was found on Frederik VI Coast just to the south of this district. The culture at Angmagssalik is highly specialised but, in several respects, very old-fashioned. That the absence of the fish hook thus means that it has also been lacking in the earliest Eskimo culture is possible, albeit with the reservation that the simple gorge — which in East Greenland appears as a gull hook — at any rate seems to have been known. We shall revert to this presently.

Both the jig and the composite fish hook belong to the border areas to the west and east, but are now absent, apart from the jig of the Copper Eskimos, in the Central regions. On the other hand, at least the composite hook seems to have been known there in the ​time of the Thule Culture.^[162] Jenness' description of the shank of a composite fish hook from Inman River at the western end of Dolphin and Union Strait, where there are house ruins of habitation from the west,^[163] is also significant.

The simple fish hook with sinker has a westerly distribution. In Alaska it is to some extent put into the shade by the other forms, but in ice fishing in the Central regions it plays a very important part. This distribution, which has not been affected by the change of culture which followed upon the disappearance of the Thule Culture from the latter region, labels it as a very late type which is perhaps. connected with the knowledge of copper and iron. As stated above. perhaps the fish hook is also of rather late date among the sub-arctic Indians and it probably is partly to blame for the disappearance of the fish harpoon.

The straight gorge, as far as I have been able to ascertain, is only used for fishing in the Central regions. This limited diffusion, which however may only be apparent and due to incomplete investigation. is only seen in its right light when we remember that the gull hook in its simple form is exactly the same implement used in another fashion. The gull hook is used right from East Greenland to northeast Asia (cf. p. 26), and therefore the gorge must in reality be regarded as being a generally diffused and certainly very old element.

Fish decoys occur in the Thule Culture and, as Mathiassen points out, they represent a widely diffused type.^[164] The reason why information is rather more sparse to the west than to the east (cf. Table A 32) is presumably the great importance of line fishing in Alaska, for which reason the leister, and with it the fish decoy, is more rarely used.

Table A 33 shows that the fish needle too is a commonly diffused culture element among the Eskimos. It is also known from the Thule Culture.^[165]

Traps, snares and fences. The distribution of the pitfall is shown in Table A 34. Most information centres upon the areas west of Hudson Bay. Its occurrence in Baffin Land is not wholly certain, as it does not appear clearly from Boas' statements whether they are based upon his own observations or upon Klutschak's description of pitfalls among the Netsilik group. I do not know the pitfall at all from Greenland except for foxes. As regards the East Greenlanders and the Polar Eskimos the reason is obvious. On the in​habited parts of the east coast the caribou — and it is in caribou hunting that the real pitfall is used — had already been exterminated before the coming of the Danes, and in the Thule (Cape York) district they also seem to have been missing for a long period until about a hundred years ago they came again and now are practically exterminated once more. In West Greenland, however, the caribou is still present and, if the pitfall has been used earlier, how is it that nothing is known of it now? Here, too, the answer would seem to be at hand. Pitfalls can only be used in winter, when there is snow; it is impossible to dig them in the rocky ground of Greenland except where there are deposits of till or alluvium. Caribou hunting is, however, only pursued in winter in a few districts in West Greenland, north of Disko Bay. The rifle is nowadays always used in this hunting, and this has certainly been the case since the middle of the eighteenth century. And it is from that time that the first, more comprehensive records regarding the northern west coast date; the earlier reports from Baffin and a few Dutch skippers are so incomplete that one could not expect a culture element like the pitfall to be mentioned in them. Therefore it is by no means precluded that it has once been commonly diffused among the Eskimos.

Of traps, mention has already been made of tower traps. Both boxtraps and deadfalls are very widely diffused in the east (cf. Table A 35) and at any rate the first type is also known from the Thule Culture.^[166] Deadfalls are also common among the Western Eskimos and are thus a type universally diffused.

There are several kinds of snares among the Eskimos (cf. Table A 36). They may be placed radially about a float for catching diving birds as in Greenland. They may be set in long rows on stretched cords for hares or swimming birds, a type whose diffusion outside the Central region possibly marks it as belonging to the Thule Culture. In Alaska the snare is usually combined with a more complicated setting — the ingenious little marmot traps, the big caribou fences, etc. Among the present-day Central tribes the snare is, on the other hand, only known in its simplest form, a further example of the fact that their culture elements are often of a more primitive stamp than those of the Thule Culture.

The fish snare that is placed on the end of a stick is a special form. It is known from the west coast of Hudson Bay, but otherwise only from West Greenland where it has in fact almost fallen into disuse.^[167] The fact that it nevertheless must be taken to be a very old ​element in Eskimo culture, with a once much wider distribution, is due to this snare's occurrence among other peoples (see p. 159 and Table B 27).

The use of caribou fences seems to be a common element of Eskimo culture (cf. Table A 37). It is probable that they have also been known in the time of the Thule Culture.^[168] It does not always appear clearly from the descriptions whether they are single or converging rows; but as this seems to be exclusively dependent upon the topography of the place, no importance may be attached to this point. The same applies to the choice of material. Whether they build stone cairns or they crect posts apparently depends upon what is most easily obtainable on the spot.

Like the caribou fences, fish weirs are a common element in Eskimo culture (cf. Table A 38). It is not quite correct that they are missing in Alaska, as Mathiassen says;^[169] for they are mentioned from the Yukon-Kuskokwim delta, the Pacific Eskimos and the Aleut. The use of posts in southern Alaska is obviously a geographically governed adaptation to the stoneless delta country. Sometimes the Chukchi build weirs of peat.

In connection with fish weirs must be mentioned the peculiar "trap" or "pocket" of skin which has been described in the foregoing (pt. I p. 120). It is apparently a purely local type. It is true that Bogoras writes about the Chukchi: "Occasionally the whole seine will consist of a skin covering with a piece of net in the middle, in which to catch the fish".^[170] This, however, must be regarded as being a real trap, which hardly has anything to do with the appliance of the Caribou Eskimos.

Hunting and fishing methods. Mention will be made here of a few methods which are not connected with any particular weapon or implement. Among these are hunting swimming caribou from the kayak, a commonly diffused element (cf. Table A 39), which presumably has been present in the Thule Culture too.^[171] The reason why it is not known from East Greenland is of course the extermination of the caribou in olden times. Only for a short period had caribou hunting any significance to the present-day Polar Eskimos. and, what is more, there are no lakes or large rivers in their country where this method could be pursued. Something similar will presumably apply to Southampton Island, where the caribou stock is local and scarcely undertakes long wanderings which bring the animals. over the crossing places.

​Another apparently old element is the more or less complete disguise used when hunting: the hunter, who is already clad in a dress of caribou skin, further imitates the appearance of the caribou by holding a pair of antlers or other objects over his head. The age of the method is evidenced by its widespread occurrence in West Greenland, among several Central tribes and in Alaska. And furthermore, it is not impossible that careful examination would bring it to light in other places.

The special method, which consists in two men getting the caribou to follow after them, whereafter one hunter hides behind a stone until the animals come up to him, has only been mentioned from some Central tribes and Alaska. It may be that this is an element peculiar to them, and I have not found it referred to from other peoples in North America and Siberia.

According to Table A 40, wolf hunting by means of a bloody knife would seem to have a very restricted, Central diffusion. Its absence from Greenland might, of course, be explained by the fact that wolves do not live at all there in the populated areas; this explanation, however, must be abandoned for the whole of the remaining region. It cannot be accidental that such a peculiar method is not mentioned at all outside the places quoted, whereas right from Labrador to the Chukchi Peninsula the use of the well-known "wolf killers" of baleen is constantly referred to.

The very characteristic "peep-hunting" at holes in the ice is apparently very little used (cf. Table A 41); and what is more, in West Greenland it has now wholly, and in East Greenland partly gone out of use. But it has a remarkable, sporadic distribution which argues strongly for its considerable age. Waitz's report from Labrador is perhaps the result of a misconception of peep-hunting, but the quotation is given with all reservation.^[172] It is not certain to which Western Eskimo group Stefánsson's report refers; but his words — and it may be added the very character of the method — point mostly in the direction of the Colville Eskimos. The occurrence of the method elsewhere in North America and in Siberia is evidence in favour of its having from the first been used for fishing and transferred later to sealhunting.^[173] We shall later on revert to this point.

Sledges and accessories. The most primitive form of sledge — if this word may at all be used for it — is a skin on which ​the burden is drawn. As a plaything this element is to be found in West Greenland and among the Caribou Eskimos. In the extremely woodless area in which the Netsilik tribes live, a bear skin is still rather frequently used — more rarely a musk-ox skin — for transportation; a large bear skin in CNM has been employed for this purpose.^[174] Such primitive "sledges" are, however, also mentioned from Southampton, Iglulik,^[175] the Copper Eskimos^[176] and the Western tribes.^[177] There is probably some connection between them and the more highly developed toboggan of baleen which is known from the Thule Culture, Southampton Island, Iglulik (?), Point Barrow and the Asiatic Eskimos.^[178]

The sledge proper has, as Table A 42 shows, a very common distribution within the domain of Eskimo culture. Its absence in Southwest Greenland, South Alaska and on the Aleutians has by Steensby, and undoubtedly correctly, been attributed to the climate.^[179] There is a possibility that it has formerly been used on the southwest Coast of Greenland and only gradually gone out of use there.^[180]

The earliest form of Eskimo sledge is undoubtedly that which merely consists of two runners and a number of cross slats. It is to be found over the whole region from Angmagssalik to Northeast Asia, whereas the built-up type does not extend further east than Crocker River,^[181] and its resemblance to the Siberian sledges makes it certain that it is a recent loan from the other side of the Bering Sea.

As to the material of the sledge, wood is undoubtedly the original. Runners of frozen skin — not to be confused with the above-mentioned "sledges" of skin — are apparently a geographically conditioned substitute for wood, as they are only to be found in those regions where wood is scarcest: commonly in the country round the Magnetic Pole, more rarely among the Iglulik and Copper Eskimos. Of the simple sledges only those farthest east are furnished with uprights, which among the Iglulik group solely serve the purpose of holding the load, but on the short, Greenland sledges have become of much greater importance, because they also serve to steer the sledge when the driver, in difficult terrain, runs behind, holding the up​rights. The sledge figured by Greely, found at Cape Baird, is typically Greenland in its form. Of the Eskimo sledges in CNM the specimens from West Greenland, Labrador (Hebron and Hopedale) and the Copper Eskimos (Tree River) only have one lashing hole to each slat in each runner, whereas the other groups have two, and a small hand-sledge from the Chukchi, made of ivory and baleen, has even three. It is doubtful whether this little feature has any culture-historical significance. The slats on the sledges of the Caribou Eskimos are sometimes bored horizontally for the lashing, sometimes furnished with notches in the edge. I have not seen horizontal borings on any other Eskimo sledge, whereas vertical lashing holes are found on sledges in CNM from the Angmagssalik, Labrador, Iglulik and Copper Eskimos and the Chukchi; presumably they are also to be found on the Point Barrow sledges.^[182] Slats with lashing notches are known from the West Greenlanders, the Polar, Iglulik and Netsilik Eskimos and on most of the specimens from the Thule Culture.^[183] Presumably they are older than the others.

In its simple form without uprights, with runners which retain most of the appearance of the natural tree stem, and with cross slats which often have the lashing resting in notches, the sledge of the Caribou Eskimos must all in all be described as an exceedingly primitive type.

The distribution of ice-shoeing (Table A 43) is at any rate partly geographically governed. In Greenland it is missing south of the Upernivik district. There it is not so much the climate that marks the boundary as the topography of the country, which requires long drives over mountain passes and hills, and this makes it almost impossible to be sufficiently careful of the fragile ice-shoeing. There is a powerfully supporting factor in the circumstance that the comparatively dense population of the country and, at any rate in the present day, the character of their culture opposes long journeys and thus also the heavy loads which require especially easily running sledges. In the Ũmánaq district, which comprises Nordost Bay with the best ice-sheet in West Greenland without overland driving, this must be presumed to have been the principal reason. Why the Colville Eskimos have not the ice-shoeing is not easy to say. Their landdriving on a flat coastal plain is of the same nature as that of the Caribou Eskimos, so that ice-shoeing could be used without difficulty. Until it is confirmed by later investigations, Stefánsson's infor​mation on this matter, which is only based upon the communication of a single informant and not upon personal evidence, must no doubt be taken with reservation.

The particular form of ice-shoeing which uses a thick tyre of peat under the runner has a more restricted distribution than the simple icing of the runners. In one case geographical conditions seem to have played a part in the restriction, viz. on the Atlantic coast of Labrador, where peat-shoeing is now no longer used south of Cape Chidley, whereas formerly it was also used further south. The dark peat tyres absorb the rays of the sun as soon as it gains a little power in spring and therefore require greater cold than the simple ice-shoeing. Thus it is only natural that peat tyres do not extend so far as ice-shoeing and more readily fall into disuse in southern areas.

But what argues against unreservedly attributing its distribution to geographical conditions is the fact that mud tyres are missing among the Polar Eskimos, the most northerly of all people and the only ones who live under really high-arctic conditions. At Smith Sound there is both a sufficiently long and cold winter and sufficient material to make peat tyres useable.^[184] Whilst the simple ice-shoeing is obviously an old and generally diffused Eskimo element, mud tyres seem to be a younger element, particular to the Central regions.

The various forms of dog harness have been dealt with by Jochelson and Hatt.^[185] There can scarcely be any doubt that the simplest type, technically, consisting of a single loop which is placed about the neck or one shoulder of the dog, is the oldest. This harness, which is used for dog driving in East Siberia, is only used by the Eskimos when the sledge is drawn by man; in the Thule collection there are specimens made of musk-ox skin from the Copper Eskimos. From this type, however, it is only a step to the harness with crossed loops, which has probably originated by uniting two single loops. This harness has a Central distribution (cf. Table A 44). Harness consisting of two parallel loops is apparently a more highly developed form. Its distribution, which shows that it is predominant in the two border areas, indicates that it belongs to the Thule Culture, to which there has already been occasion to refer. Greenland is the only place where there is a girth as well as a neck strap and a breast strap. This is the most highly developed and effective type of Eskimo dog harness.

The fan-shaped team is present in the whole of the eastern area, but is also used occasionally towards the west, where the Asiatic Eskimos use it in their ceremonial races. In this Bogoras rightly sees ​a sign of the great age of this method. Otherwise the Western Eskimos use the tandem system, which gives a much greater effective power, because with it the dogs pull straight forward instead of more or less obliquely. The distribution of this method coincides with that of the built-up sledge, which indicates that they belong to each other. Murdoch, too, regards the fan-shape as being the oldest.

The draught line on the sledge is divided except in West Greenland, where the traces end in a bone ferrule which is fastened in a sling of the draught line. At other places the line is closed by a toggle of musk-ox horn or ivory, a simple type (cf. Table A 45). The pierced clasps and double-stud are forms special to Baffin Land and Iglulik. and to the Netsilik and Caribou Eskimos respectively.

The swivel (Table A 46) is a commonly diffused culture element among the Eskimos, the apparent gaps in the distribution presumably only being due to defective information. The most simple is the type with the flat collar, and in addition this is the most widely spread. The high, ring-shaped collar which on one side has a projection for fastening the thong, is more difficult to make and presumably. younger. Its occurrence in the two border areas might indicate that it is a type from the Thule Culture; but it must be added that so far no swivels from that culture have been found.

As far as I know the swivel docs not occur in North America outside the Eskimo area. It is no doubt an Asiatic culture element. I have been able to substantiate the use of it among the Gilyak (K 1: 104, CNM), Ostyak (1711–69, LRM), and Vogul (40570 b, DMV). In the great Oseberg find from the Viking period of Norway there are wooden swivels. In all these cases they have flat collars.

