The Economic Cultures Adjoining 
the Eskimo Culture. 
hus, the origin of the Eskimo culture is a somewhat intricate 
matter. In the Archipelago, by adaptation to the special conditions 
of nature here, the Palæeskimo culture first came into being, and then 
spread north, east and west in the Archipelago and along the north 
coast of North America. In the regions around Bering Strait and over 
an area which must not be considered in a too restricted sense, the Palæ- 
eskimo culture has been exposed to influence from without, and the 
Eskimo culture, of which the various nuances have been dealt with here, 
gradually emanated. 
We must now propound two questions: 1) What was the character 
of the economic culture from which the Palæeskimo culture originated, 
and 2) what forms of culture in the district round Bering Strait can 
have influenced the Eskimo culture? 
For the solution of both questions is demanded a consideration of 
the forms of culture contiguous to the domain of the Eskimo, or, at 
any rate, that which is found in the vicinity of this, and from which 
there is a possibility of influence. 
I prefer to begin with America, because there, we have more simple 
and comparatively less compounded conditions than in Asia. We need 
pay little regard to the civilizations, based on plant-cultivation, which 
we find in the south-eastern and southern parts of North America, even 
if an indirect influence and an interchange of culture is not quite out 
of the question. We must go north of the Canadian lakes before we 
find those forms of eulture which can be considered to represent con- 
ditions similar to those with the mother-culture of the Palæeskimo. In 
these northern distriets we can, then, pick out three forms of economic 
culture, which I will call 1) the Forest Indian form, 2) the Prairie Indian 
form, and 3) the North-west Indian form. 
The three forms, which are associated with the three pronounced 
geographical types of landscape, the forest, the prairie, and the west 
coast so abounding in inlets, comprise, as it were, three belts from south 
to north. In its distinetive form the prairie extends no further than 
the region of the Saskatchewan River, but smaller parts of prairie occur 
