GRAPHIC ART OF THE ESKIMOS. 765 



With regard to the second theory, it would be strange indeed if 

 there were not some general similarities between the weapons and 

 utensils of two distinct uncivilized peoples when both used the same 

 materials — reindeer horn — for such articles; and, furthermore, the 

 attempted portrayal of animals of like genera w<mld naturally produce 

 j-esults of very general likeness. 



Finally, it has been suggested, and the burden of proof appears to 

 indicate, that the development of pictographic art among the Alaskan 

 Eskimo was attributable to their contact with the Russians; and that, 

 although these natives preserved a limited degree of culture as to 

 decorating by simple lines and dots their weapons and a few other arti- 

 cles of daily use, yet the objective representation of any animate or 

 other forms is believed to have been adopted since the earliest visits of 

 civilized man to the Alaskan Coast. 



Several Alaskan utensils, however, used as arrow and spear straight- 

 eners are here illustrated in plate 7, figs. 1, 2, and 3, and plate 8, figs. 

 2 and 3, and are apparently similar to some like remains fiom the caves 

 of France figured by Messrs. Lartet and Christy. 



Upon closer examination it will be observed that besides the simi- 

 larity of form, due chiefly to the reason that both types are of similar 

 materials, the representation of animal forms by engraving, or incision, 

 appears to belong to a different school of artistic work, if such a term 

 may here be employed; a "sketchy" outline of an animal freipiently 

 consisting of but a few suggestive incisions here and there, as in very 

 modern nineteenth century art work, producing an effect in several 

 instances as the reindeer figured by Lartet and Christy in their work 

 before cited, which artistic products appear "too artistic" for the 

 culture status of cave men such as are portrayed in the deductions of 

 the gentlemen above <[Uoted by W. Boyd Dawkins and others who 

 have followed np the same theme. The work of the cave men is appar- 

 ently vastly superior in one respect to that of the Eskimo, and again 

 from another aspect inferior to it — inferior in various ways, as will be 

 learned by a perusal of the results attained by the Eskimo in the rep- 

 resentation of both objective and subjecitive ideas, as well as an 

 advancement toward conventionalization beyond that practiced by peo- 

 ples who are apparently further advanced in other respects. 



ENVIRONMENT. 



So many narratives relating to the life and social conditions of the 

 Eskimo, as well as to the topographic peculiarities of the countries 

 occupied by the various subdivisions of this people, have been pub- 

 lished at various times and by various authorities, that anything 

 farther in this connection would be superfluous, especially in a paper 

 devoted more particularly to the graphic arts. 



The habitations and clothing, such as are required in an unusually 

 inhospitable climate, are both illustrated in the native pictography. 