The whip (Table A 47) is mostly to be found towards the east, like the simple type of sledge and the fan-shaped team, and in reality there is obviously a connection between the latter and the whip. Where draught animals, be they reindeer or dogs, are harnessed to the sledge in tandem, the whip is scarce. Whilst it is almost impossible to punish a disobedient dog in a fan-shaped team without a whip, it is easy enough in tandem. The whip must therefore be regarded as an old element. Mathiassen has pointed out that the whip with a long, thin handle is used, or was used, by the Greenlanders, the Sadlermiut on Southampton Island and the Alaskan Eskimos, whereas the Central tribes have short-handled, heavy whips.^[186] This might characterise the slender whip as a Thule element. Which of these two forms is to be regarded as being the most primitive is difficult to decide. We have already seen sufficient examples of the fact that the circumstances of diffusion are not sufficiently convincing in this respect. The thick ​lash, plaited at the butt end, of the Central Eskimo whip no doubt represents a higher development, but this plaiting is also found in lighter form in Greenland, and conversely, the thick butt of some Central Eskimo whips is solely formed by folding the thong over. And it is not to be gainsaid that it is easier to use a heavy whip than a light one.

The distribution of "dog-socks", which are tied on to the paws of the dogs to protect them against sharp-edged pieces of ice in spring, is not shown on any table, as they are only rarely mentioned in literature. They are known in Greenland, Baffin Land,^[187] Southampton Island,^[188] among the Central tribes, in Alaska^[189] and among the Chukchi^[190] and thus are widely diffused.

Tump-lines and carrying bags. Although information is lacking as to Labrador and southern Baffin Land, there can hardly be any doubt that such a universally useful object as the tump-line is generally diffused among the Eskimos (cf. Table A 48). It is, however, regrettable that data is lacking from just these places. As the matter now lies, it seems that the method of carrying the weight with the forehead belongs to the east, whereas in the west the chest bears the weight, and the Central regions have a combination of both methods. The chest-yoke in Alaska is doubtless an Asiatic invention.^[191] but otherwise it is difficult to say anything of the relative age of the methods.

Pack bags for dogs have their place, according to their shape. among the edge-sewn bags which have already been dealt with. Their use as pack bags is, however, restricted to the Central tribes (Table A 49). No geographical reason for this can be advanced; the distribution must depend upon historical circumstances.

Kayaks and appurtenances. The kayak is a generally diffused culture element (Table A 50), so characteristic that Rink regarded it as being fundamental to the whole Eskimo culture. Ross found that the Polar Eskimos did not possess kayaks, but according to tradition they had previously had them.^[192] They say that a violent epidemic once carried off the old men who had a knowledge of kayak building; but the high-arctic character of the country, which permits ​sledge driving three-fourths of the year, has been contributory in so far as the kayak was not a necessity. Later on, through the immigration of Eskimos from northern Baffin Land, the kayak was reintroduced at Smith Sound, and the modern Polar Eskimo type can hardly be distinguished from the Ponds Inlet type. It has been assumed that the Asiatic Eskimos also lacked the kayak;^[193] Bogoras, however, has substantiated that it is to be found, though rarely. Finally, the kayak is lacking among the Ugalagmiut on the Pacific Coast, east of Prince William Sound; but among this tribe the Tlingit elements are in every respect so preponderant that it can scarcely be reckoned as Eskimo. any longer, neither in language nor culture.^[194] The kayak was known in the Thule Culture.^[195]

Kayaks with two man-holes belong to the Aleutians, whence they have been introduced to the mainland.^[196] Kayaks with three man-holes are a Russian invention, made in order that the light and fast skin boats might carry a passenger.^[197] On the Aleutians, however, kayaks with one hole are also used as is commonly the case in all other places, and it is justifiable to regard these as being the original form, with the two-hole kayak as a later, local invention.

Among the single-hole kayaks there is a large number of subtypes. As an example it may be stated that on the west coast of Greenland alone one can distinguish between six or seven different forms, and on each of these again there are small variations so to say from settlement to settlement, according to whether it lies by the open sea or hidden in the fjords — whether the owner is mostly occupied in seal hunting or fishing etc. Where kayak skill is highest. every kayak is, as a matter of fact, minutely adapted in its smallest. details to the individuality of the locality and the owner. All these nuances, however, only affect the proportions, not essentially the construction. Here, where the object is to lay clear its historical development, we can only occupy ourselves with differences in construction.

The parts which are to be found in every genuine kayak are: the gunwales, which are connected by beams and, fore and aft, end in separate stems; the coaming; the ribs; the keel and a smaller or larger number of strakes. The most primitive type is to be found among the Koryak, who make their kayaks very broad and crude. On a specimen which I have had an opportunity of closely examining (956–49, LAM) there are, besides the parts named, three longitudinal ​laths on the deck forward of the man-hole and three corresponding laths aft; of these the two median ones, which of course are the longest, are each further propped up by a vertical post. The ribs are only lashed to the gunwales and do not show the semi-morticing as on other kayaks; this, like the whole of the clumsy construction, must be called a primitive feature. Despite the elegance of the Greenland kayaks, there are traces in Greenland of the primitive deck construction described. At Angmagssalik there are forward (but not aft) of the man-hole two or three short laths, and on the west coast there are two both fore and aft. The reduction in the number is clearly enough due to the narrow shape of the kayak. In the whole of the huge region in between they have adopted another fashion: the middle deck lath has been retained whereas the outer ones have disappeared.

The Aleutian kayak occupies a separate position, judging from the specimen which I have been able to study (228, HNM). As on all kayaks south of Bering Strait, the deck slopes like a roof from the high deck lath down on both sides; but only at the man-hole and right aft do there seem to be any beams. This feature, like the manner in which the skin is stretched with thongs over the man-hole and down round the gunwales, resembles the construction of the umiak and is of significance, having regard to the fact that this latter vessel seems to have come from the regions round the Bering Sea, of which more later.^[198] The peculiar manner of placing the skin at the man-hole is found again on Kodiak (Ib 160, CNM) and Nunivak Island (P 33: 10 a, CNM). It is also a primitive feature on the Aleutian kayak that the keel sticks out like a point aft, about which the skin is lashed (not sewn).

A temporary skin boat, which in its primitivity can neither be called kayak nor umiak, is known from the rivers of South Alaska. Unfortunately, the description is very incomplete. Elliot says: "When the first snow flies in October, they rig up their rude deer-skin boats, like the 'bull-boats' on the Missouri, and float all their traps and rude equipage down the river back from whence they started.^[199]"

Thus in the regions round Bering Sea we have no less than three mutually different; but each primitive forms of skin boats. They do not, however, form any line of development, and it would be a mistake to look upon their presence as a sign that the kayak was developed in these regions. On the contrary, it turns out to be the rule, when special circumstances do not apply, that the old and primitive types are retained in the periphery. If this is compared with the fact that primitive features have also been shown in the Greenland ka​yaks, we come to the important result that the kayak seems to originate from the Central regions.

Table A 51 shows the diffusion of the kayak paddle. The single paddle belongs to a comparatively restricted area to the west and it only appears as the predominant form in southern Alaska at the mouth of the big rivers, whereas both to the north and south of this area it occurs together with the double paddle. In the single-bladed paddle Rink has seen the forerunner of the two-bladed type and uses its occurrence in Alaska as an argument for his hypothesis of the development of the Eskimo culture there.^[200] Steensby also considers the single paddle to be the original and the double paddle a later loan from Asia.^[201] The particulars of their diffusion, however, are decidedly against this view. The single paddle seems to have made its way from the interior along the rivers much more recently and to have split the originally entire area of the double paddle into two parts. Here we have one of the not very numerous cases where the Athapaskan tribes seem to have affected the Eskimo culture. It must be added that the paddles of the Thule Culture were two-bladed.^[202]

The drip ring on the paddle seems from the information available. to have an easterly distribution (cf. Table A 52); but whether this really is the case cannot be definitely decided. It is not known from the Thule Culture, but this too may be accidental.

The two-skin frock. The basic lines of the study of arctic skin clothing have once and for all been drawn up by Hatt's comprehensive work on this subject. As one of its results it may be stated that the common Eskimo frock, both for men and women, and whether it is for inner or outer use, must be derived from a skin poncho. In the Eskimo dress, however, this has undergone this change, that instead of one skin they use two, one front and one back, sewn together at the sides into a type of garment that is called the two-skin frock. This type has been complicated by the addition of a hood. The frocks of the Pacific Eskimos and the Aleut are, however, quite different. In this respect we can only continue to follow the track already entered upon and, if the result of the present investigation on one or two points differs from that of Hatt, the reason is simply that a much more complete material is available now than previously.

​A peculiarity of the Eskimo frock — for the present we will entirely disregard the Pacific-Aleut type — is its cutting into flaps front and back, and it is obviously correct to trace the cuts back to a simple slit in the sides and to see in this "an inheritance from the two-skin poncho, retained because it is of service".^[203] Hatt now presumes that this simple cut occurs in the women's frocks in Alaska, which actually are cut up the sides so that a broad flap is formed back and front. As far as I can see, however, this form is by no means primitive; in reality it has a rather complicated cut.^[204] The two large shoulder-pieces on both the front and back are characteristic. The remaining part of each width is divided crosswise, there being between the shoulder-pieces a narrow piece of skin, continued below in a tongue, and below both this and the shoulder-pieces there is another piece of skin to finish it off. It is between the lowest pieces of skin on the front and back that the slits occur. It is, however, striking that if these finishing-off pieces (which, be it noted, have no parallel in any similar Eskimo frock) are removed, we have a typical Central Eskimo woman's frock with a narrow flap front and back. 1 therefore consider the middle piece between the two shoulder-pieces to be the original front skin and the whole of the finishing-off piece at the bottom to be an addition.

This makes the slitting in this case a secondary feature too. Where the idea of adding a piece came from cannot be definitely decided. In itself there is nothing unnatural in doing so. Among the Central Eskimos who live nearest to Alaska the waist of both the men's and the women's frock is so shortened that in reality it is anything but practical, and for climatic reasons a further shortening could in fact only be made if a piece were added at the bottom simultaneously. To me it is not improbable that the added piece must be regarded as a sewn-on skirt. It is true that as a rule it is slit up the sides in order not to hamper movement, but this is not always the case, for instance not on a child's frock of fish skin marked 3823, BMV. It is characteristic that on the "skirt" there is no lateral seam which might correspond to the slits. The skirt is not unknown in arctic and sub-arctic dress. It occurs in the form of the peculiar "half-frock" for kayak use on the Aleutians,^[205] in Alaska at Bering Strait,^[206] at Hudson Strait,^[207] and in Greenland outside the Thule district.^[208] Of particular interest ​in this connection is, however, Hatt's showing that it is a part of the dress of the Koryak women, sewn on as a part of the frock in a manner which recalls that which is here presumed to be the Eskimo woman's dress.^[209] It is probable that the skirt has also played a part in the development of the particular Aleut-Pacific style of frock.

Thus we cannot look upon the woman's dress of the Alaskan Eskimos as a primitive type. If a lateral slit in the two-skin frock is to be regarded as being primitive, it must be found between the original front and back piece. A slit of this kind is not known from Eskimo women's frocks, but occasionally occurs on men's frocks from the Yukon-Kuskokwim area.^[210] A slit of the same sort occurs among the Iglulik tribes, on Baffin Land and in Labrador, but there — the Aivilingmiut excepted, perhaps — almost always in conjunction with an additional slit in the front flap.^[211] Among the Caribou Eskimos, however, the primitive slit is typical in the men's frocks. The Qaernermiut, who are closely associated with the Back River Eskimos, are the only ones who in some cases have adopted the Netsilik fashion with a front flap that has almost entirely disappeared and a back flap that is developed to the extreme.

The original two-skin frock was not fitted with a hood and therefore there is reason to direct attention to the occurrence of hoodless frocks within the Eskimo region. It is probable — as Hatt, too, points out^[212] — that the Aleut-Pacific frocks have never had hoods; but as it must be considered to be very doubtful whether they have had anything to do with the two-skin frock at all, the absence of the hood cannot have any bearing upon the question of the latter's development. The hoodless frocks in the Kuskokwim area represent a hybrid form between the Aleut-Pacific and the northern type.^[213] With the latter is associated the gut-skin frock, as even on the Aleutians it is often provided with a hood.

Among the Chukchi we find hoodless frocks which must be regarded as being very primitive, as not only is the hood missing but the cut seems to have been directly derived from the poncho without the two-skin frock as an intermediate stage; the Chukchi and Koryak, however, also wear hoodless frocks of genuine two-skin cut.^[214] Similar frocks are common both among the Central Eskimos and the Green ​landers as garments for infants and young children. As a garment for adults it is found again as a dance dress among the Copper Eskimos (P 30: 1, CNM). Its use as a ceremonial dress indicates that it is a very old form. From there the hoodless frock is not met with again until as far eastwards as the south side of Hudson Strait, where it is worn in summer together with a cap of bird-skin.^[215] Unfortunately there is no record of the cut. It might be thought that the hood had disappeared as a consequence of European influence, but this is not very probable, in the first place because the Eskimos in question have up to very recent times been the least influenced of all Labrador Eskimos, and in the second place because the hood, owing to its usefulness, has on the contrary always been adopted by the whites in arctic regions, even if their skin jackets otherwise are of European cut.^[216]

If the hoodless Labrador frock is really to be regarded as being primitive — and it is in any case not improbable — this circumstance, compared with the occurrence of hoodless frocks among the Chukchi and Koryak, may be taken as being one proof among many that the hooded frock originated in the Central region, where among the adults the hood is now only lacking on the ceremonial dress of a single group.

In the sewing of the hood to the body rather complicated cuts sometimes arise in the Eskimo frocks with the object of securing the joint between the two originally separate garments. Mention must here particularly be made of the peculiar "hood-yokes", extensions of the hood which run down into the body. On the frocks of the Caribou Eskimos, whether they are for men or women, these yokes are, however, never to be found on the front of the body. This is apparently a primitive feature, recognised again on a single marmot-skin frock from the Mackenzie region (P 31: 1, CNM) but as a rule among the Copper, Netsilik, Iglulik, Baffin Land and Labrador Eskimos, and it is again met with on the peculiarly oldfashioned men's frocks in East Greenland.^[217]

As regards some women's frocks the hood is fastened to the back of the body in the same primitive manner with a simple neck seam. Apart from the Caribou Eskimos this method is used by the Copper, ​Netsilik and Iglulik groups. Sometimes, however, there are double hood-yokes on the back of the women's frock, where they seem particularly to serve the purpose of increasing the width out of regard to the back pouch. But as nevertheless a neck seam has not been avoided, their value to the fastening of the hood is doubtful. They occur among the Caribou and Netsilik Eskimos.

As far as the material at hand shows, there is never the simple neck seam on the back of the men's frock except on those of Angmagssalik.^[218] On the contrary, the skin of the hood sometimes continues some way down into the back in the form of a wide yoke. This feature is found among the Caribou Eskimos, the Copper Eskimos, the Netsilik and Iglulik groups, on deerskin frocks — but not on sealskin frocks — from Labrador, and on West Greenland inner frocks.

A more common feature than this hood yoke at the back is the one where the back of the hood and of the body is made of the same skin. Hatt is undoubtedly right in maintaining that this apparently primitive feature is in reality the last stage of a development whose object was to avoid a neck seam in order to obtain the best possible connection between hood and body.^[219] The continuous back is commonly found in Alaska, the Mackenzie region and in Greenland. It is much more rare among the Central tribes but does occur among the Copper, Netsilik, Caribou and Iglulik groups, especially on the frocks of sealskin — in themselves rare; it is also found in Labrador on sealskin frocks, but not on those of deerskin.

If we finally summarise these observations on the fastening of the hood to the body we will see that: (1) the lowest stage is occupied by the man's outer frock at Angmagssalik and a few women's frocks in the Central region; (2) the next stage is represented by most of the frocks in the Central region and the inner frocks in West Greenland; it is remarkable for its simple neck seam in front and hood-yoke behind; (3) at the highest stage we have hood-yokes in front and a onepiece hood and back behind, which only exceptionally — and then only the latter of the two features — occurs in the Central region ​but on the other hand is the rule both east and west of it. In other words, as with the slit up the side so with the joining of the hood: we have the most primitive types in the Central region with the sole exception of East Greenland.

