OF THE HUMAN FAMILY. 267 



CHAPTER VII. 



SYSTEM OF RELATIONSHIP OF THE ESKIMO. 



The Eskimo a Littoral People— Their Extended Spread— Nearness of their Dialects— Their Occupation of Arctic 

 America and Greenland comparatively Modern — Ethnic Relations of the Eskimo hitherto undetermined — 

 Detached from tlie Indian Connection by Dr. Morton — Cranial Characteristics tlie Ground — The Habitat of Man 

 CoHxtensive with the Surface of the Eaith— Our Knowledge of the Eskimo still limited— Points of Agreement 

 and of Divergence between tlie Eskimo and tlie other American Aborigines — Eskimo System of Relationship— 

 Classificatory in Character— Details of the System— It possesses but two of the Indicative Characteristics of the 

 Ganowauiau System — Reasons for excluding the Eskimo from this Family. 



The Eskimo are a peculiar people. Dwelling exclusively in an arctic climate, 

 beyond the region of trees, and with no vegetation around them save the lichens 

 and the mosses, they have put themselves, for subsistence, upon the sea. As a 

 littoral people, living upon the whale, the walrus, and the seal, they have made 

 their homes along the bays and inlets wherever these animals are found ; and have 

 become spread, in consequence, along thousands of miles of sea coasts. Through- 

 out Arctic America, from the Pacific to the Atlantic, and eastward in Greenland, 

 nearly to the shores opposite ancient Scandinavia, they were found in the exclusive 

 occupation of this extended line. It is also particularly remarkable that they still 

 speak dialects of the same language not only, but with a less amount of dialectical 

 variation than is found in the extremes of the Algonkin or Dakotan speech. 

 Purity of blood, which their isolation and habits tended to maintain, would pre- 

 serve homogeneity in the materials of their language; but this would neither 

 increase nor retard the progress of dialectical change in its vocables, after the 

 people became geographically separated. The undoubted nearness of these dialects, 

 notwithstanding their spread over a longer continuous line than any other human 

 speech, except, perhaps, the American Indian, tends very strongly to show that 

 their occupation of Arctic America was a modem event in comparison with the 

 epoch of the first occupation of the continent by the Ganowanian family. Their 

 mode of life, after it had become permanently adopted, restricted their migrations 

 to the sea shores, and resulted ultimately in their isolation from the remainder of 

 the human family. Although reindeer and aquatic fowls entered their areas in 

 their periodic migrations, and contributed to their subsistence, their principal reli- 

 ance was upon fish and upon the animals of the sea. The kaiyak and the lance 

 express the substance of their progress towards civilization. We are forced to 

 regard them as an exclusive people, in a social condition more remarkable than 

 that of the arctic nations of Europe or of Asia. Irrespective of their antecedent 

 history they are at the present time a peculiar people, transformed mto veritable 

 hvperboreans. dwelling in houses of snow and ice, and livmg upon raw flesh like 



