﻿NO. 19 NORSE VISITS TO NORTH AMERICA BABCOCK 1 53 



But if these were skin-boats in the animal sense, what then ? The 

 Eskimo use such undoubtedly, excepting the most northerly group, 

 Rasmussen's People of the Polar North. Practically it has been 

 the only covering material available, as well as the one best fitting 

 the conditions of Arctic life. They have two kinds, the larger open 

 umiak and the smaller kayak, 1 the latter being closed on top quite to 

 the w r earer's body, so that an expert kayaker can turn somersault in 

 the water. One can hardly believe that any such multitude of the 

 great umiaks could have been gathered as the saga calls for ; or that 

 the Norsemen would fail to note instantly such an anomaly as a little 

 boat hugging the occupant's body. It is not to be doubted, either, 

 that the ancient conservative Eskimo had the kayak in Thorfmn's 

 time. 



But some say that Indians never used skin-boats. It appears that 

 they did when there was a reason. The Dakota 2 women crossed 

 prairie rivers in coracles, or " bull-boats " of buffalo-hide ; the Omaha 3 

 also made skin-covered boats and used them ; the same assertion is 

 made of the Nascopie, 4 and Dr. Brinton 5 presents a more strictly 

 relevant instance in the statement that the Beothuk of Newfoundland 

 had both " bark-canoes and skin-canoes." They were not confined to 

 inland navigation, either, till the last. Whitbourne (1622) says: 

 " Which canoes are the boats that they used to go to sea in," and the 

 Rev. George Patterson, 6 who quotes him, remarks : " Their seaman- 

 ship was evinced by their visiting Funk Island 40 miles from the near- 

 est point of land " — a trip which they seem to have made twice a 

 year after eggs and young birds. Cartwright " also lays stress on this 

 seafaring skill. Unless Dr. Brinton be in error, we have only to sup- 

 pose a sufficient southward extension of the Beothuk at the opening 

 of the eleventh century, and nothing remains of the skin-boat argu- 

 ment in favor of the Eskimo. Nor were these Beothuk half-way 

 between the races, as Lieutenant Holm, by analogy with the Aleut, 

 seems to fancy ; for their appliances, works, ways, and language, so 

 far as yet rescued by ethnologists, reveal a surprising individuality, 

 distinctly of the Indian type, though a few things may have been 



2 W. H. Dall: Alaska and its resources, p. 138. 



2 W J McGee : The Siouan Indians. Fifteenth Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethnol., 

 p. 172. 



3 F. S. Dellenbaugh : The North Americans of Yesterday, p. 284. 



4 R. C. Haliburton : A Search for Lost Colonies. Pop. Sci. Mo., vol. 27, p. 42. 



5 Brinton : The American Race, pp. 40, 67. 



6 Rev. Geo. Patterson : The Beothiks or Red Indians of Newfoundland, p. 126. 



7 Journal republished 191 1. 