In conjunction with the hood-yoke we must deal with the insertions among the Caribou Eskimos and other Central tribes, which Hatt very aptly calls "false hood-yokes".^[220] On some of the women's frocks from Labrador and southern Baffin Land, and more rarely on men's frocks from the Netsilik group, there is a single insertion below the neck opening. Among the Caribou Eskimos, however, we only find the large, triangular insertions on each side of the chest which are frequently used by other Central groups too, but never occur in Labrador and southern Baffin Land. It is peculiar that these "false hood-yokes" have no function at all beyond the purely ornamental; they are never connected with the skin of the hood. It is difficult to imagine that such a useful measure as the securing of the connection of the hood with the body should be entirely abandoned when once it had been adopted. Even if the hood-yokes were transformed for reasons of ornament, some trace of their original function ought to be observable. It therefore seems likely that the "false hood-yokes" have never had this function but that they are misunderstood imitations of a foreign model. And when it is furthermore observed that the genuine double hood-yokes have their diffusion to the west in Alaska and to the east in Greenland, we have a hint that they really belong to the old culture, the Thule Culture, which in its time connected the two regions and that they have been adopted from it in the modern Central culture in a misunderstood form.

Hatt has shown that there is an eastern and a western type of hood, of which the first is characterised by a sagittal seam, often with an inserted, ornamented stripe, whereas the latter has a triangular or oval piece inserted in the top of the hood.^[221] In this respect the Caribou Eskimo man's type, as also most of those of the Iglulik Eskimos, resemble the eastern type, and this must also be assumed to be the case with the enormous hoods of the women, as the oval piece, which occupies the central position, is more to be regarded as being homologous with the back piece in the men's hoods than with the top piece of the western type. In the hoods of the Netsilik and Copper Eskimos the top piece is found sometimes, but not always.

A peculiarity of the Western Eskimo frock is that the joint between body and sleeve is secured by a wedge being cut in the front piece and this stretches into the sleeve.^[222] This wedge is never found ​east of the Mackenzie region; on the other hand there is sometimes — but very rarely and I believe never among the Caribou Eskimos — a separate gusset in the upper part of the sleeve to give width. The absence of these wedges or gussets must be taken to be a primitive feature.

The body of the Caribou Eskimo frock is usually edged with a fringe at the bottom. This habit is only to be observed among the Central and Labrador Eskimos, and among the latter and in Baffin Land it is by no means predominant. There the women's frock is often edged instead with a strip of long-haired skin of the bear or other animal. Edging with long-haired skin on men's frocks was practised in former times in West Greenland and is still common among the Polar Eskimos and East Greenlanders. We find it again in the west among the Mackenzie and Alaskan Eskimos. Fringe-edging thus has a Central distribution.^[223]

Caps, mittens and belts. In the foregoing there has been occasion to mention in passing that the hood was originally a separate garment, later on sewn fast to the frock. The shapes of the caps are therefore of particular interest. Their diffusion and kind appear from Table A 53. As a part of the dress of infants the cap is very common, at any rate in the east. Grown-up men sometimes wear caps in summer, and Polar Eskimo women who have a child in the pouch of the frock use a special loose, helmet-shaped hood. In West Greenland a few years ago loose women's hoods were common as a consequence of the reduction of the frock hood; now they seem to be going out of use again, because European hair-dressing permits the use of a kerchief tied under the chin. Throughout the whole region the cap has a special religious or ceremonial significance, in that it belongs to the dance dress or is used as a defence against evil powers by particularly exposed people, often those who are mourning. These ideas are evidence of the age of the cap.

Of the various forms of caps we must disregard the European type which is found in Labrador and, as already stated, has also made its way to the Caribou Eskimos. The flat caps of the East Greenlanders also have a European prototype.^[224] The calotte-shaped cap with crown and sides is found at Bering Strait, where it is often fitted with earflaps, and it seems as if the dance-hat figured by Murdoch from Point ​Barrow was of the same style. They are also to be found among the Netsilik, Polar and Angmagssalik Eskimos. Their cut, which can never be traced in the frock-hood, indicates that they represent a younger type. Similar caps are worn by several Indian tribes on the northwest plateaux, for instance the Carrier,^[225] Chilkotin^[226] and Thompson Indians.^[227] In northeast Asia it is met with among the Yukagir^[228] and, usually with ear-flaps, among several of the Amur tribes: the Gold (K 201, CNM), Manegir (K 219, CNM), Orochon (K 221, CNM) etc. It is obviously an originally Asiatic type.

The other caps are all more or less of the same hood-shape, but sometimes consist of two side pieces sewn together with a median seam, or, besides the side pieces, there may be a separate back piece. None of these styles can be traced in the common Eskimo frock-hood, whereas they occur in Siberian frock-hoods, and from this Hatt deduces that the combination of hood and frock among the Eskimos has come about independently of the corresponding development in Asia.^[229] This agrees with what was said above regarding the Eskimo hooded frock. Caps consisting of two side pieces are to be found as far to the east as among the Polar Eskimos, but not in the rest of Greenland, and caps with a back piece are not known at all in Greenland. This distribution indicates that they are both forms which have come in from the west.

Still more simple are the East and West Greenland hoods consisting of one piece, joined with a sagittal seam at the top. Finally, there are also caps of a single piece of unsewn skin, as a rule the head skin of a fawn or the entire skin of a fox or bird. They are known from all the eastern tribes but are also mentioned from Bering Strait and the Aleutians; they are obviously extremely old.

Hatt presumes that the waist band which Eskimo women wear to support the child in the back-pouch is to be regarded as a belt.^[230] That this is correct appears from the fact that it is this waist band which among female shamans is furnished like the belts of their male colleagues. As Table A 54 shows, both men's and women's belts are generally diffused; it is perhaps merely accidental that they are not mentioned from Labrador. In Greenland they are not used by the men now, presumably because their frock is short and tight-fitting; but they are mentioned from West Greenland in the seventeenth cen​tury. The belt must therefore be taken to be an old and common element of Eskimo culture. It is found among the Caribou Eskimos in its most simple form, an ordinary thong of skin. The handsome belts of woven quills are a pronouncedly western element. Women's large belt-buttons are a Central element which is not even found among the Copper Eskimos.

If we disregard the grass-plaited mittens in South Alaska, we can distinguish between two main types (cf. Table A 55). One is the one we know from the Caribou Eskimos. The palm of this is divided across so that the proximal half also forms the outer side of the thumb and the distal half the inner side of the thumb. Sometimes, for instance in West Greenland, the proximal piece is so small that it only forms the outer side of the thumb. The other style has a continuous palm with an excision for the thumb, which is made of two separate pieces of skin sewn together, Unfortunately, there is no record of the style of mitten in Alaska. Even Murdoch's thorough description of the dress at Point Barrow contains nothing in this direction. Mittens from the Mackenzie region, like those from the Central tribes, have a two-piece palm and the inner side of the thumb cut out of the distal piece of the palm. The same form occurs in Labrador and Greenland but in these places there are also mittens of the other type. We will later (p. 181 seq.) see that this is mainly American, whereas the former is Asiatic. Although there is no information from Alaska, there is thus reason for regarding mittens with separate thumb as an older type which has only been preserved towards the east, whereas in the western and central regions they have been displaced by the Asiatic mitten. This is scarcely old in America, for it is practically only found among the Eskimos and, among these, mostly in the west. Still more primitive are the mittens of whole bird skins mentioned by Lyon from Southampton Island.

Legging-breeches, stockings, sandal-boots and sandals. According to Hatt's investigations the trousers of the Eskimos are to be regarded as a pair of leggings joined to an apron.^[231] This hypothesis is supported by the fact that the Eskimo name for them is a dual form. The cut appears with all desirable clearness in the Caribou Eskimo women's trousers, which consist of two laterally joined "legs", the back pieces of which reach up over the thighs, whereas the front of the waist is formed of a large, five-sided piece or fork-gusset which obviously corresponds to the original apron. A similar primitive cut is found in the women's trousers of the Polar Eskimos, Labrador (where they are connected with a pair of extra ​leggings sewn on), Iglulik (but mostly without a gusset in the fork), Netsilik and Copper Eskimos.^[232] Unfortunately, nothing is known of the cut in southern Baffin Land and at Mackenzie River. At Point Barrow we find this cut again in the men's trousers; there the women wear long "hose" in which, however, the characteristic fork-gusset appears.

The fork-gusset is lacking in the men's trousers of not only the Caribou Eskimos but, to my knowledge, of all groups outside Point Barrow. The former inhabitants of Southampton Island had, however, a separate little bag on their trousers for the penis, and this may be compared with the gusset.^[233] The wide trousers, which are worn especially by the Qaernermiut, are remarkable in that each "leg" is divided from the waist by a transversal seam. Hatt refers to the same cut among the Netsilik Eskimos and assumes that this must be an especially wide border.^[234] I rather think that in the lower part of the trousers we must see a pair of sewn-on leggings as there is no ornamental intention connected with it at all. It is true that loose leggings are not used by the Caribou Eskimos, but leggings form a part of the women's dress sewn on to the boots.^[235] The women of Baffin Land wear real, loose leggings combined with very short trousers^[236] and they are worn by infant children among the Polar Eskimos.^[237] In Labrador we find sewn-on leggings on both men's and women's trousers and, as among the Caribou Eskimos, they may be present or absent on men's trousers from the Iglulik, Netsilik and Copper Eskimos. Similarly, there are legging-like prolongations on the trousers of the Chukchi and Koryak.

As to footwear, there are among the Caribou Eskimos — apart from the simple sandal — the following different styles: (1) socks of two side pieces sewn with a single median seam; (2) stockings of one piece with a seam down the shin and over and under the foot; (3) socks of two pieces with a separate sole; (4) stockings with a leg and upper in one piece, sewn with a median seam down the shin and a separate sole; (5) stockings and boots with the leg of one piece and a seam down the shin — more rarely down the calf — separate upper and sole, sometimes with an extra sole; (6) boots of the same cut at the foot but with a leg of horizontal skin belts sewn together with seams at the back; (7) boots of the same cut at the foot but with a leg of caribou leg-skin; (8) boots (or stockings) with leg and upper ​of one front and one back piece sewn together with lateral seams, separate sole and an extra sole on the boots; (9) boots like the foregoing, to which is added a complicated, composite part at the top (see the pattern part I fig. 83) with baggy ankle and long, tapering point; (10) shoes consisting of upper and back-cap, although the latter may more rarely go round the leg and be sewn with a very short median seam over the instep, whereas otherwise it meets the upper in two lateral seams; on this there is a sole and an extra sole.

Of these types the sandal of course is the most primitive and it is furthermore interesting in that it must be regarded as being the foundation of the development of most of the higher types of Eskimo footwear.^[238] It is common in most places towards the east (Table A 56), and it is a question whether it is really absent in the western regions. There is reason to believe that the extra sole, with the hair-side out, which is always found on the footwear of the Central Eskimos for winter use, is really a sandal sewn on. It also appears from its importance to the development of the boot that it is an exceedingly old type.

Of all the other forms types (1) and (2) stand alone in that they have no sole. This is a very simple and undoubtedly very old style, found again in a pair of fur boots from the Copper Eskimos (P 30: 33, CNM). It closely approaches the cut of the most simple moccasins — this word in the sense in which Hatt uses it — which only comprises a piece of skin turned up over the foot and sewn with a median seam at the heel and a similar one over the foot. Whilst the moccasin used as outer footwear is closely connected with the snowshoe and the whole of the culture complex associated with it,^[239] as a stocking it is extremely old. Hatt describes stockings or socks with a moccasin cut from St. Lawrence Island, Anderson River, Coronation Gulf, and Banks Island,^[240] and there are several specimens of them in the Thule collection from the Netsilik Eskimos. All other forms of footwear have soles. For purposes of comparison they may be placed in two different groups according to the position of the leg seam, so that (3) to (7) form the one, characterised by the median seam which normally seems to follow the line of the shin, but in special cases lies at the back. The other group, comprising the types (8) to (10), has as its distinctive feature two lateral seams, one on each side of the leg.

The style of the sock of type (3) is no other than that in the above​mentioned sock (1), furnished with a sole, and one may reasonably take its origin to be this, that the boot, which itself according to Hatt's hypothesis is a combination of stocking and sandal, has reacted upon the style of the stocking.

(4) may be imagined to have delelopment from (3) by the leg being cut in one piece instead of two. This is mostly a stocking cut. Under this heading, however, come furthermore the West and East Greenland women's boots and a special kind of West Greenland men's boot with a white insertion along the median seam. Some Labrador boots with a calf seam also lack an upper, as is the case with the monstrous Aleut-Pacific men's boot. Not only does the relatively simple cut indicate great age, but also the circumstance that it is used for boots in the border regions, whereas in the Central regions only for stockings, it having been displaced as a boot by type (5); by this the diffusion also points to the Central region as the place of origin.

In type (5) a separate upper has been added. It is the most common type of Eskimo boot, and the fact that among the Caribou Eskimos it sometimes occurs as a stocking is undoubtedly due to influence from the boot. The only garment preserved from the old Thule Culture is a boot of this type from Qilalukan.^[241] Although the ordinary West Greenland men's boot has no separate upper, the median seam bending obliquely at the instep down to the side, the leg and upper being continuous on the opposite side,^[242] it must certainly be placed to this type. The West Greenland type would seem to have arisen from the desire to avoid the seam across the foot as far as possible.

Types (6) and (7) differ from (4) in the cut of the leg, in which there have been used either horizontal skin belts of various colours or the handsome shiny-haired leg-skins. This alteration has undoubtedly been made for æsthetic reasons. In both cases we find again the characteristic calf seam, the leg-skin boots as a rule having legs consisting of three leg-skins, one of which is turned to the front. Naturally, two lateral seams have to be used in these cases, so that type (7), from a purely typological point of view, may be said to form a transition to the next series; but that there is a transition from a historical point of view must be regarded as being very improbable.

Of the series with lateral seams we find type (8) as a stocking among the Polar Eskimos and, in a very peculiar form, where the back piece also forms most of the sole, on St. Lawrence Island. Some of the remarkable Aleut boots also have lateral seams, and they are commonly found on women's boots from the Netsilik, Iglulik, and ​Caribou Eskimos. These boots have undergone a special transformation among these tribes through the addition of the peculiarly shaped leg piece, which Hatt, apparently rightly, considers to be a sewn-on legging. This has brought about type (9).

Shoes are generally diffused within Eskimo culture. Nevertheless they are lacking among the Pacific Eskimos,^[243] and in West Greenland they have entirely or almost gone out of use since the days of Hans Egede; nothing is known of their style there. As far as can be judged, shoes are used in the west, including the Copper Eskimo area, with a heel seam which makes them rather resemble moccasins except that they have a separate sole. Probably as a result of Indian influence, genuine moccasins are found among the Copper and Labrador Eskimos. On the other hand among the Caribou, Netsilik, and Iglulik tribes shoes have the cut with lateral seams that is called type (10).

If we finally take series (8) to (10) as a whole, we find that, apart from the special, Aleut boot, the connection of which with type (8) is perhaps doubtful, we have footwear with lateral seams as stockings in the outer areas, but as boots and shoes in the Central regions. I consider the cut to be oldest in the stockings, as both the boots and shoes of this cut seem to be a sort of transformed stocking or sock. There is in favour of this view the circumstance that, in contrast to all other boots, they have the hair side inwards and that they are always furnished with an extra sole, which presumably was a sandal originally. But whether the stockings with the median seam or those with the lateral seams are the oldest is not easy to decide.

The ankle-strap which occurs on the Caribou Eskimo men's boots and — fastened in rather another manner — on the shoes, must be regarded as a survival of the time when the sole was bound outside the stocking as a loose sandal.^[244] We shall not follow the diffusion of this strap here, stretching as it does from the Asiatic Eskimos to Greenland. Yet it is often absent in West Greenland (especially on the south part of the coast), in Labrador,^[245] in southern Alaska, and on the Aleutians.^[246] To a casual observer it might seem as if the absence of the ankle strap in the periphery contradicted the hypothesis as to its age. In reality, however, it is special circumstances which are brought to bear in this respect. In West Greenland the lack of the ankle strap is undoubtedly connected with the tendency, especially in the south, to make the boots short and narrow. As regards Labrador I would not ​venture to present any explanation. In the Western region we have the monstrous, cylinder-shaped boots which make the use of the ankle strap difficult, and also a type, the so-called “shoe-boot", which in other respects too differs greatly from the common Eskimo form, even if, like the latter, it is derived from the sandal.

