An Anthropogeographical Study of the Origin of the Eskimo Culture. 205 
Over how large an area these pre-Eskimo have lived — whether 
they have also occupied the northern parts of the prairie, and to how 
great an extent they originally, im addition, extended on to the 
tundra — nothing can be decided: not on an anthropogeographical 
basis at any rate. 
These original Eskimo spoke a language which was the mother- 
tongue of the present Eskimo language; but for the rest they have 
been more “Indian” than “Eskimo” in culture. By this is only meant 
North American, 1.е., continental; because one cannot assume that, 
from an ethnographical point of view, their previous history has been 
extensively American; even at this early stage one is obliged to reckon 
with Asiatic influences, probably Asiatic immigrations, which have 
brought certain fundamental Palæasiatic-American possessions of cul- 
ture, such as, probably, bark-boats, snow-shoes, earth-house, oldest 
tight fitting skin clothes, etc. But to what extent the mentioned pre- 
Eskimo inland culture has been American, and to what extent Asiatic 
elements have been present cannot be inquired into in this connection. 
The Rise of the Palæeskimo Culture in the Archipelago 
by New Adaptation. 
In the preceding pages the Palæeskimo culture is explained as an 
originally North Indian form of culture of which the winter 
side has been specially developed by adaptation to the win- 
ter ice of the Arctic Ocean. 
It must be assumed that the above mentioned pre-Eskimo inhabi- 
tants of the interior gradually moved beyond the tundra, and especially 
onto the Barren Ground! area, in that they exchanged their forest 
hunting and bison hunting for the hunting of the reindeer and musk ox 
of the tundra. The original wintering in the forest had by degrees to 
be abandoned — by some of the groups at any rate — on account of the 
distances. Wood as fuel had then to be replaced by fat and tallow, 
and bark as a covering for boats by skin. Here one must not think 
of new inventions. The things which circumstances forced into pro- 
minence were well known matters. In the northern part of the prairie 
the boats have up to present times been covered with bison skin, and 
fish-oil was occasionally employed as fuel by Indian tribes. 
The essential impulse to the development of the Eskimo culture did 
not come until the Eskimo accustomed themselves to stay at or on the 
sea ice in the winter and hunt seals. To a hunting people, which lived 
by following the migrations of the herds of animals, this transition had 
+ It must be noticed that by Barren Grounds I here in a particular sense mean 
the peninsula-resembling domain northwest of Hudson Bay and east of 
the Coppermine River. 
