262 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



about 3200 miles. The distance along the coast, which is their 

 natural line of migration is not less than 5000 miles.* They seldom 

 advance into the interior to a greater distance than 150 miles, and 

 even then the line of progression is generally up a river or water- 

 coui'se. Dr. Rink, has however given some reasons for believing that 

 Eskimo are not so exclusively a coast-people as has commonly been 

 supposed. 



As a rule, the Eskimo communities are not very large, although 

 at certain favoui'able localities, considerable villages are to be 

 found, as at the mouth of the Anadyr, and on the Tchukstchi 

 Promontory in Siberia, at Point Barrow, in Alaska, at the mouths of 

 the ^Mackenzie, at the mouth of the Churchill, and at various points 

 in Labrador and Greenland. As tribal divisions seem to be absent 

 from Eskimo sociology, (although many writers have seen fit to speak 

 of such), the only method of properly classifying the various Eskimo 

 communities is a geogi'aphical one, the peculiarities of dialect, etc., 

 being such as to render this practicable. 



A broad division into Eastern, Northern, Central and Western 

 Eskimo, might be made, and has been ])roposed, but lacks accuracy 

 and precision, for each of these great divisions is susceptible of being 

 further separated into various smaller sub-divisions. Dr. Rinkf 

 divides them generally thus : — ^(1) East Greenlaitders, occupying the 

 whole of the coast down to Cape Farewell ; (2) West Greenlanders, 

 from the Cape to 74° N.L., and fui-ther sub-divided into North and 

 South Greenlanders ; (3) Northern Greenlanders, (or the Arctic High- 

 landers of Sir John Ross) on the west coast, North of Melville Bay ; 

 (4) Labrador Eskimo ; (5) Eskimo of Middle Begions, from Baffin's 

 and Hudson's Bay to Barter Island near the Mackenzie River — the 

 most widely-spread of all the divisions occupying an extent of land 

 measuring 2000 miles in length and 800 in breadth; (6) Western 

 Eskimo, on the coast from Barter Island to the West and 

 South; (7) Alaskan Eskimo (including Aleutians); (8) Asiatic 

 Eskimo. O. T. Mason, J distinguishes them as follows : — (1; 

 Greenland; (2) Labrador and Ungava ; (3) Baffin's Land; (4) 

 Mackenzie River ; (5) Pt. Barrow; (6) Kotzebue Sound ; (7) Asiatic 



* Rink, Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, 1875, p. 2. 



t Log. cit. p. 3. 



+ Eskimo of Pt. Barrow, Amer. Naturalist, Feb. 1S86, p. 197. 