Combination garments and hose. The combination suit, the distribution of which is given on Table A 57, is without doubt, as Hatt believes,^[247] an old form of dress in the Arctic. The combination suits described by Hatt from the Chukchi and West Greenland seem to have been derived from prolonged legging-breeches. The child's combination suit of the Caribou Eskimos is sewn up the sides instead of up the median line and thus rather leads the thoughts in the direction of the two-skin frock, although the transversal seam over the middle of the back remains unexplained.

In Table A 58 of the distribution of hose some localities of its occurrence besides those indicated by Hatt^[248] have been added, mostly according to more recent observations. It is thus confirmed that this is an old and widely spread type of garment.

Cloaks and tippets. Taking it all round the cloak is one of the oldest forms of dress; but, as Hatt has shown, it has had no influence upon the development of the Eskimo dress in general. There is therefore not much reason for believing that it is old among the Eskimos, and this is confirmed by the fact that it is only known in the Central part of their region (cf. Table A 59). Lyon's reference to the strange sleeved cloaks at Iglulik — now entirely gone out of use — shows a further development of the primitive style, but it is quite an isolated case.

The child's tippet of loosely hanging strips of skin is found again among the Iglulik group and, as part of the equipment of the shamans, among the Netsilik tribes (cf. Table A 60). Similar garments. but doubtless worn as belts, are also worn by the shamans of the Copper Eskimos. Beechey's reference to the dance-collar among the inhabitants of Kotzebue Sound is anything but clear and it cannot be decided whether it is of the same kind as the others. At any rate the boa of the Chukchi^[249] and the Koryak^[250] is different to these. The boa of squirrel tails is a common boreal Eurasian culture-element, diffused ​from the Bering Sea and the River Amur to Lapland. A feather boa, however, also occurs in California.^[251]

The Central Eskimo tippet has probably arisen out of the long fringes which edge the bottom of the caps of infant children. It serves quite the same purpose as these, viz. to keep the shoulders warm, and is used by rather older children who have discarded the cap. That the development should have proceeded the opposite way — that the tippet is the original garment, later on sewn to the cap — is not very probable. On the cap the fringe serves to cover the interval between cap and dress, and thus it is much more necessary than the tippet, which is only a kind of supplement to the hooded frock. Fringing with quite the same object as on the cap is also common on the sleeping rugs.

Ornaments. It has already been stated on p. 230, pt. I, that the small sandstone breast ornament from the Hauneqtôrmiut was possibly modelled upon a whetting stone. Apart from pierced animal teeth and various pendants of ivory, slate, etc. which have been discovered in the course of archæological investigations and which have possibly served similar purposes, breast ornaments are not known from the Eskimos except in the form of the crescent-shaped gorgets from Alaska, which have such a striking likeness to certain breast ornaments from Easter Island.^[252]

The brow band is common among the Eskimos (Table A 61) although its appearance varies somewhat from place to place. The most simple is, of course, the man's strip of skin, from which the special hair band of the Angmagssalingmiut must have developed. It is an exclusively Western and certainly an originally Indian feature to decorate the brow band for dance ceremonies with feathers and waving tufts of hair. Brass ornaments on the women's brow band formerly occurred in Labrador and Baffin Land and to some extent to this day on the west side of Hudson Bay. Naturally they have only appeared after direct or indirect connection with the whites was established.

The ear ornaments of the Caribou Eskimos have already been referred to. Their form seems to be a loan from the Cree, but the habit itself of wearing ornaments in the ears is obviously old and common to all Eskimos (cf. Table A 62).

Toilet, etc. Mention has already been made of the women's ​hair dressing and hair sticks. As to the men's hair dressing among the Eskimos in general it is difficult to say anything, because they attach very little importance to their hair, especially when they get on in years, and also because European influence makes itself felt on this point. In several places the hair is cut off so that it forms almost a calotte (cf. Table A 63); older men, in particular; allow it to grow unrestrictedly, however. Sometimes the front hair is cut short to prevent it falling into the eyes. The custom of gathering the front hair into a knot seems to have — or rather seems to have had — a somewhat limited diffusion in Baffin Land, among the Iglulik group and on Southampton Island. I have seen some Aivilingmiut who plaited their front hair into a thin queue which was taken over to the ear and tied there. Otherwise only the men on Kodiak seem to have plaited hair.

The tonsure has a purely western diffusion, stretching without a break from northeast Asia to Hudson Bay. In southern Baffin Land, Labrador and Greenland it is unknown. In some places the tonsure is so large that the hair is cut close over almost the whole head, for instance among the Copper and Netsilik Eskimos. At any rate among the latter some look as if they were machine-clipped. Possibly it is from them, but perhaps from the whites, that a very few Caribou Eskimos have adopted the habit of cutting their hair quite close. Obviously the tonsure comes from Asia, where it is common in East Siberia among the Yakut and Tungus. Its distribution among the Eskimos shows that it must be of fairly recent date among them. The tonsure also occurs among some Athapaskan tribes.^[253]

Of tattooing methods the needle-and-thread method has already been referred to and connected with the Thule Culture. Pricking (cf. Table A 64) is mostly found among the tribes at the Northwest Passage and, together with the other method, among the Caribou, Iglulik. and Baffin Land Eskimos. It is the only method mentioned from Labrador. Besides this Central region, however, there is, farthest to the west, a marginal area which comprises the Aleut. Although the description given by Cook from the Chugachigmiut is not entirely clear. it would seem to be the pricking method, although needle-and-thread tattooing is practised on Kodiak. Both methods are named from the Koryak and Chukchi.

How is this remarkable distribution to be explained? There is the possibility that the pricking method in the west has no direct historic connection with its occurrence in the Central regions but is due to ​influence from the North Pacific Indians who use just this pricking method (cf. Table B 43). On the other hand this explanation seems rather improbable, because tattooing is practically not used by the Tlingit and Tsimshian but only becomes common so far to the south as among the Haida. If the pricking method among the Alaskan Eskimos had been adopted from the Tlingit, it must at any rate have taken place at a time when they tattooed themselves more profusely. In addition, there is the important circumstance that the Koryak themselves regard the needle-and-thread method as being a recent acquisition. When to this we add that the pricking method is technically the most simple, as needle-and-thread tattooing requires a very fine needle, the following course of development seems to me to be the most probable:

The pricking method is the oldest form of tattooing among the Eskimos, and it was not until later that the needle-and-thread method made its way in from Asia. In southern Alaska it has not established itself, however — on the whole there are many old elements there — whereas it has reached as far as Greenland as an element in the Thule Culture. Since then it has again wholly or partly been displaced in the Central region by the movement of the peoples, the consequences of which we have already seen in several instances.

The tattoo-patterns will not be examined here. It may merely be mentioned that they are extremely uniform, right from Bering Strait to Greenland, especially with regard to the vertical or fan-shaped lines on the chin.

The comb of one piece of bone is a commonly diffused and obviously very old element in Eskimo culture (Table A 65). Mathiassen has dealt with the various, often handsomely ornamented types which belong to the Eskimo culture.^[254] Apart from some very diverging forms we have principally the following: (1) with long, tapering handle and a hole for suspension; (2) with long handle possibly derived from a human figure; the peculiar, perforated combs from Southampton Island and both sides of Hudson Bay seem to be derived from this; (3) with rather short and wide handle which tapers off towards the end and likewise tapers over the teeth; this is a later form peculiar to the Central regions. To these must now be added type (4), a very simple, rectangular comb, the only one known from the Caribou Eskimos. It is diffused from Bering Strait right to Greenland and this, combined with the extremely primitive form, makes it probable that it is very old. The double comb at the Bering Sea is an Asiatic form; double combs are found in Siberia, for instance among the Yakut.^[255] ​The stick-comb (Stäbchenkamm) from the Aleutians and Angmagssalik is remarkably isolated. A kind of stick-comb, but differing greatly from that of the Eskimos, is used by the Thompson Indians.^[256]

The back scratcher is an element occurring over the whole of the Eskimo region (cf. Table A 66). It is not known from the Thule Culture, but is difficult to prove archæologically, so that this circumstance does not prevent its being regarded as very old.

Snow goggles are likewise generally diffused except on the Aleutians^[257] and possibly among the Pacific Eskimos, where on the other hand the eye shade is very prominent. Among the other Eskimos the eye shade, as already mentioned, seems to be connected with the Thule Culture (see p. 26 seq.). The use of the eye shade instead of snow goggles seems to be one of the many points on which the Aleut and Pacific Eskimos differ from their kinsmen.

Wherever skin clothing is worn, i. e. throughout the whole of the Eskimo region, it is naturally necessary to beat the clothing clean of snow, as otherwise it readily becomes wet and rots. The Polar Eskimos go so far in their care of the fragile fox-skin frocks that they rarely take them into the house but keep them outside in a stone cache. Nowadays the Greenlanders outside the Thule district are content to beat their clothing with a whip handle or whatever may be handy. I have, however, previously figured an object from a grave in the Ritenbenk district which possibly is to be interpreted as a snow beater;^[258] another is mentioned by Mathiassen from Holsteinsborg,^[259] and Morten P. Porsild, M. Sc., the leader of the Arctic Biological Station on Disko Island, has informed me by letter that in one case. he has seen a special snow beater. A specimen from Northeast Greenland^[260] is, like those from West Greenland, rather doubtful. They are not known at all from Labrador and the Aleutians, whereas several implements from the Thule Culture have been taken to be snow beaters.^[261] Like those of the present-day Polar Eskimos, these are rather sharp-edged, whereas those of the present day Central Eskimos have a blunt edge. Hardly without reason Mathiassen connects this with the fact that the latter are used for clothing of caribou skin, whereas the former were presumably used for bear skin to a great extent.

As far as I know, genuine snow beaters are not found in Indian ​North America. The Chipewyan and Cree beat the snow out of their clothing with any stick that may be at hand. They are, however, to be found in Eurasia among the Yakut (K2: 76, CNM), Dolgan (1525–19, LAM), Samoyed (spec. in CNM) and Lapps (12.36:38, HMV). The Eurasian snow beaters are of wood or antler and differ from the Eskimo type by their curved, often spatula-shaped form. It is probable, however, that the Eskimos have received this element from the west.

Fire and its uses. It appears from Table A 69 that both the fire drill and the fire stone have a very wide diffusion. The difficulty of procuring wood may, in the regions round the Northwest Passage and one or two places elsewhere, have helped towards giving the fire stone its incontestible predominance in the Central region; but the geographical conditions are insufficient as the sole explanation. Even in the regions round the Magnetic Pole the fire drill is used and, even though the Polar Eskimos mostly used fire stones, they knew the fire drill and were able to tell me its name.^[262] In Greenland south of Melville Bay the fire stone is not known and, according to Jochelson, fire-striking implements were introduced to the Koryak from the Tungus. Through his excavations Dall believes he found fire stones on the Aleutians, and otherwise their distribution stretches from Bering Strait to Smith Sound. Both methods were used in the Thule Culture.^[263] There are two forms of fire drill, the shank being either turned by a bow or by a thong only; as Mathiassen says, there is reason for regarding the latter method as the older of the two. The question as to whether the fire drill or the fire stone is the older is not so easily answered, at any rate not with the distribution among the Eskimos as the sole guide, but must be considered from a wider angle.

If we take Table B 47, it will be seen that the fire drill with bow or thong drive occurs among a large number of sub-arctic tribes, both of Algonkian and Athapaskan stock, extending westwards as far as the Tahltan. They are also found further south by the Great Lakes (Iroquois, Menomini, Sauk and Fox, Ojibway) and on the northern plains among the Plains Cree and perhaps the northern Dakota.^[264] The Onondaga at their "White Dog" feast light a fire with a pump drill, and the same implement is used ceremonially by the Lenape. ​The pump drill, however, is decidedly not of American origin.^[265] The fire drill with bow and thong drive among the Athapaskan tribes in Alaska, such as the Kaiyuhkhotana and Kutchin, are easily explainable as the consequence of Eskimo influence; but what is the position with regard to all that long series of other occurrences? Just here it is of the greatest importance to observe that no report from the seventeenth or eighteenth century makes any mention of these forms of fire drills, whereas the simple type is repeatedly referred to. It would be quite incredible that not one of the many French authors who at that time wrote about the Laurentian regions had mentioned the bow drill if it were known at all. The only explanation of this is that not only the pump drill but the bow drill as well have been introduced to the eastern Indians from Europe. To this day the bow drill is used for fire-making in Macedonia^[266] and Sweden^[267] and only a hundred years ago it was used in East Prussia.^[268] On the other hand the fire drill of the Eskimos and Alaskan Indians probably originates from Asia, where bow drills are exceedingly common everywhere, even though they have given place to the flint and steel for fire-making in most places. They are, however, used on the Kuriles and the pump drill by the Yakut. At some place in Northwest Canada the boundary must be drawn between the type imported viâ Europe and that imported viâ Asia. We will see later that fire stones. on the other hand are very old in America and it is therefore most probable that among the Eskimos too this is the oldest fire lighter.

All Eskimos do their cooking by the open fire in summer when there is an opportunity. Frobisher saw this on his visits to Meta Incognita,^[269] and the fire-places by the whale-bone houses of the Thule Culture bear witness of the use of fires in even more remote times.^[270] The only exceptions from this are the Angmagssalik Eskimos who perhaps, as Thalbitzer presumes, have once ceased to use fires on account of some taboo.^[271] It may be added that open fire places have been found on the northeast coast of Greenland.^[272] In most places the Eastern Eskimos have excellent fuel in the resinous Cassiope tetragona, although they are sometimes compelled to content themselves with fires of blubber and bones.^[273] On the other hand ​of green plants the Eskimos at Mackenzie River and on the north coast of Alaska are said to only use willow.^[274] Where there is sufficient drift wood, as in the west especially, this is also used to a great extent. The Aleut sometimes used blubber fires,^[275] and the Coast Chukchi make fires of moss and bones moistened with fish oil.^[276]

Within the Eskimo region there are two places where no blubber flame ever burns under the cooking pot: the Barren Grounds and Alaska south of Kotzebue Sound, including the Aleutians.^[277] One might at once be inclined to ascribe this to geographical causes; but this is hardly the case. It cannot be because to some extent it is inland dwellers that are concerned. In the first place we have in the regions round the rivers Colville and Noatak a group of Inland Eskimos who always keep themselves provided with blubber by purchasing it from coast dwellers. The same thing might just as well be done elsewhere, for there is always a very lively intercourse between Eskimos within the same tribal group. In the second place it is not only the inland dwellers in South Alaska who keep to the open fire, for the fuel is mostly drift wood and the Kuskokwim delta is so poor in fuel that the people there seldom light a fire at all but eat most of their food raw.^[278]

Then is the reason that cooking is done by fire this, that the lamp is not known? This explanation will not do either. Even if the lamp on the Barren Grounds is only a poor little soapstone bowl or even a barely shaped stone, it does exist and is called by the same name as the lamp among other Eskimos. Lamps are used in South Alaska. too. The Pacific Eskimos even laboriously make lamps out of hard, dioritic rock, although all cooking is done over the fire, and although their sleeping room is warmed in winter with heated stones.^[279] Here, as elsewhere in South Alaska and on the Aleutians and the Barren Grounds, the lamp exclusively serves for illumination.

This rather inevitably leads to two conclusions: (1) Cooking over fires, which is the only generally diffused form of cooking among the Eskimos, is obviously the oldest form; (2) originally the lamp only served the purpose of illumination and only later has acquired its dominating position as the centre of domestic life. This may seem to be a surprising statement to make; the example of the Caribou Eskimos, however, shows incontestibly that man can live through the ​most severe arctic winter without the house being warmed up and that the Eskimos have consequently been able to spread at any rate over the southern parts of the tundra regions without having lamps for other purposes than lighting. For this purpose, however, it is in fact necessary in the winter night of the Arctic. I believe that in the discussion of the indispensability of the lamp to the wanderings of the Eskimos too much weight has often been attached to the cold and too little to the darkness.

The lamp is such an important element in Eskimo culture that since the appearance of Walter Hough's comprehensive description of the lamps in the U. S. National Museum it has several times attracted the attention of ethnographers. Hough himself^[280] distinguishes between: (1) the broad, crescent-shaped lamp which is found along the Arctic coast from Labrador to Norton Sound, and in this connection he emphasises the resemblance between the types from Smith Sound and Alaska; (2) the circular or oval lamp from Norton Sound, made of clay in the Yukon-Kuskokwim delta and of crystalline rock among the Pacific Eskimos and the Aleut. He adds that "the shape of the Yukon type, the absence of a definite wick edge or lip, and the method of burning by a wick brought up at the side relate them to the lamps of eastern Asia, or the simple dish lamps of diverse ages and peoples".

