GILBERTSON: ESKIMO CULTURE 9 



that is, living in small scattered groups, the members of each of 

 which are bound together by intense unity. As Nansen says 



&quot;The men of some tribes or races are driven to combine with each 

 other by the pressure of human enemies, others by inhospitable natural 

 surroundings. The latter has been the case with the Eskimo.&quot; (43: 

 119.) 



And the scarcity of the food-supply likewise forces them to 

 observe the rule, &quot;Divide et impera.&quot; Sutherland, in his 

 ingenious and suggestive classification of the world s peoples 

 (61. 1: 104), puts the Eskimo together with most of the North 

 American aborigines, in the class of &quot;higher savages,&quot; who, 

 according to his scheme, live in groups of 50 to 200. The number 

 given is, I believe, fairly correct for the Eskimo communities. 



The gentile system of social organization, so prominent among 

 many Indian stocks, seems to be foreign to Eskimo culture 

 (42:42; 35:21; 17:145). With the possible exception of the 

 Western Eskimo, Rink regards its maintenance as &quot;incompatible 

 with the extraordinary dispersion, the scanty intercourse between 

 the small communities into which the nation always tends to 

 divide&quot; (52:22), also, 



&quot;a, strict rule of a married couple living with either the relatives of the 

 husband or the wife, could not be preserved by people whose sustenance 

 was dependent on choosing the most favorable hunting stations.&quot; (52: 23.) 



Nelson claims to have found among certain Alaskan Eskimo &quot;a 

 regular system of totem marks and the accompanying subdivision 

 of the people into gentes&quot; (p. 322; for his evidence see pp. 

 322-27). This, especially in the presence of contradictory evi 

 dence, does not seem to be conclusive. (See 42: 42; 35: 21; 

 17: 145; 3.) Even less probable is Gordon s -theory that the 

 custom of tattooing employed by the Eskimo is &quot;a surviving 

 evidence of a full totemic system.&quot; (Quoted by Chamberlain, 

 Journal of American Folklore, vol. 20, p. 80.) 



Consequently, when we speak of &quot;tribes&quot; among the Eskimo, 

 we do not use that term in the sense of an organization built 

 on a certain relation between clans or gentes. The usage is 

 primarily geographical. To quote from Rink s Eskimo Tribes, 

 &quot;as to the Eskimo it will imply the possession of a territory and 

 generally of a dialect in the strictest sense.&quot; (52: 24; see also 

 3. Introduction, xii; 30: 143.) 



Peary s statement that the Eskimo are nomads, and &quot;seldom 



