VI. 



In the foregoing pages I have endeavoured among other 

 things to show, how the industrial culture of the Polar Eski- 

 mos, solely on the basis of adaptation to the natural geogra- 

 phical conditions, has attained a considerable height, which is 

 expressed partly in their apparatus partly in the "culture of 

 the hands". 



With regard to the sociology and psychology of the tribe, 

 to the understanding of which the myths, folk-lore and fables 

 coUecled and in part published by Knud Rasmussen ^ will give 

 an essential contribution, I shall express myself here quite 

 briefly. 



The high development of individual skill in hunting and 

 hand-craft has led to a corresponding development of intelli- 

 gence in practical regards. So long as a situation merely re- 

 quires jugdment of the natural conditions or of those condi- 

 tions which lie within their practical experience, we can scarcely 

 find more intelligent people than the Polar Eskimos or people 

 with greater ingenuity and powers to get themselves out of 

 a difficult position. This combined with their hardihood makes 

 them incomparable helpers in the polar expeditions. 



As an example of the Polar Eskimo's ability to pursue a 

 line of reasoning, I may cite here an answer which Mylius 

 Erichsen received from the angakok Sorkrark to his question: 

 why not a single bear had yet appeared in the neiglibourhood 



* Nye Mennesker. København 1905. The people of the Polar North 

 London 1908. 

 XXXIV. 24 