Prince Ukhtomski has carried both the area of investigation and the type classification further by including lamps from the Chukchi, Koryak and Kamchadal and by separating the lamps with a partition as a special type, but without taking regard to the fact that among them there are both crescent and oval forms.^[281] He finds the simple. round or oval lamps among the Kamchadal, Koryak, Aleut and in Alaska south of Norton Sound,, crescent-shaped lamps without a partition at Point Barrow, on Melville Peninsula, Baffin Land and in Labrador and Greenland outside the Thule district, and finally, lamps with a partition among the Chukchi and Eskimos at Bering Strait. Mackenzie River, Coronation Gulf and Smith Sound. It may be said at once that whilst Hough's differentiation between the round and the crescent types actually hits a fundamental point, this is not the case with Ukhtomski's. His "third type" — the lamps with a partition — is a lumber room with very varied contents and his material has furthermore been too small for the geographical marking of the types to be successful.

In reality the study of the lamp is an extremely difficult problem. because it often happens that several different forms may appear in ​the same place and, before systematic archæological investigation provided something definite to go upon, attempts at solving it necessarily led to failure. One can so far understand Porsild, when in his treatment of this subject he would throw all regional division of the types overboard.^[282] But that this was premature was to be presumed^[283] and has been fully confirmed by Mathiassen's excavations in the Central region.

It appears from these that in the Thule Culture we have three kinds of lamps, viz. the local Southampton Island type of cemented limestone slabs, a crude oval type, and a crescent-shaped type with a partition or with a row of knobs along the front edge.^[284] The first two are presumably the result of poor material,^[285] and the third form must therefore be considered as the really characteristic form; but, as Mathiassen very rightly says, it is "by no means primitive and can thus hardly be the earliest type of Eskimo lamp". The presence of the partition even places it to some extent at a higher stage than many of the Central Eskimo lamps now in use. As archæology thus fails us for the moment, we must see what can be proved ethnologically with regard to the development of the Eskimo lamp.

Whereas Hough considers the round clay lamps to be "intrusive" in the Eskimo region, Mathiassen seems to be inclined to regard then as being the original form. At least he is of the opinion that the rather more rounded form which marks the lamps of the Thule Culture compared with those of the Central tribes of today, is "probably due to their prototype being the round or oval clay lamp".^[286] Weighty objections may, however, be raised against regarding the clay lamp as being the oldest among the Eskimos. The art of the potter has, as we now know, been diffused at any rate from Bering Strait to Hudson Bay; but within that stretch clay lamps are only known in a rather insignificant little area. Such coarse and poor clay as the Eskimos are content to use is found in sufficient quantities for them not to have been obliged to abandon their clay lamps and recreate them in soapstone, which often has to be fetched long distances by means of difficult journeys. There would be still less reason to have recourse to the laboriously cemented limestone lamps on Southampton Island or to the lamps of the hard sandstone at Bering Strait, not to speak of the still more refractory crystalline rocks among the Pacific Eskimos. Especially in northern Alaska, where pottery has ​remained practically to the present day, nothing would be more natural than to make the lamps of clay; but we find instead that the soapstone lamp is imported from the east and spread as far as Kotzebue Sound, and even to Asia,^[287] and this despite the fact that the most westerly soapstone quarry on the Arctic coast is at Tree River in Coronation Gulf.^[288] Far from pointing in the direction of the originality of the clay lamp, this rather indicates that the people in Alaska have brought with them an ancient preference for stone lamps from elsewhere.

If we throw a glance at the distribution of the clay lamp, we find it among the Eskimos only in the Yukon-Kuskokwim delta, at Bristol Bay, and among the Asiatic Eskimos. On the Aleutians two (!) clay lamps have been found to date,^[289] but large numbers of stone lamps. The stone lamp predominates both north and south of the clay lamp. This, too, is best explained by considering the former as the original and the clay lamp as a later, perhaps original Asiatic form, which among the Eskimos has especially adapted itself locally to the delta country where stone is extremely scarce.

If we may now take it that stone is the older material, the next question is which form is the original one. We have referred to the two main types set up by Hough. If we ask which of these two are nearest to the original type, the choice can scarcely be difficult. The large, crescent-shaped lamp is a particular Eskimo form closely associated with life in the Arctic, not alone as an illuminant but just as much as a source of heat. It is, as Hough expresses it, "the result of an attempt to devise a vessel with a long, nearly straight wick edge combined with a reservoir".^[290] Now, however, reasons have just been given to show that the lamp originally has only served for lighting as is the case among the Pacific Eskimos and the Aleut, and in addition, the lamps of these people have a much less specialised form, even if they too undoubtedly are far removed from the original ones. But on the whole the oval lamps must be said to have retained the most primitive features.

Among the Eskimos, however, there are still more simple forms. Among the Caribou Eskimos we have, besides the possibly newer, flat bowl, the wholly or almost wholly unformed stone, merely with a natural hollow. The Southampton Islanders managed with such "lamps" occasionally,^[291] and they also occur sometimes among the ​Iglulik Eskimos.^[292] According to what was communicated verbally to me by Jacob Olsen, equally primitive lamps have been found in West Greenland. When they have no proper lamp at hand the Copper Eskimos improvise another out of a hollowed stone.^[293] Hough — I think rather partially — characterises the Aleut lamps as "the most primitive lamps on earth", but adds what is very interesting to us: "Many of them are merely unmodified rock fragments".^[294] It would appear from this that the lamp of the Caribou Eskimos is no local, degenerate form, but a really constant, though extremely primitive type which it is also justifiable to regard as being the oldest.

Just a few words in conclusion regarding whence the Eskimo lamp has spread. We can only refer to the circumstances dealt with above, firstly that the most primitive features have been retained farthest to the west, and secondly, that the crescent-shaped lamps obviously have their home east of Mackenzie River. Both circumstances rather indicate that it is from the Central regions that the Eskimo lamp has come. How this assumption can be made to agree with the fact that lamps are one of the culture elements of the Old World is a matter that will be reverted to in the following chapter.

As to the question of lamp fuel we find the engaging statement in Hough "that the invention of the lamp took place on some seacoast, where fat of aquatic mammals of high fuel value was abundant, rather than in the interior, where the fat of land animals is of low fuel value".^[295] The significance of the fuel value is, however, rather lowered by the fact that the lamp originally seems to have been used only for illumination. Caribou fat and caribou marrow are used, besides by the Caribou Eskimos, by the Eskimos at Back River, sometimes by the Baffinlanders too when they have no blubber on their journeys inland,^[296] by the Colville Eskimos,^[297] and by the Chukchi.^[298] Fish oil is used for lamps not only by the Caribou Eskimos but also by the Back River people,^[299] at Bering Strait^[300] and in West Greenland.^[301] Thus neither fish oil nor caribou fat are local fuels, and both have the advantage over the blubber of aquatic mammals that they are just as easily procurable inland as by the coast. Caribou fat is ​relatively slow to melt, whereas a thin oil can without difficulty be boiled out of fish, and from fish roe it can even be obtained quite mechanically without previous boiling. It is therefore probable that fish oil is the original fuel.

The distribution of the soapstone cooking pot is shown in Table A 70. It is characteristic of all eastern tribes, whereas round earthenware pots begin to appear among the Western Eskimos, to finally become predominant in the Yukon delta and at Bristol Bay as well as in Asia. The primitive cooking pots of the Aleut were most peculiar, something between a pot and a pan, consisting of a hollowedout slab of stone, or a bottom and lid of stone and sides of clay.

Finally, among the Chugachigmiut^[302] and the Ugalagmiut^[303] appears the cooking method of the Tlingit with heated stones which are thrown into a wooden vessel. The absence of soapstone cooking pots in the west is naturally explained by the fact that soapstone, as already mentioned, does not occur west of Coronation Gulf. All soapstone cooking pots and lamps at Mackenzie River and in Alaska are imported. That they were nevertheless in regular use means obviously, as in the case of the stone lamps, a holding on to old custom. On St. Lawrence Island the cooking pots are four-sided with rounded corners, though they are made of clay; this form also indicates a stone prototype.

We find, however, that the Thule Culture had rounded-square and also oval soapstone cooking pots, often with a rounded bottom. and therefore Mathiassen considers the stone cooking pot to have been derived from the clay pot.^[304] That the oval type is the oldest and the rectangular, which exclusively has a Central distribution, the youngest, is beyond all doubt; but it by no means follows from this that the stone pot has been derived from a clay pot. Although clay cooking pots have certainly played a much more important part than clay lamps, similar arguments may be applied as to these latter. Furthermore we will see later that the distribution of the stone cooking pot in North America is a powerful argument in favour of the earliest cooking pot of the Eskimos being of stone. And the oval form is in no way unnatural for a stone pot, as a visit to any ethnographical or archæological museum will show.

As Mathiassen correctly states, the Greenland soapstone cooking pots have retained traces of the earlier form, and the slightly hollowed-out stone pans of the Aleut are still more primitive. The highest stage of development is represented by the long, rectangular cooking ​pots in the Central region. This indicates that the stone cooking pot originated in the Central regions.

At this point we will skip the cookery-book of the Caribou Eskimos. Its various simple recipes for boiled, frozen, dried, and rotten meat are all known from Greenland to the Pacific Ocean and provide no contribution towards elucidating the cultural position of the Caribou Eskimos. Only one method deserves particular mention, i. e. roasting on stones, which must not be confused with the Indian frying by the side of the fire. The method in question is not often mentioned in the literature. It is mostly hunters who use it, when they are alone on a hunting trip, and meat prepared in this manner is therefore not on the daily bill of fare which more easily finds its way into ethnographic literature. Its distribution (cf. Table A 71) indicates that it is very old.

I know the moss spade of the Caribou Eskimos from the people at Back River, but not otherwise. It seems to be an invention peculiar to the Barren Grounds, an adaptation to the use of moss and lichen as fuel.^[305]

Edged tools. In its distribution the snow knife is naturally closely connected with the snow house (cf. Table A 72). Like this, the snow knife in its original diffusion is geographically limited and has since disappeared in various places on the outskirts. As we do not know the original form of the snow knife among the Caribou Eskimos, it cannot be decided to what type it has belonged. The Central tribes in recent times have used rather narrow snow knives, whereas the broad forms belong to the Thule Culture.^[306] As was the case with the dagger and flensing knife, we must reckon with the difficulties due to the rapid advance of the imported steel knives.

The whittling knife, which nowadays among all Eskimos is provided with a small, single-edged and most often crooked, triangular iron blade, is diffused generally among all Eskimos (Table A 73). Only at Smith Sound is it missing nowadays, but it has been taken in finds from there. Boas has thought that the crooked whittling knife is an Indian element, which has only at a late date made its way among the Eskimos at Hudson Bay;^[307] this hypothesis must, however, be abandoned on the grounds of its present wide distribution alone, and also because from the Thule Culture we have numerous handles of ​knives of this kind.^[308] The Greenlanders often use whittling knives with a straight blade and only bend it when the work requires it.

As it is obvious that the bent blade presupposes a knowledge of iron or other metal, it is a question what was the appearance of the original whittling knife among the Eskimos. It will not do to regard the beaver-tooth knife of the Alaska Eskimos as their prototype, as Hawkes is inclined to do.^[309] The beaver-tooth knife has a crosswise-edge, the crooked whittling knife a longwise edge, and the two forms must be wielded in entirely different ways. The analogy between them is only apparent. Murdoch once described two specimens with stone blades but believed them to be spurious.^[310] According to the archæological investigations that have now been made, the original form must, however, be presumed to have had a stone blade inserted in a bent handle.^[311] On the other hand there is scarcely any evidence of the use of knives entirely of bone, as some of my Eskimo advisers supposed; these are, however, known from other places in North America.

It was stated on p. 237, pt. I, that the Caribou Eskimos, according to their own belief, "flensed" tree trunks with pieces of iron and that the tool they used for this was possibly of the same kind as the splitting knife [qiɳusᴀ·q] of the Netsilik Eskimos, an implement that is also used for graving in antler and ivory. Even if this presumption must necessarily be uncertain and is not much supported by the two doubtful specimens which Hawkes figures from Eskimo Point, there may be reason for making some observations on the splitting knife. Table A 74 shows that it is a generally diffused implement. Now, of course, it has an iron blade, and Mason, who on the whole does not hesitate to ascribe European influence among the Eskimos — as when he speaks of "machine-made harpoon heads" in Greenland! — has also been inclined to place the art of graving to the acquisition of metal tools.^[312] We now know that this is wrong. There are objects with finely executed, engraved ornamentation from ages long before any white man's influence, and splitting knives in strata of the Thule Culture indicate how they were made.^[313] We have them from later times in Alaska with blades of jade.

I cannot, however, entirely rid myself of the opinion that an implement of this kind did not belong to the original culture of the Caribou Eskimos. Its whole character seems to fit in badly with the ​coarse work which the splitting of tree trunks will always be, and in fact it is striking that the Caribou Eskimos have practically no engraved ornaments which otherwise usually accompany the graving instrument. On the other hand we know, for instance from Greenland and also from the Thule Culture, that tree trunks have been split by boring a number of holes close together. This might perhaps indicate that the splitting knife — if it is this knife that the Caribou Eskimos have used — has in any case only been acquired after the introduction of iron when it really would mean a lightening of labour.

The woman's knife has been so comprehensively dealt with earlier by Mason, Porsild and now recently by Mathiassen that we may here rest content with few observations (cf. Table A 75). Its distribution among all Eskimos — and it may be added among many Indians too — marks it as an old element in Eskimo culture, and the many stone blades for this implement, found in a multitude of places, point in the same direction. As has formerly been supposed^[314] and now definitely proved by Mathiassen's excavations, Solberg's hypothesis of its appearance after the introduction of iron^[315] may be regarded as untenable. Almost all women's knives have the handle along the back. Women's knives with the handle at the side like an ordinary knife are only known from the west and in large numbers only seem to be present in the Yukon-Bristol Bay region. This form has obviously come from Asia, where similar forms are known among the Yakut (cf. Table B 50). Among the Pacific Eskimos, in northern Alaska and further east along the whole of the coast of the mainland the back-. handle is, on the contrary, predominant. This can only be explained in one way, that the back-handled knife is the oldest.

Porsild has shown that of the women's knives with dorsal handle the least serviceable form is that on which the handle is placed directly upon the back of the blade without a tang.^[316] That this type is also chronologically the oldest must be regarded as certain.^[317] From this Mathiassen traces the two-armed women's knife, which is principally restricted to Angmagssalik, and the one-armed, which nowadays prevails throughout the whole of the Central region, Labrador, the Thule district, and West Greenland. Although the one-armed type is not entirely absent in East Greenland, and although this and the two-armed type must both be considered to be parallel developments of the same fundamental form, there is no doubt that the East Greenland knife has on the whole retained more primitive features than those in the Central region, and lowest of all are the Western Eskimo ​forms. This might perhaps indicate that the women's knife has originated in the Central regions.

Abrading tools. The bone knife with which water is pressed out of skin is common among the Central Eskimos in our day (cf. Table A 76), but it is also known from Labrador, and Mathiassen draws attention to old specimens from West Greenland and Point Barrow which seem to have served the same purpose. In its form — a piece of split and partly hollowed-out antler, this scraper very much resembles the kayak scraper with which the Eskimos remove the thin covering of ice which forms on the deck of the kayak in autumn, and as the water scraper is in fact used for the skins of the caribou which are caught from the kayak, a genetic connection is not improbable.^[318] Knife-like scrapers are used at Bering Strait for cleaning the skins of small animals^[319] and on the Aleutians for cleaning gut skin;^[320] their connection with the implement dealt with here is, however, doubtful.

