An Anthropogeographical Study of the Origin of the Eskimo Culture. 159 
To this might be added a table showing the conditions among the 
most extreme Subarctic Eskimo, with whom the summer inland-occu- 
pations have ceased entirely. The difference between winter and summer 
is, then, not so great that we are justified in speaking of a different sum- 
mer and winter culture. We can only speak of seasonal differences of 
minor importance. 
Is the Aretic or the Subarctic form of Culture the older. 
In discussing the Eskimo culture we have classified it according to 
geographic situation. The question now is whether this classification 
corresponds with the sequence of development. And next, whether the 
direction of this development has been from Subarctic to Arctic or the 
reverse. 
As has been shown already the historical sequence of discovery led 
to the Subarctic culture being regarded as the true and original form. 
In reality, the problem has never before been set, as it has been here, 
by distinguishing between Subarctic and Arctic,! nor, therefore, has 
the question regarding the relative antiquity of these two forms been 
discussed. 
H. Rink did not in reality get beyond dealing with the Subarctic 
form, and for this reason, amongst others, he referred the origin of the 
Eskimo culture to Alaska. This, however, cannot be reconciled with 
Boas’s previously mentioned demonstration of the fact that traditions 
point towards the central regions, where the economic culture is deci- 
dedly Arctic. Neither does the theory that the Subarctic culture origin- 
ated in Alaska agree with the above-mentioned results of the Jesup 
Expedition. 
Consequently, at the very outset we find conditions which favour 
the belief that the Arctic form of culture must be the older, but we 
shall now see to what results an investigation on anthropogeographical 
lines will lead us. 
The Typical. Arctic Winter Occupations. 
Methods of hunting on Ice. The real Arctic elements in the winter 
culture are represented by the methods of hunting on ice, and of these 
the Maupok method is really the essential method of hunting during 
the winter, while the Utok method is characteristic of the late spring 
months, and finally, the annual period of hunting on ice ends late in 
the spring or early in the summer with hunting at the cracks in 
the ice or at the open holes. The chief weapon is the harpoon. This 
weapon is not especially Eskimo in its origin; it is widely distributed, 
and occurs both in North America and in North Asia outside the Eskimo 
1 Except in my paper of 1905. 
