An Anthropogeographical Study of the Origin of the Eskimo Culture. 173 
amidst forest regions as far as 60? N. lat. Around Peace River, even 
larger regions of prairie are found, and the bison, the most important 
form of animal life on the prairie and the Prairie Indian's most im- 
portant game, only reached its northern boundary at, or a little north 
of, the Great Slave Lake?, 
The North-west Indian culture is by considerable distance and by 
the huge range of the Cordilleras separated from the interior districts 
where we must assume that the pre-Eskimo mother-culture must have 
had its home. Next, the North-west Indian culture is so peculiarly 
developed and, no doubt, so influenced from Asia at a comparatively 
recent date, that for these reasons we cannot expect that a study of 
this culture will give us the basis of the Palæeskimo culture. At a later 
stage the North-west Indians may have influenced the Eskimo in Alaska, 
but this influence has hardly been of encroaching significance in any 
direction. 
If we will seek to understand the basis of the Palæeskimo culture 
we must investigate the economic culture of the Northern Prairie and 
Forest individuals. But before that, we must look at the forms and 
groups of economic culture which in Asia may be assumed to have in- 
fluenced the Eskimo culture in its later Neoeskimo stage. When, for 
the sake of a general view, we number the mentioned American forms 
of culture from 1—3, and continue in Asia, we get the following: 
4) The Siberian Reindeer Nomadism, which is a form of cul- 
ture of a distinctly continental character which only relatively late pene- 
trated to Bering Strait; its influence on the Eskimo culture has no doubt 
been very slight. 
5) The Siberian Continental Hunting Culture. The reindeer 
nomadism, however, forms only a comparatively thin layer over another 
and older form of culture, which in reality still exists, supported partly 
by certain tribes and partly by the real nomads, who, besides their 
reindeer-breeding, carry on hunting and fishing in the old way. This 
hunting culture, which is associated with the forests and rivers in Siberia, 
corresponds, however, rather exactly with the above-mentioned culture 
of the northern Forest Indians. A more exact demonstration of this 
would, however, in this connection, lead too far, but most of the under- 
mentioned hunting and fishing methods from the regions west of Hudson 
Bay are refound in Siberia. The same holds good of the hunting im- 
plements, and vehicular contrivances such as snow shoes and birch- 
bark canoes; indeed, a sledge of the Canadian toboggan type seems even 
in the time of Marco Poto? to have been in use in North-eastern Siberia. 
There is hardly any doubt that these and other congruities represent 
a reminiscence of the ancient distribution of culture, and perhaps simul- 
1 Cf. HoRNADAY. 
? Cf. Marco Poto’s third book, chapter 44. 
