96 Alaskan Science Conference 



do indeed assume spatial rearrangements of populations from 

 one general period to another. Eskimo-speaking groups actually 

 do live both on the coast and along the forested rivers. Our 

 problem, then, concerns the relegation of this phenomenon to 

 migration or to some other factor. We shall return to this 

 question later. 



"Eskimo" 



The second concept that we have long been accustomed to 

 use without often defining is "Eskimo." It is used to designate 

 a people, a pattern of life, and a language stock. How are we to 

 define the term when it incorporates all three aspects together? 

 And how far back in time can we safely apply it? 



One is on fairly solid ground in speaking of "the Eskimo 

 language." The Eskimoan dialects are easily distinguished 

 from Athapascan and Chukchee languages. However, the 

 Aleuts are by no means the only Eskimo-speakers who experi- 

 ence difficulty in conversing with their nearest neighbors. When 

 Knud Rasmussen journeyed by sledge all the way from Green- 

 land to Alaska, he had no trouble in conversing with peoples 

 along the way until he reached the Kotzebue Sound area. While 

 at Nome later, he found it very difficult to take notes from visit- 

 ing Bering Sea Eskimos. The fracturing of peoples of the Ber- 

 ing Sea coast and of Seward Peninsula into many dialect groups 

 has long interested investigators, although none has questioned 

 the appelation "Eskimo" for any of these. It is, nevertheless, sig- 

 nificant that nearly half of the Eskimo-speakers of the world 

 live in this area where there is the greatest difficulty in mutual 

 understanding. In terms of age-area criteria, perhaps the term 

 "Eskimo" should be applied first in this region, and only 

 secondarily far to the east. 



Is an individual an Eskimo, then, because of his bodily form? 

 The "Eskimo physical type" that has become firmly entrenched 

 in the text-books appears to have congealed in the central and 

 eastern Arctic before a great deal of work had been done in any 

 area. Hrdlicka has pointed to the great departure of most 

 western Eskimos from the long-headed, keel-crowned, short- 