Skin scrapers (Table A 77) are found among all Eskimos, but their form varies greatly. We have already referred to the two-handed scraper and shall therefore keep to the one-handed scraper type. Cupshaped scrapers, with which must be grouped scrapers of a natural mussel shell, are only to be found in Alaska and Greenland and in the Thule Culture in the Central regions. In Alaska and West Greenland a peculiar form is also used, consisting of a flat, bent piece of bone, the two wings of which are connected by a handle; in West Greenland, however, it is not used for skins but for plucking berries. None of these types concern the Caribou Eskimos.

Something similar is the case with scrapers with stone blades inserted in a handle of wood. As a rule the blade is not polished, but chipped out of hard minerals like flint, chalcedony etc. There are also polished jade blades, however, from the Western and, exceptionally, from the Central regions (P 29: 345, CNM, from King William's Land): polished slate blades sometimes occur too. Mathiassen has shown that scraper blades of stone, which have been used up to the present day in Alaska, have with the Thule Culture been diffused over the whole of the Eskimo region as far as Greenland.^[321] Neither among the Caribou Eskimos nor — with very few exceptions — among other Central tribes do they occur nowadays.

Quite another kind of scraper is the sandstone, or more rarely the slate scraper with a beak-shaped extension at the rear, but usually ​without a separate handle. It is found among the Caribou Eskimos, in whose area the red sandstone occurs, and is still fairly common among the Iglulik and Netsilik tribes, who either import it from the south or cut it from erratic boulders. It is found in the Thule Culture even from the west coast of Labrador, and Mathiassen mentions a fine specimen of jade with a handle of antler from Victoria Land. It is a special Central Eskimo type whose prototype, as already stated on p. 243, pl. I, must be sought in the bone scraper.

Of bone scrapers we have two different types, one made of a scapula — among the Caribou Eskimos always of caribou nowadays, but among other tribes of musk-ox too — and the other of a split tubular bone. The first of these forms, which are both known from the Thule Culture,^[322] only occur among the Central tribes in the widest sense, Labrador included. The second type is likewise peculiar to the Central regions, but a closely related form, made of a not entirely split metacarpal bone, is found at Point Barrow and Norton Sound.

Whetting implements, whether in the form of teeth, stone or nowadays of iron, are common everywhere (Table A 78). They are also known from the Thule Culture.^[323]

Hewing and drilling implements. According to Jochelson, the ice pick is missing on the Aleutians, presumably a consequence of the mild, sub-arctic climate which neither permits ice-hunting nor ice-fishing. Otherwise it seems (cf. Table A 79) to be present everywhere, either as a separate implement fitted to a pole or lashed on the butt end of the ice-hunting harpoon. The Polar Eskimos, whose ice-hunting harpoon today has a short wooden shaft and a long, solid foreshaft of round iron, use the latter for hewing holes in the ice, but formerly they used a separate ice pick. In the Thule Culture it is common.^[324] Mathiassen is thus correct in saying that the ice pick is a commonly diffused element and that Wissler's supposition that it is peculiar to the Western regions cannot be maintained.^[325]

The hand drill is not common anywhere among the Eskimos. It is gradually becoming known from most places, however (Table A 80), and we also have it from the Thule Culture.^[326] To use Mathiassen's words: "In the hand drill we thus have an old Eskimo implement, once very widespread but now fallen out of use in most places".

The bow drill (Table A 81) has been proved practically everywhere — that it is not mentioned, as far as I know, from the little ​known Pacific Eskimos does not signify much — but Jenness considers he can prove that at one time the Eskimos at Hudson Strait did not know the bow drill. This was in the period of the culture which, according to its principal finding place, has been called the Cape Dorset Culture.^[327] Mathiassen has expressed his doubts as to the correctness of this hypothesis, and so much is certain, that the bow drill was known in the Thule Culture.^[328] On the other hand we have seen that as a fire-making implement it is scarcely original, and that the same applies to it as a tool will be confirmed by a glance at Table B 54, which shows that it is not mentioned in this form either in the early reports from the Indians in North America, whereas in Eurasia it is widely diffused. Perhaps it was already known in Japan's Stone Age.^[329] From China^[330] and Central Asia^[331] we know both the bow drill and the pump drill. As regards Europe it will be sufficient to recall Odysseus' narrative of how he blinds the Cyclop "as when with his drill the carpenter bores the plank for a ship" (Odyssey c. IX, v. 384 seqq.). The bow drill presumably came to the Eskimos over the Bering Strait, and the hand drill is their original tool.

Sewing needles (cf. Table A 82) of steel have been imported by the Eskimos since the first connection with white men was established. On account of the difficulty of getting the native needles fine and strong enough, European needles have always been greatly in demand and generously paid for, and as soon as the Eskimos obtained access to iron they commenced to make needles of this material. Thus Parry says that the Aivilingmiut had numbers of sewing needles "not much inferior to our own"^[332] and even on out-of-the-way Southampton Island Lyon found iron needles on his first meeting with the inhabitants.^[333] We know, however, from old records and from archæological finds that sewing needles were originally made of ivory or the bones of fish, birds and, in some cases, mammals (fox, caribou) and doubtless usually furnished with an eye.^[334] Kumlien's report from southern Baffin Land is remarkable — of a sewing needle which had an eye near the point and had to be threaded for every stitch. Whilst needles with an eye seem to have been known to the Pacific Eskimos, the Aleut had needles to which the thread was fastened by binding it round a groove at the butt end. Dall believes that they have stuck it ​with resin on the side of a piece of quill in order to lead it through holes which had previously been bored in the skin.

The snow probe is much less common than its use in snow house building might indicate. Thus the Polar Eskimos stick their snow knife into the snow in order to test its character, and the same method is followed in Labrador.^[335] In southern Baffin Land the Eskimos use the harpoon shaft,^[336] but this may probably have become common only after its foreshaft was made of round-iron. In the best of cases it must be very difficult to feel the consistence of the snow with one of the old-fashioned, heavy harpoon shafts. Probably it was from the first the snow knife that was used, before the special snow probe was invented. This is only found (cf. Table A 83) in the regions north and west of Hudson Bay as well as the Northwest Passage. In these regions it goes back to the days of the Thule Culture.^[337] It is possible that formerly it was more common; Mathiassen has advanced some evidence — very doubtful it is true — of its former occurrence in West Greenland, Ellesmere Land and at Point Barrow and East Cape.

Other implements. Although information is lacking as to two or three places, there is no reason to doubt that the thimble is diffused over the whole of the Eskimo area (cf. Table A 84). It has also been found from the Thule Culture.^[338] There is a possibility, however, that it must be regarded as being a younger element originating from Asia (cf. p. 198).

On the other hand the needle cushion is known from only few places outside the Caribou Eskimo area, viz. Labrador,^[339] Smith Sound^[340] and East Greenland.^[341] In Labrador there is also the needle case, whereas this is unknown both at Angmagssalik and in the original culture of the Caribou Eskimos. Its sporadic occurrence in four places which all are remarkable for a certain oldfashioned stamp, signify the needle cushion as a very old element which has almost been displaced by the needle case. This already occurs in the Thule Culture.^[342] One kind of needle cushion among the Caribou Eskimos, consisting of a rolled skin for hanging on the breast, has certainly in its form been influenced by the needle case, whereas the moss cushion is more original.

The Eskimos know two main forms of thimble holder: a toggle shaped and a hook shaped. The toggle shaped type is often quite ​simple, but in West Greenland is sometimes handsomely carved in the form of a bird figure. The toggle shape is particularly characteristic of the regions by Hudson Bay, but is met with here and there over the whole region (cf. Table A 85). The hook-shaped thimble holder sometimes takes the form of a double hook or an anchor or even, as I have previously remarked,^[343] of a ring with a point projecting on the inside. All three modifications are met with in the west in Alaska, and east in Greenland, and the anchor form is also known from the Thule Culture;^[344] they must certainly all be regarded as genuine Thule forms. As a mixed form — not a transitional form in a genetic sense — between the toggle and the anchor shaped types I consider the thimble holder consisting of two slightly curved branches. It is used to this day by the Northwest Passage, on Southampton Island and in Labrador; we also have it from the Thule Culture.^[345] That the simple toggle type is the oldest will hardly be any mistaken assumption, having regard to both the diffusion and the form.

The cutting board (Table A 86) is not mentioned from Baffin Land, Point Barrow or the Pacific Eskimos; this, however, hardly means other than that no author has thought it worth while mentioning this implement, which often is nothing more than an almost unformed board. Without doubt it belongs to the generally diffused elements.

The snow shovel (cf. Table A 87) is missing on the Aleutians, apparently for geographic reasons.^[346] There, however, there are other shovels which perhaps may be compared to the snow shovel. Nowadays this implement has a western and Central distribution, but this has not always been the case. In DMV there is an old specimen from Labrador, and Mathiassen draws attention to specimens from the Cape York district and West Greenland, now in CNM, which without doubt are snow shovels or fragments of these.^[347] As they are also known from the Thule Culture, they must certainly be both old and generally diffused.

The distribution of the ice scoop is shown in Table A 88. Its absence on the Aleutians^[348] is undoubtedly due to geographic causes. But why is it missing among the Polar Eskimos? When they wish to remove pieces from a hole in the ice they have no other means of doing so than the broad end of the harpoon shaft. Of this, however. they use the word [ilaut], which is the common term of the West ​Greenlanders and the Central Eskimos for the ice scoop,^[349] and therefore there is reason to suppose that it has been known earlier. It is not very often that the Polar Eskimos need to chop holes where pieces of ice would be any inconvenience. They obtain drinking water easiest from frozen-in icebergs or old, washed-out sea ice, and they know neither fishing nor net-hunting of seals from the ice. Something similar may be the reason why the ice scoop is lacking at Angmagssalik.

The ice scoop is not mentioned from Labrador, but it is common among the Naskapi (cf. Table B 57) and seems to have been observed at Cape Dorset on the other side of Hudson Strait, where the people have always had intimate intercourse with their kinsmen south of the strait. It may therefore be assumed that the ice scoop is or has been present in Labrador. The assumption of its occurrence at Cape Dorset is supported by the fact that Lyon saw "a small whalebone scoop" for a boat, and in West Greenland ice scoops are made of baleen. It will not be denied that a specimen may occasionally be used in a boat; but it is very improbable that this is its proper purpose. The umiak is always carefully drawn up on shore and turned over in order that the skin may not rot. No water accumulates in the bottom and therefore there is no use for a special bailer. Everything thus indicates that it was an ice scoop which Lyon saw, and as it is also present in the Thule Culture,^[350] the conclusion on the whole is that it may be regarded as a commonly diffused and presumably old element.

The ice scoop, however, occurs in various forms. In Alaska it consists of a bone ring with a network of thongs or strips of baleen. Exactly similar forms are met with in Siberia (cf. Table B 57) and must be presumed to be an Asiatic type which, within comparatively recent times, has made its way to the Eskimos. The Greenland ice scoop consists of a bowl of a bent piece of baleen, the inside edges of which are "sewn" together with a thong and at the front edged with a bone border, whilst at the back at the bend there is a wooden handle. It is presumably a similar "whalebone scoop" that Lyon refers to. Murdoch describes a rather similar type from Point Barrow besides the net type. It is not of baleen, it is true, but of two flat pieces of antler joined at an angle as in Greenland. This type thus has an eastern and a western area. Although it has not been found in the Thule Culture, it is reasonable to place it there, especially when it is recalled that the use of baleen presupposes that so characteristic element of the Thule Culture — whaling.

In the Central region from Hudson Bay to and including the mouth of the Mackenzie the ice scoop is of musk-ox horn or antler and, when ​they are of the latter material, they are never of two pieces as at Point Barrow. In contrast to the one referred to above, this type has been discovered in finds from the Thule Culture.

In Table A 89 arrow straighteners and thong smoothers are treated together. This is warrantable, inasmuch as these implements are not only identical with regard to form, but the same implement is actually used for both purposes, as for instance by the Arviligjuarmiut. Thus this implement can live on in the culture long after the last arrow has been shot, as is the case in Greenland. Information as to the diffusion of the arrow straightener seems to be rather defective; but the manner in which it is spread from the Chukchi Peninsula to Angmagssalik indicates that it is an old, commonly diffused element and that its not being known from the Thule Culture is accidental.

The wedge (cf. Table A 90) is one of the very first implements to be mentioned in the literature. The Icelander Björn Jónsson has copied a record — now lost — from the Greenland priest Halldor, which begins thus: "The summer in which the priest Arnold departed from Greenland (i. e. 1265 or 1266) there were found out in the sea some pieces of timber which had been hewn with axes or adzes (Þexlum) and among them one in which were wedges of teeth and bone...".^[351] It cannot be seen from the record whether the wood was found in the Danmark Strait or not until west of Cape Farvel; but in either case it has undoubtedly been brought by the East Greenland polar current and probably came from the east coast of Greenland. The wedge was found in the Thule Culture;^[352] but, as conditions among the Caribou Eskimos show, Mathiassen is incorrect in maintaining that it is lacking in the present culture of the Central tribes. The Copper Eskimos split wood for sledge runners with wedges of copper. We must certainly regard the wedge as an old, commonly diffused element of culture among the Eskimos.

Thongs and cords. It is too well known to require detailed evidence that all Eskimos make sinew thread and plaited sinew cord. The Caribou Eskimos do not split the sinews until after drying, whereas the Polar Eskimos split them while wet, which makes the thread round; the Arviligjuarmiut in Pelly Bay are said to do the same, at any rate sometimes. Yet there is in Gilder a description of the making of sinew thread from dried sinews and, from the context, it would seem to be the Netsilik group that is referred to.^[353] On the whole it seems to be the most common to split the dry sinews. The ​West and East Greenlanders do it, also the inhabitants of Labrador^[354] and southern Baffin Land.^[355]

Babiche is much less used by the Eskimos than seal thong, and no wonder, for deerskin is much less strong than the tough hide of the bearded seal and the young walrus. The places where babiche is known are shown in Table A 91. It is never used in Greenland, but there the caribou is nowhere numerous and in some places exterminated, whereas walrus and bearded seal are common in places and there are also other species of seals such as the saddleback, the skin of which can be used in the absence of any better. From the literature on Labrador I know nothing of babiche; but not even the making of the indispensable seal thong is mentioned in Turner's and Hawkes' works. The only example of the use of babiche in Labrador known to me is the twisted string on a small toy bow from Richmond Gulf (P 26: 45, CNM). Otherwise the occurrence of babiche is recorded almost without interruption from Hudson Bay to northeast Asia. It is less serviceable but also less circumstantial to make than the seal thong and seems to be one of the old, common Eskimo elements which, only on account of natural conditions, has been lost in Greenland.

Technique. When dealing with the lamp it was stated that soapstone is used far to the west of the most westerly quarry at Coronation Gulf, the soapstone lamp having made its way right to Norton Sound. At the Bering Strait there are lamps of sandstone, and south of the enclave of the clay lamps at Yukon-Bristol Bay we meet the Pacific Eskimos' lamps of hard, dioritic rock. The technique which these Eskimos employ is pecking, which otherwise hardly occurs among their kinsmen, but in North America just has its main diffusion among the North Pacific tribes. Whether pecking among the Pacific Eskimos is a late acquisition or not can only be decided by archæological excavation on the spot. That working in soapstone among the Eskimos is old may be regarded as probable, and is further confirmed by the diffusion of this technique in other parts of North America.

The more simple forms of wood working — scarfing, a primitive form of mortising and the bending of wood by means of steam or hot water — are so generally met with that they must be regarded as being common Eskimo elements. Every museum of any size can show specimens of the first methods in the building of bows, the construction of kayaks and sledges, etc. The diffusion of the process of bending wood with steam or hot water is shown on Table A 92.

​The most simple of all forms of skin preparing, which is simply a scraping of the skin, is found among all Eskimos (cf. Table A 93). As a rule it is the skins of land animals that are treated in this manner, conforming to their low content of fat. The simple scraping of skins plays the least important part in the peripheral parts of the Eskimo region, where other methods contest with it for pride of place, as in Labrador and formerly among the Iglulingmiut,^[356] where deerskin is sprinkled and rubbed with urine, apparently in imitation of the urine treatment of sealskin. In Labrador, Alaska and North Asia deerskin is treated with brains, fish roe, etc. and smoked. This is apparently the result of influence from neighbouring peoples. Thus even if the simple scraping process may be restricted to skins that are not so much used, such as of hare, fox, marmot, and bear, its general diffusion is evidence that it is a common Eskimo and — having regard to its simplicity — certainly ancient element.

