270 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1901. 



In all these cases we deal exclusively with the native ethnology, as 

 the superposed European culture is too widely distributed to be 

 treated by limited districts, and transportation from region to region 

 is now so easy that a particular or peculiar environment is no longer 

 capable of impressing its stamp upon its people and art. Modern cul- 

 ture has to be treated by artificial, not natural, areas, and is becoming 

 so generalized that distinctions of art are disappearing, and we must 

 illustrate it, if we illustrate it at all, in one cosmopolitan group. But, 

 referring to the native history, let us see what these culture areas mean. 



It must have been an untoward chain of circumstances that drove the 

 Eskimo peoples into the frozen zone (areas I and II, fig. 5) occupied 

 by them, for at first glance it would seem that human creatures could 

 not survive even for a year in such an environment; but they found 

 means of living, and w 7 ithal are a healthy and energetic people. But 

 their culture is necessarily very circumscribed and exceptional, devel- 

 oped in and modified by the peculiar surroundings as it was. These 

 people have clothing, but as the garments are necessarily of skins and 

 furs the textile art is almost unknown. They must also have fire, but 

 their fuel is oil. They venture out in boats to capture the seal, but as 

 they have little wood their boats are made of skins and are distinct 

 from the boats of other groups. They travel by land also, but their 

 vehicles are on runners and are made of drjf twood and bone. They hunt 

 game, but as this consists chiefly of marine animals they have invented 

 peculiar weapons and appliances. They build houses, but these are 

 unlike those of any other climate in the world, being often made of 

 whale bones or of frozen snow. They carve quaint figures in ivory, 

 bone, and wood, which have no parallel among other peoples. They 

 have no pottery, partly because the climate is not favorable to its devel- 

 opment, but also because they have soapstone pots. Notwithstanding 

 their most dreary and inhospitable surroundings, they are a clever 

 people and invent and use the most cunning traps, snares, and weapons 

 in the world. They are cheerful, also, and enjoy existence in their way 

 as keenly, perhaps, as the more favorably situated peoples. 



Can the culture phenomena of any other region or climate be as 

 peculiar and remarkable as this? Strange to say, this is not a rare 

 instance of individuality in culture development and characteristics. 

 Take the area marked IV on the map and note what strange contrasts 

 occur. Area I has no wood, but in area IV wood abounds; there the 

 great cedar and the shapely spruce grow, and the ingenious tribes of 

 Indians have used them extensively. So important a feature of this 

 environment arc they that the culture phenomena — the arts — are 

 largely regulated by them. The people go to sea in boats, but they 

 are not boats of skin, they are made of the noble spruce trunk, and the 

 stable craft are well shaped and beautifully carved and painted. The 

 people live in houses, but these are not of snow or whalebones, but of 



