﻿I4O SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 59 



in it. All accounts go to prove them so wonderfully skilled in 

 making the most of their situation that they must have belonged to 

 it from rather ancient times though not necessarily in the New World. 

 Rink * argued for their development from some Indian tribe and their 

 gradual movement to the northern coast under pressure, there to be- 

 come modified by circumstances and polar weather. Thalbitzer, 2 

 examining the question more recently, finds nothing conclusive in the 

 reasoning. It seems at least as likely that they were here before the 

 Indians, at least before the ancestors of any of those stocks of North 

 American Indians which concern us or they may have come in after 

 them from Asia as some suppose. They have often clashed in defence 

 with Athapascan or Alg'onquian tribes, sometimes, though rarely, 

 have taken the aggressive ; and occasionally a particular district has 

 been alternately occupied or overrun by one or the other contestant. 

 But in the main it must be said that the Eskimo have been content 

 to hold their ground along shores not desired by other people, and 

 are to be considered as doing so from choice, not because driven 

 thither and held there by enemies. Woods and warmth have never 

 tempted them in historic times. While the ice-cap border was moving 

 northward, we may suppose a slow shifting of their southern limit in 

 the same direction. After the ice-cap was quite gone from the main- 

 land, they dwelt still on those northern shores which gave them the 

 life that they know. Sometimes they moved southward along these 

 shores a little way, regaining regions of their former occupancy as to 

 the coast-line only. 



Packard 3 says " When the French first frequented the coast, it 

 was in possession of the Equimaux as far up as the end of Anticosti. 

 Apparently they had not been long in possession." They seem also 

 to have been contending for a foothold on Newfoundland, but it 

 was never more than precarious. There are also a few slight and 

 doubtful indications that parties of them landed on the northern 

 shore of New Brunswick. It is their utmost southward point, even 

 of reconnoissance or exploration, so far as we know ; and if Professor 

 Packard's 4 inference be right, they would have been more remote 

 before the movement of which he tells us. Undoubtedly they may 

 have come southward before ; but they would not wish to come far, 



1 H. J. Rink : On the Descent of the Eskimo. Arctic Papers for the Expe- 

 dition of 1875, pp. 271-273. Journ. Anthr. Inst., 1872. 

 2 W. Thalbitzer: The Eskimo Language, p. 21. 

 3 Packard : The Coast of Labrador, p. 260. 

 4 W. Thalbitzer: The Eskimo Language, p. 20. 



