210 H. P. STEENSBY. 
Strait has been exposed to various cultural influences from without, 
but that perhaps the most important source of these influences has been 
the Japanese navigation which probably first reached the mentioned 
regions well within the centuries of our era, and probably lasted until 
the beginning of the 17th century. Here, or probably along practically 
the entire west coast of Alaska — possibly right up to Point Barrow — 
the Japanese are thought to have carried on whale hunting and 
trading, they have set up their booths ashore, and have taken the 
Eskimo coast inhabitants into their service, collaterally with carrying 
on trade with them. 
The result was a mixed race and the Neoeskimo hybrid culture. 
° Hereby must be understood an economic hybrid culture. The Japanese 
who went to the coast of Alaska have hardly imparted, or have hardly 
been able to impart, cultural elements of a higher nature. If linguistic 
matter has been adopted it has certainly taken place in an extremely 
small degree. The conditions have probably been to some extent parallel 
to those which we know of in Danish Greenland. In spite of 200 years of 
missionary work the influence of the Danish language is extremely slight, 
and the spiritual influence hardly goes beyond purely religious condi- 
tions and ideas. If one imagines the Danes to have carried on trade 
and navigation in Greenland without their being missionaries, one has 
a parallel to how, as I think, Japanese navigation has influenced 
the Palæeskimo round Bering Strait, and refashioned them into what 
I have called Neoeskimo, but which might also, perhaps, be called Mon- 
gol-Eskimo. (By the way, the relations between these and the Palæ- 
eskimo no doubt correspond somewhat as regards anthropology to the 
relations between the tribes in North East Asia, for example the Tun- 
gooses, Who are so strongly stamped by the distinctive Mongol type, 
and the so called Palæasiatics). 
In the mentioned case we would in Danish Greenland have had a 
Danish-Eskimo hybrid race with an economic culture which had not 
adopted any great number of essentially Danish or European imple- 
ments and methods of use, but which, on the other hand, had in several 
respects allowed itself to be influenced by, or to adopt, some elements 
for the improvement of their own culture and technique. But if the 
connection ceased one would at once hardly be able to trace the former 
presence of Danish influence on language and thought, and after a few 
generations the memory of this influence would also have disappeared 
or have been enveloped in obscure legends. 
Likewise in Alaska with the Japanese. These can be supposed to 
have left behind distinct evidence only in the race-character and in the 
economic culture. On the economic side of the culture the whale hunting 
and what pertains to it is probably especially in question. Regarding 
the house structure, it is possible that the rectangular house (the Point 
Barrow type) arose direct as a borrowing from the Japanese, in that 
