IN NORTHERN MISTS 



name " Nepisiguit," of a little river in New Brunswick (47° 30' N. lat.), bears 

 a strong resemblance to the Eskimo place-name " Nepisat " in Greenland, and 

 he also mentions another place-name, " Tadoussac," which has a very Eskimo 

 look. But in order to form any opinion we should have to know the language 

 of the extinct Indian tribes of these parts, as well as the original forms of the 

 names given. They are now only known from certain old maps; but we can- 

 not tell how they got on to those maps. 



The Eskimo are one of the few races of hunters on the earth 

 who with their peculiar culture have still been able to hold their 

 own fairly well in spite of contact with European civilization; 

 the reason for this is partly that they live so far out of the way 

 that the contact has been more or less cursory, partly also, as 

 far as Greenland is concerned, that they have been treated with 

 more or less care, and it has been sought to protect them against 

 harmful European influences. In spite of this it has not been 

 possible to prevent their declining and becoming more and more 

 impoverished. The increase of their population in recent years 

 might doubtless give a contrary impression; but here other fac- 

 tors have to be reckoned with. When the Eskimo first came in 

 contact with European culture, it was, as will be shown in the 

 next chapter, their own culture which in these surroundings 

 gained the upper hand as soon as communication with Europe 

 was cut off. This would happen again if European and Eskimo 

 could be left to themselves, entirely cut off from the outer world. 

 But as this is impossible, the Eskimo culture is doomed to suc- 

 cumb slowly to our trivial, all-conquering European civilization. 



94 