The unhairing of skin by means of hot water has a Central distribution (Table A 93). The unhairing method of the Baffinlanders with cold water takes a longer time but is not essentially different to this method. In the border areas to the east and west they use urine tanning, which thus, as Hatt has called attention to^[357] has a divided diffusion. Geographic reasons cannot be the cause of this diffusion, among other things because urine tanning is never predominant. It would seem natural to presume a connection between permanent winter houses and urine tanning, for it is not easy for a family moving about to save up old urine. But when we see that the Polar Eskimos, despite their comfortable stone houses, scald their skins, and that the Southampton islanders did not use urine tanning either, an inner connection between the two elements becomes improbable. Hatt says "Urine tanning undoubtedly has its origin in a simple washing down of the skin, which originally has been done with water", and in support of this he states that the West Greenlanders, despite the urine tanning, always rinse their seal skins on the beach, i. e. employ a sort of rudimentary water treatment, and that washing the skins is also practised by many other peoples such as the Lapps and several North American Indians.^[358] I believe that this is correct. The treating of skin with urine is on the other hand rare outside the Eskimo region, and in North America seems to be restricted to the northwest coast.^[359] Thus here again we have one of the cases where an element exists in its earliest variant in the Central regions.

​It appears from Table A 94 that the sewing technique occurring among the Caribou Eskimos is common to the whole region of Eskimo culture. Wherever information is at hand, sewing takes place from right to left, in contrast to the usual direction with us. Overcasting and running stitch, as well as their "blind" variants, are known everywhere. The seam preferred depends upon the kind of material and the purpose of the object; if the seams are to turn in towards the naked body, or if the skins are not particularly tender, they are sewn with overcasting, but otherwise with the running stitch. Blind stitches are used when a particularly watertight seam is wanted as on summer boots and skin boats.^[360] There are both overcasting and running stitch on the only article of clothing preserved from the Thule Culture, the boot from Ponds Inlet.^[361]

The knots and hitches used by the Eskimos have not been studied sufficiently to permit anything definite to be said as to their distribution; the common forms among the Caribou Eskimos — the sling, half-hitch, reef knot, and bow-line knot^[362] — are at any rate of the most simple kind and are also known to the Eskimos at Cumberland Sound,^[363] the Polar Eskimos, and the West Greenlanders. The characteristic, so-called "cut splice" seems to occur among all Eskimos.

Ceremonial equipment. The only real and almost indispensable equipment for a festival — apart from plenty of food — is the drum, the distribution of which is shown on Table A 95. There is no reason to doubt that it is a very old element in Eskimo culture; only far to the west are there other musical instruments at all, if we disregard the already described wooden whistle of the Caribou Eskimos. The drum of the Koryak, with central grip in contrast to the Chukchi and Eskimo type with lateral grip, is presumably due to influence from other Siberian people who all use the central grip. I know of no record of the drum from Labrador; but having regard to the fact that the population there is wholly or almost wholly Christian and on the whole only little known, this hardly means much. On the other hand it is very peculiar that the present-day Aivilingmiut, who knew the Southampton Islanders, assert that the latter did not use the drum.^[364] If this really is correct, it must presumably be put down to a local culture-loss.

​In the mask we meet a culture element which presents just as great and on the whole similar difficulties as does the throwing board (cf. Table A 96). The ideas of Eskimo masks is principally associated with Alaska. It is here that an unrestrained imagination revels in the most fantastic carvings. These grotesque masks may, however, undoubtedly be traced back to the Northwest Indians.^[365] But there are also in Alaska, almost hidden in the confusion of the others, a few so to say more realistic masks, and the further we go from the southern regions the more do they appear in the foreground. At Point Barrow they rule almost alone. In West and East Greenland they are also known. They are to be found among some Central tribes but only play an insignificant part among them. It might therefore be presumed that the "realistic" masks belong to the Thule Culture and were only as a survival from this preserved in some places in the Central regions (where they furthermore seem to be of greatest importance in southern Baffin Land, which in several respects has departed less from the old culture than the Central tribes in the narrower sense); it must be remembered that I do not know masks from the Caribou Eskimos either, except through what is perhaps not too reliable, verbal communication. On the other hand masks have a much wider diffusion in America than the elements of the Thule Culture have as a rule, just as is the case with the throwing board. It is true that against this it may now be objected that whilst the throwing board everywhere is a fixed, limited type whose uniformity, and consequently its common origin, is obvious, the same thing by no means applies to the mask. Masking in itself means relatively little as a criterion of culture relationship; it is the ideas and rites associated with it that are the most important, and it is outside the scope of this work to trace them.

Sports and pastimes. We now come to a section the results of which must remain uncertain in many cases. As to dress and weapons it is easy enough for the pen of even the casual traveller to record some observations; but the pastimes of the native population are as a rule only learned during intimate intercourse with them or by direct enquiry. Ball games are best known and one of the commonest forms of Eskimo sport (cf. Table A 97). John Davis' crew in 1586 arranged a regular game of football with the Greenlanders round what is now Godthaab.^[366] It therefore sounds very improbable when Payne writes of the people at Cape Prince of Wales in Hudson Strait: "During my stay here football was introduced",^[367] and in no ​other source — on this point there are exceptionally many — from Labrador is there the slightest indication that football was a strange element. Handball is mentioned from Labrador as early as the eighteenth century. Among the Copper Eskimos only the people at Bathurst Inlet seem to commonly play ball, and a man from Coronation Gulf told Jenness that they had first learned it from the Netsilik Eskimos. The general distribution of both football and handball would indicate that both are old elements common to all Eskimos.

Juggling with several balls at once also seems to be generally known over the whole of the Eskimo region, although information is lacking from some places (cf. Table A 98).

The ring-and-pin game (ajagaq) has its main distribution towards the east (cf. Table A 99), but thereafter quite disappears in the Mackenzie area and in Alaska, to appear again among a single Koryak tribe, the Kerek, and, in a modified form, among the Chukchi. Like Mathiassen, I consider it to be very improbable that, as Thalbitzer supposes, there is any connection between the ring-and-pin game and the object described by Nelson (1899; 359).^[368] One might rather seek the connection in the "hoop-and-pole" game, which Culin also associates with the ring-and-pin game and which, with its diffusion among the Chukchi,^[369] Alaskan^[370] and Copper Eskimos,^[371] fills up the gap between the occurrence of the ring-and-pin game in the east and among the Chukchi and Koryak. It is not the first time that we find an ancient element preserved among the Kerek; we saw it earlier with regard to snow houses and snow knives. We must therefore reckon with the ring-and-pin game as a common Eskimo element. It also occurs in the Thule Culture.^[372]

The nuglutaq proper has a Central distribution, but related forms are known from West Greenland and Bering Strait (cf. Table A 100). It also occurs in the Thule Culture^[373] and is very closely associated with the ring-and-pin game, of which it may be a variant.

All too little is known of the various forms of sport to make it possible to determine their distribution with any certainty. Wrestling, however, seems to be known everywhere. "Rolling" round outstretched thongs is at any rate found among the Central tribes and in Greenland, but at the latter place they know more exercises than among the Caribou Eskimos. Handles for trials of strength are only ​known from few places, but scattered right from Greenland to Bering Strait and perhaps Northeast Asia (cf. Table A 101). Skipping also seems to be a common Eskimo element, although information on this point too is obviously defective (cf. Table A 102).

According to the information available the hand game has an eastern diffusion, but it may be that the particulars are incomplete (cf. Table A 103). The same applies to roulette (Table A 104).

There is a certain interest attached to dice (Table A 105). There are two forms of dice, one carved in the form of swimming bird figures tiɳmiujät], the other being of unworked metatarsal or toe bones of various animals. Naturally we cannot take it that playing dice has been known at a place simply because bird figures have been found there. Thus we know that they were ordinary playthings on Southampton Island,^[374] and their use among the Koryak is doubtful. On the other hand they represent such a definitely limited and uniform type that their use as a toy is presumably secondary and due to degeneration. We have thus the peculiar but by no means unique phenomenon, that we have the higher developed type, bird figures, on the outskirts of the region and in the Central regions only from numerous finds from the Thule Culture,^[375] whereas the simple type, unworked bones, is nowadays used in the Central region.

String figures have recently been thoroughly dealt with by Jenness, who has plotted their distribution on a map.^[376] In Table A 106 a few additional localities have been added, especially from the eastern area, so that their character as a common Eskimo element will be obvious.

Toys. If the information of the pastimes of the grown-ups is defective, this is even more the case with regard to children's games and toys. Almost the only toy whose distribution is sufficiently proved is the doll, which is to be found everywhere (cf. Table A 107).

Whilst we have fairly complete material as to the distribution of the bull roarer in the east, from the western regions there are only records of its occurrence at Point Barrow and Bering Strait (cf. Table A 108). It is probably an old, common Eskimo element, which has perhaps already fallen into disuse in some places. Despite considerable gaps in our knowledge of the diffusion of the buzz, the information about it is better than that about the bull roarer (Table A 109). The buzz also seems to be common Eskimo; it is known from the Thule Culture.^[377] On the other hand it is impossible to say anything definite ​about the wind wheel. It is found in both East and West Greenland^[378] and among the Polar Eskimos;^[379] Parry mentions it from Iglulik^[380] and it also occurs among the Caribou and Netsilik Eskimos; but beyond this nothing can be said. The pop-gun I know only from West Greenland apart from the Caribou Eskimos.

The Caribou Eskimos cut whistles out of willow branches and quills. Similar willow whistles are known in West Greenland.^[381] Bogoras mentions whistles of goose feathers for ceremonial use among the Asiatic Eskimos and the Chukchi and similar ones from MacFarlane River in the Mackenzie region.^[382] The whistles of wood with a thin reed of baleen used in the same place^[383] are also known from West Greenland, where the reed is a piece of quill;^[384] but whether they have anything to do with the kind of whistle mentioned before is doubtful.

As indicated earlier, I neglected the opportunity of learning whether the top is used by the Caribou Eskimos. I believe, however, that it is, and am strengthened in this belief by the fact that the top is apparently a common Eskimo culture element (cf. Table A 110). It is also known from the Thule Culture.^[385]

Graves. It has previously been mentioned that the closed grave of stone and the timbered grave homologous to it belong to the Thule Culture and with this have almost disappeared in the Central regions, whereas they continue in the outskirts. Certain other burial methods which are only found in the west are apparently still younger. Cremation is not practised at all by the American Eskimos but is known to the Asiatic Eskimos and to the Chukchi and Koryak. Its occurrence is undoubtedly connected with cremation among other peoples on both sides of the northern Pacific: the Amur tribes, the Kamchadal, the Northwest Indians, etc..^[386] Platform burial is also known in Northeast Asia, at Bering Strait, and on the north coast of Alaska; this, too, seems to be a late form of burial among the Eskimos, who by the Bering Strait have combined it with the wooden coffin, as is the case among the Tlingit. Finally we also meet among the Western Eskimos the custom of erecting a sort of primitive tent of poles, in which the corpse is laid on a platform. This custom is ​doubtless connected with one of the burial forms of the Aleut and the Pacific Eskimos, who in some cases lay the corpse on a platform in a rock cavern or even bury it on the platform in the house itself. The meaning is that the deceased must still have a dwelling place.^[387]

Laying the dead in open caves has, however, a connection in another direction, and this brings us to one of the most widespread methods of treating the dead: the simple laying of the corpse on the ground, at the most with a ring of stones round it. As Table A 111 shows, this is practically the only form of grave that is nowadays used by the Central Eskimos, and it is common in Labrador. From West Greenland we mostly know of closed graves; but there are signs that the exposed burial has not been unknown. Thus it is stated in the report of one of Davis' voyages: "We found on shore three dead people, and two of them had their staves lying by them, and their olde skins wrapped about them, and the other had nothing lying by, wherefore we thought it was a woman".^[388] From more recent times there are a few reports of cave burial in West Greenland,^[389] but unfortunately no systematic examination of any burial cave has ever been made. In East Greenland the body was laid on the beach if one of the forefathers of the dead had lost his life in the sea.^[390]

The simple exposing of the corpse is not even unknown to the Western Eskimos, despite their many burial forms. It is very common at Point Barrow and is likewise known to the Asiatic Eskimos. The old-fashioned Kerek tribe sink their dead in the sea. The Aleut and the Pacific Eskimos sometimes place the corpses in caves or rock shelters. The fact that here the bodies are mummified, placed in a sitting posture and decorated in a special manner, and that the burial cave is furnished with a platform like a dwelling, obviously indicates new ideas; but the placing of the corpse in a cave or shelter is probably ancient and directly or indirectly connected with laying out in the open. But even apart from this we have established for it an almost continuous distribution from Northeast Asia to Greenland. This argues that exposure in the open is an old form of "burial" among the Eskimos.

It may, perhaps, be objected that the open ring of stones is a ​simplified edition of the closed stone coffin and therefore younger than this. It is possible that there has been an influence from the closed graves, even though the stone ring may be explained in another manner. The Eskimos have very vague and self-contradictory ideas of the place of sojourn of the dead; although they believe in the existence of several "kingdoms of the dead", they also believe that the soul is connected to the grave, and they fear that the dead will walk. It may therefore be imagined that the stone ring is not a survival of a grave but has been built in order to keep the soul at the spot and prevent it from wandering about and doing harm to the living. But even if the presence of the stone ring might be traced back to the stone coffin, the laying out of the body is itself so fundamentally different to burial in a grave that I do not see any connection. It is two entirely different ideas which come together here. That exposure is doubtless the oldest we will see later, in other words, again an example of an old culture element overlying a younger one in the Central regions.

Grouping of the culture elements. We have now tried to outline what is described as the original culture of the Caribou Eskimos. An attempt has been made to distinguish between old and new types, between elements common to all Eskimos and those with a more limited distribution. And what have we found?

One single element, the splitting knife, has perhaps been borrowed from the Netsilik group within recent times. Furthermore, there is a small group about which our material is so defective, or which has at an early stage been so changed by outside influence, that for the present its position may be said to be very uncertain. This group comprises: urine pot, flaying knife, fish spoon, pop-gun, and whistle. Nor are the circumstances connected with the mask and the throwing board sufficiently clear, and the same applies to the various methods of carrying. It is possible, and in some cases even probable, that old, common-Eskimo elements are concealed among them, but we know too little about them to be able to use them in the elucidating of the cultural position of the Caribou Eskimos.

Looking at the remaining elements, it is striking how few point towards the west. These are the simple fish hook, swivel, snow beater, thimble (?), tonsure, cap with side pieces and a back piece, mitten with the two-piece palm, the bow drill and the fire drill which is, in fact, identical with it. None of these elements are of essential importance to the culture, and in addition, the four latter are only a kind of substitute for others: the tonsure for another form of hair dressing, ​the mitten with the two-piece palm for the mitten with the separate thumb, the bow drill for the hand drill, and the fire drill for the fire stones. The age of these western elements seems to vary greatly. A special form of swivel seems to have developed in the time of the Thule Culture, with a ring-shaped collar, so that the simple form, with plate-shaped collar, which is known from the Central Eskimos, can hardly be later than the early stage of the Thule period. On the contrary the simple fish hook, the tonsure and the mitten with two-piece palm must undoubtedly be later than the Thule Culture, as they have not, or only to a slight degree, made their way into the eastern regions.

A few other elements apparently have an eastern distribution. Among these are the box-trap (?), the drip ring on the kayak paddle, the hand game, and the roulette. In its cut — a simple sagittal seam instead of a top piece — the frock hood takes its place among the eastern forms. The diffusion of the stiletto and the soapstone technique is not actually eastern, although they are not known in the west. As has already been shown, they must both be taken as being old, common-Eskimo elements.

The following have a greater or smaller Central distribution: urine scraper, wolf hunting with bloody knife, carrying bags for dogs, the fringe on the edge of the frock, the cloak, child's tippet, woman's belt. buttons, the various forms of scrapers of scapula, tubular bone and sandstone and, with a very limited diffusion, the moss spade and the skin "fish trap". The position is more uncertain as regards the snow probe, mud-shoeing on sledges, and caribou hunting by two men, one of whom conceals himself. Some of these elements, for instance the scraper types, must be described as substitutional forms, as they occupy a place in the culture which is occupied by other forms outside the Central region, whereas others are new acquisitions in the proper sense. Of these the snow probe, the moss spade and mud shoeing may possibly be regarded as results of an adaptation to environment. Here. too, we must be dealing with culture acquisitions from very different times; some are already known from the Thule Culture, others are presumably later.

