GRAPHIC ART OP THE ESKIMOS. 761 



peopled. The solution of this problem is facilitated by the fact that the whole 

 Eskimo natiou has been less exi^osed to that contact with other peoples which else- 

 where renders such investigations more complicated. These A'ariations are among 

 the Eskimo more exclusively due to natural influences to which the wanderers were 

 exposed during their struggle lor existence, and which partly gave rise to new inven- 

 tions, partly led only to the abolishment of i'ormer habits. In some instances also 

 these external inlluences evidently occasioned decay where the severity of the 

 climate in connection with the isolation and the fewness of inhabitants almost 

 exceeded the bounds of human endurance. 



Doctor Rink endeavors to show from this point of view "the peculiar- 

 ities of the tribes in tlie different domains of culture agree with the 

 supposition that the original Eskimo inhabited the interior of Alaska; 

 that apart from the true Eskimo a side branch of them in the farthest 

 remote period peopled the Aleutian Islands, whereas people of the 

 principal race later settled at the river mouths, spreading north- 

 ward along Bering Strait and, hiving off some colonies to the opposite 

 shore, proceeded around Point Barrow to the east, the Mackenzie River, 

 over the central regions or Arctic Archipelago, and finally to Labrador 

 and Grreenland. This dispersion may have taken thousands of years; 

 they can only have proceeded in small bands, very much as still they 

 are used to move about during certain seasons. Their only way of 

 procuring subsistence in the vast deserts they passed over, excluded 

 the possibility of national migrations on a larger scale. While in this 

 way they continued to discover new countries, some fiimilies were 

 induced to go farther; others remained and finally gave rise to the 

 present scattered settlements. But, in proposing this hypothesis, 1 con- 

 sider it a matter of course that Alaska as the original home of the 

 Eskimo is not to be taken in the strictest sense, absolutely excluding 

 adjacent parts of the continent toward the east. But as to the other 

 theory, that the Eskimo should have emigrated from Asia by way of 

 Bering Strait and found the Indian territory already occupied by the 

 same natives as now, this objection must be separately taken into con- 

 sideration in connection with the facts bearing in fsivor of the former." 



SHELL HEAPS IN THE ALEUTIAN ISLANDS. 



The only important researches regarding i)rehistoric remains in 

 Alaska and the Aleutian Islands are those of Mr. Dall.' He remarks 

 that the "shell heaps are found on nearly all the islands of the 

 Aleutian group. They are most abundant and extensive in the 

 islands east of Unalashka, and on the few islands from Amchitka east- 

 ward, which are less high and rugged than the others, or on those 

 where the greater amount of level land is to be found. The two neces- 

 saries for a settlement appear to have been a stream of water or a 

 spring, and a place where canoes could land with safety in rough 



'On succession in the shell heaps of the Aleutian Islands. Contributions to North 

 American Ethnology, I, 1877, p. 43. 



