402 



ox (oomemak), and wherever there are good hunting-grounds, 

 there the Esquimaux will be found" ^. 



This explanation of the origin of the Polar Eskimos from 

 the north and west is in itself quite natural. What is remark- 

 able in the matter is, however, that they have come to 

 Greenland more on the basis of a pure land- hunting, 

 such as for the musk-ox, than in their character as 

 dwellers on the coast. And even after they had passed 

 Smith Sound, the Polar Eskimos still retained this distinctive 

 land-life, changing from their earlier summer hunting, the 

 musk-ox hunting, to the still easier bird-catching. They lived 

 for 3 months of the year on the margin of the open sea without 

 standing in any cultural relation whatsoever to it. 



That they did not build kayaks stands just as much in 

 connection with the fact, that they did not hunt the reindeer 

 as with their relation to the sea; for the Central Eskimos, 

 namely , who live on and near the Barren Grounds, the kayak 

 is chiefly a river-conveyance , which is used in the reindeer 

 hunting of the summer^. The absence of wood would not of 

 itself be a sufficient cause for giving up an established custom 

 of building kayaks , but might well delay the adoption of this 

 apparatus from neighbouring tribes. Had the Polar Eskimos 

 been accustomed to and felt the need of building kayaks, they 

 would certainly have found some way of continuing to do so. 

 The Iglulik Eskimos had certainly just as little wood, and yet 

 Lyon^ found kayaks there in 1822, regarding which he writes: 

 "The ribs , of which there are sixty or seventy , are made of 

 ground willow, small bones, whalebone, or if it can be procured, 

 of good grained wood". 



^ Hayes, The open Polar Sea, p. 385. — cf. Carl Petersen, Erindringer 

 etc., pp. 80 and 91; Knud Rasmussen, Nye Mennesker, p. 118; Peary, 

 Northward etc., I, p. 488. 



^ H. P. Steensby, 1. с — 



^ G. F. Lyon, The private journal etc. London 1824, p. 322. 