All together the elements enumerated above only amount to one fourth of those which have been taken up for investigation. All the others, that is to say by far the most important part of the material culture of the Caribou Eskimos, and particularly the fundamental elements proper, have a distribution which may be characterised in one of the following ways: (1) it either comprises all Eskimos from east to west;^[391] or (2) the distribution is sporadic over the whole region; or ​finally (3) the boundaries of the distribution are clearly drawn by special, geographical conditions.

That a diffusion covers the whole of the Eskimo region must not, of course, be taken quite literally to mean that an element, if it is to be placed into this category, must be proved to be present in every single group. That would be an unreasonable demand as long as there are still such obvious gaps in our knowledge with regard to the Labrador, Pacific and Asiatic Eskimos. In these cases one must have recourse to ordinary, scientific tact in order to make a decision. Even if an element is undoubtedly missing here or there where the geographical surroundings really permit of its presence, this is not sufficient to prevent its being described as common-Eskimo. Local conditions may have something to do with its disappearance. We find this on Southampton Island, where the hunting of swimming caribou and the drum seem to have disappeared; but such cases are particularly frequent among the Polar Eskimos. Several elements such as the crooked knife, ice scoop, etc., which otherwise are generally diffused, have been looked for in vain among them. It would be exceedingly wrong to consider their culture as particularly primitive for that reason. On the contrary, it is very highly specialised, and though the reason cannot be given in every single case as to why this or that element has disappeared, it can often be shown archæologically that it has been present at a former time.

As thus definite proof of every single group is not considered to be necessary when calling an element common-Eskimo, the boundary towards what will be called sporadic distribution becomes an elastic one. This, however, is of no consequence, because a sporadic diffusion, evenly distributed over the whole region, shows exactly the same thing as the common diffusion. For the sporadic occurrence is either due to the particular element having accidentally only been found here and there, or it means that we have a very old element which has only in a few places been saved from oblivion. Whatever may be the case, the result is that the element in question must be regarded as common-Eskimo.

The third group of elements comprises those for whose distribution geographically founded boundaries can be drawn. To a great extent it was on the basis of the consideration of the disappearance of certain elements as a consequence of the nature of the surroundings that Steensby supported the theory of the origin of Eskimo culture in the Central regions. The elements which are of importance to this hypothesis are, however, principally concerned with the hunting of aquatic mammals and thus are outside the sphere of this investigation. On the contrary, what we have to deal with are such elements as the ​snow house, snow knife, and dog sledge. The snow house — with which the snow knife is of course closely connected — and the dog sledge are absent, as we have seen, in the southern regions both in the east and in the west. On the whole they extend so far as it is profitable to use them, and Steensby is right in ascribing their disappearance to geographical causes.^[392] There is a possibility that the sledge has once been used on the southern west coast of Greenland too,^[393] and in this case we have a typical process of adaptation before us: at first the sledge, to which the Greenlanders were accustomed from the north, was tried, but the conditions gradually drove it away.

Besides this direct or primary form of adaptation — which may be called negative in contrast to those cases where its result has been the acquisition of a new element — we also find among the Eskimos a sort of secondary (and negative) adaptation. The disappearance of the kayak among the Polar Eskimos may be classed under this heading. It is true that Steensby has considered this to be a direct consequence of the extreme arctic climate, which for eight months of the year makes the use of the kayak impossible.^[394] This, however, is not very probable, as now after its reintroduction it is so useful that life cannot be imagined without it. As a matter of fact the Polar Eskimos were before the reintroduction obliged to resort to special localities where there were bird cliffs, or where the ice used to lie all the year round, in order to live through the summer. A certain historic event which according to the Polar Eskimos' own tradition was an epidemic which carried off all the older men — is said to be the cause of the disappearance of the kayak,^[395] and this may have been the starting point of a process in which an element which, as a consequence of the nature of the surroundings, could be done without — it is only under these circumstances that geographical adaptation makes its entrance — has been quite forgotten.

I would finally mention a small group of elements, consisting of snow goggles, ice pick, snow shovel and ice scoop, which is missing on the Aleutians and presumably among the Pacific Eskimos too. In this we are justified in seeing a consequence of the mild climate; but whether these elements have previously been present and only later been lost may seem doubtful, as they have not been discovered by ​archæological research either. Perhaps this is one of the not uncommon cases where the Aleut-Pacific Eskimo culture differs essentially from that of the other regions.

If we now summarise what has been said in the foregoing concerning the material culture of the Caribou Eskimos, it may be expressed in the following sentences:

1. Of some few elements nothing definite may be said.
2. Eight, or perhaps rather nine, elements display a connection with the west.
3. Four or five elements point towards the east.
4. A rather larger number, among which two, however, must rather be called purely local, have a Central diffusion.
5. By far the greater number of the elements, i. e. 80 per cent., leaving the uncertain ones out of consideration, must be regarded as common-Eskimo, they having either (a) been found in all or practically all places; (b) have such a widespread sporadic occurrence that they must be regarded as being or having been present everywhere; (c) occur with such limitations that they must be ascribed to geographical conditions.

In advance it cannot be said that an element of culture common to all Eskimos must necessarily have been known to the ancestors of the Eskimos before they spread over their present region. On the contrary, among the western elements some have been shown to have gradually reached as far as Greenland. This, however, means nothing in this connection. But if we see how varied the Eskimo culture is now as a whole, if we place the extremely peculiar local development at Angmagssalik side by side with the variegated tissue of culture in Alaska, where the Eskimo warp is crossed by a woof of outside influence, if we furthermore remember that there has been a considerable rising of the land in the Central regions, without the period of time necessary to this having been long enough to level up the difference between the Thule Culture and the later culture of these regions — then we begin to understand that a culture such as that of the Caribou Eskimos, which is almost exclusively based upon common-Eskimo elements, must be of very great age.

Ancient elements in the culture of the Caribou Eskimos. In some cases it has been possible to differentiate between earlier and later forms of the same element, and we have seen that in a number of cases it is the earlier form which has been preserved among the Caribou Eskimos. As my readers know, it often happens that in the periphery of a culture area we find particularly old types; the country of the Caribou Eskimos, however, is not at all peripheral in relation to that of the other Eskimos; on the contrary ​it is as central as it can be. There is therefore good reason for trying to find out why so many elements are so pronouncedly old.

We must first separate some few elements which are only old in the sense that new types have made their way in from the west, whereas the Caribou Eskimos, like all other eastern tribes, have retained the earlier forms. With regard to the kayak paddle, the new (single-bladed) form is so little diffused at all that the old one is found among most Eskimos. The handsome belts of feather shafts, the earthern cooking pot, the sledge of the built-up type, the tandem dog team, the ice scoop of the net type, certain forms of graves, and in particular arrows with three feathers, have a much wider diffusion, and yet no wider than that the Caribou Eskimos resemble most other tribes on these points too.

The primitive character of the culture is to a much smaller extent due to the fact that special forms have made their appearance in the east; there are, however, a few examples: the sledge uprights, the radially set snares for diving birds, and the hooped vessels, the latter of which may be regarded as being copies of European models.

As regards a number of other elements, the position is that we find the more highly developed types both in the east and in the west. The platform mat and the pail of baleen, the baleen bow and bows with a more highly developed type of sinew-backing, the bird dart with side prongs, the composite fish hook, snares with a row of loops, dog harness with parallel loops, certain features in the cut of the two-skin frock (hood yokes in the front of the body, shortening of the men's frock and a consequent absence of slits), needle-and-thread tattooing, the artistically carved comb. the hook- and anchor-shaped thimble holders, the swivel with the ring-shaped collar, the dice carved as figures, skin tanning with urine, the closed stone grave — all these elements are known in the two border regions, but are absent among the Caribou Eskimos and more or less among all Central tribes, who in their stead have types of older character.

The younger forms here must be taken to belong to the Thule Culture, which on the whole was much richer in elements and, on important points, at a higher stage than the present Central culture. In the Central regions there has been a distinct cultural inversion, a number of earlier forms having deposited themselves above later forms. This can only be explained by the fact that somewhere or other a culture of ancient stamp must have held out and, at a certain moment, has been able to break through the more recent layers and spread out over them. Where this "culture reservoir" is to be found is obvious. We have seen that during the course of the past two hundred years there has been a migration from the interior to the west coast of Hudson Bay and that the coast people as yet have by no ​means adapted themselves to the changed mode of living. The other Central groups proper, i. e. the Iglulik, Netsilik, and Copper Eskimos, are in rather closer touch with the sea, but the continental character of their mode of living has nevertheless justly been pointed out by Steensby.^[396] In proper recognition of this Jenness has also advanced the hypothesis that the Copper Eskimos only in relatively recent times have migrated to the coast from the interior,^[397] and finally Mathiassen's excavations have decisively proved that it was from the interior that the culture which, in the Central regions, replaced the Thule Culture, came.^[398] And thus when we still have on the Barren Grounds an inland people like the Caribou Eskimos, the obvious conclusion is that they form the last survival of the group which, simultaneously with the decline of the Thule Culture, made its way out to the sea.

We are now face to face with a new problem: how are we to interpret the relation of this inland culture with the Thule Culture? And especially: how shall we explain that on several points it has elements with a more old-fashioned stamp than the Thule Culture? These are questions of so much the greater importance as the Thule Culture for the present is the oldest Eskimo form of culture found by archæological research.^[399] Everything indicates that its home is in Alaska and that it has spread eastwards from there.^[400] If the culture of the Caribou Eskimos is to be regarded as an offshoot of the Thule Culture, one of two things must have happened: an Eskimoising of an originally — and to us unknown (Indian?) — inland people must have taken place, or a group of Coast Eskimos must at an early stage have migrated into the interior.

The first possibility may be regarded as being out of the question. Both with regard to physical anthropology and language the Caribou Eskimos are in every way typical without any visible trace of outside intermixture,^[401] and the whole of the foregoing analysis will have shown that their culture does not contain any grounds for such a hypothesis either. Mathiassen has mentioned the other possibility, "that a group of Eskimos, when from the west they got to the coast between Coronation Gulf and Boothia, were enticed into the country by the great herds of caribou, where on Barren Grounds they reformed their culture".^[402] These hypothetical immigrants cannot, however, have been at the stage of the Thule Culture which we know; for ​in that case it would be quite inexplicable that we now have, both in the interior and at the coast, types of an earlier character than that of the Thule Culture. If the inland group is an offshoot of the Thule Culture, it must be of an unknown, earlier phase of it.

There is one point on which the Caribou Eskimos seem to be more primitive than all other Eskimos: the lamp. We have seen that all Eskimos occasionally burn fires; we have also seen that very primitive lamps are met with here and there. But the Caribou Eskimos are the only Eskimos who exclusively cook over fires and exclusively have the very simple lamps. To me it is quite unthinkable that the Caribou Eskimos once should have known the highly developed blubber lamp and later abandoned it. Even if from the coast they had moved inland, they could easily have continued to use it, if they had, like the Colville Eskimos, purchased supplies of blubber from the coast dwellers. Life in a nine month's winter with unheated snow houses is not so pleasant that one would simply give up a culture acquisition such as the blubber lamp, and the difficulty of finding fuel under the snow fully outweighs the trouble of a trade journey to the coast.

It cannot be denied that the possibilities of tracing the culture of the Caribou Eskimos from the Thule Culture are gradually fading away in a serious manner. In order to maintain this hypothesis we must now not only presuppose a more primitive phase of it than we really know, but we must also eliminate such a fundamental element of it as the blubber lamp, which is intimately associated with all this culture's pronouncedly maritime character. Although I would not actually deny that it might be possible to live along the Arctic coast from Point Barrow to Hudson Bay without the blubber lamp, it would at any rate be infinitely more difficult than in the interior, close to the timber line, and there is no indication whatever that this has been done. He who would maintain that the culture of the Caribou Eskimos descends from a hypothetical, lampless Thule Culture, must in any case also assume the onus probandi.

Later elements in the culture of the Caribou Eskimos. It would result in a distorted picture of the conditions, however, if we adopted the view that all elements in the culture of the Caribou Eskimos were at a particularly ancient stage. We have Central, local developments such as the draught-line buckle for the sledge, the angular soup ladle, and men's trousers and women's boots with sewn-on leggings, i. e. special forms such as presumably might be expected in any culture. But we have especially a number of elements of which somewhere or other, as a rule in the border regions, more primitive types have been preserved than they are now known from the Caribou Eskimos and which are of the greatest importance to the comprehension of their cultural position.

​The bow among the Caribou Eskimos has, it is true, a very simple form of backing (secondary eastern); but the most primitive (the primary eastern) belongs to the southern part of Baffin Land and Labrador. The most simple form of snow house must be sought in the opposite direction, among the Eskimos in the Colville district and the Kerek-Koryak. As regards the kayak, primitive features have been established both to the west and the east; the same applies to the hooded frock in toto — i. e. the joining of hood and frock into a single garment, not the afore-mentioned details of cut^[403] — the boot, the stone cooking pot, and the ulo. This indicates a centre of distribution in the Central regions for these elements.^[404] With these are associated the previously mentioned elements with a Central distribution. to which nothing corresponding can be found in the border regions (p. 124), so that our final result is, that in the Central regions there must be a culture centre similar to that which has been proved in Alaska as regards the Thule Culture.

If we now inquire what is the age of this centre of culture as related to the Thule Culture, we cannot help noticing that all the essential elements whose source must be sought in the Central regions already occur in the Thule culture as we now know it. This applies to the snow house, kayak, backed bow, dress, stone cooking pot, and ulo. In the Thule Culture the frock has presumably had such a highly developed cut (hood yokes down the front) that it moreover must be regarded as going back to even earlier conditions. There are only three possibilities of explaining this presence of Central elements in the Thule Culture, which comes from the west: either the Thule Culture on its way east must have collided with and absorbed an earlier culture in the Central regions; or such a Central culture must have spread to the west prior to the Thule Culture, so that the absorbing already took place in for instance Alaska, before the Thule Culture reached the Central regions; or, as a last explanation, it might be imagined that the Central development had taken place on the foundation of an old, for the present unknown phase of the Thule Culture.

To take the last possibility first, it cannot be directly disproved with our defective knowledge of the archæology of the Arctic; but to me it seems only slightly probable for several reasons. In the first place, in the Thule Culture as we know it there is nothing at all which points in the direction of a development such as this, no more than there is any indication that in the Central regions it should be possible to find evidence of a Thule Culture with a much older character ​than that which we know from Malerualik and Naujan; the Thule Culture to a much greater extent gives the impression of appearing in a complete state in the Central regions, as a pronouncedly intrusive culture. In addition, there is obviously a connection between the Central culture centre and the continental stamp of the present culture in these regions; but, as I have said earlier, a Thule Culture with a continental character is unknown, not to say self-contradictory. Finally, it is clear that the elements which are presumed to have come from the Central regions altogether form a typical complex, in a way an entirely complete in itself, with special types of dwellings, dress and hunting implements, which does not agree with a development out of an essentially different culture such as the Thule Culture either.

To my mind one of the other two possibilities contain greater probability, so that we must reckon with two equal centres of culture: one in Alaska, whence the Thule Culture has originated, and one in the Central regions, with a continentally marked culture that is most typically preserved among the Caribou Eskimos. Where the streams rising from these sources have met — whether it was in Alaska or at the Northwest Passage — is a question which will not be discussed. here. It is sufficient to underline that if this hypothesis is correct, the special Central culture must also be the oldest in the Central regions. It must expressly be said, however, that this conclusion neither says. anything about the ages of these culture centres, absolutely, nor anything about the origin of the Eskimo culture as such.

If we are to be quite clear as to how this continental Eskimo culture is to be understood, it will be necessary to make an analysis of the culture of the Caribou Eskimos with reference to North America as a whole and to northern Eurasia, following its elements over these regions as far as possible. This shall be done in the next chapter. Prior to doing so I will merely once more summarise the results so far obtained in the following sentences: