An Anthropogeographical Study of the Origin of the Eskimo Culture. 55 
a river and held there by the pressure of hostile tribes he had the 
forces which were to foster the new culture set aright. His first and 
most important claim to this belief was his view that the kayak was 
the kernel of the Eskimo culture in implements, or that, which 
by its making led to the invention which had by degrees to 
drag all the others after it. Rink supposed tbe primitive form of 
the kayak to have been an Indian birch-bark canoe. The first step 
towards the Eskimo culture, therefore, consisted only in replacing the 
birch-bark with sealskin, and at the same time in providing the skin- 
boat with a deck, in order to protect it against the waves of the sea. 
In this view Rink did not consider that so many other primitive 
peoples have used small boats on the sea without covering them, 
from which one may conclude that, with the advent of the kayak, 
there were other factors which asserted themselves. Rink was, however, 
so convinced of the sole validity of the South Greenland or Subarctic 
_ form of culture that he started by understanding that, where he found 
this form in its simplest and apparently most primitive stage, there 
the place of origin must be. And then he thought, just at a place 
which fitted in excellently with the rest of his reflections, namely 
round the mouth of the Yukon in Alaska, to find Eskimo who rowed 
the kayak with a single-bladed paddle, and did not use the water- 
proof pelt for kayaking. Here, then, he placed the hearth of the 
Eskimo culture, and thought to be able to point to a steady devel- 
opment from here to South Greenland, where he believed that the 
culture reached its culminating point. He tried in several particulars 
to prove this succession of development. Full confidence in the use 
of the kayak could only have been attained in Greenland. The double- 
bladed paddle first appeared around Point Barrow. In South Alaska 
the bladder-dart was used for seal-hunting, and it was only further 
north that the idea of separating the bladder from the dart and 
joining these two with a cord had been thought of. The harpoon 
first attained its most ingenious form in Greenland. In South Alaska | 
the houses had the same form and arrangements as the Indian ones, 
and further to the north appeared, by degrees, houses with special 
Eskimo accomodations and blubber-lamp instead of the hearth. In 
Alaska the Eskimo still wear lip-ornaments, but when they migrated 
northward to the Arctic regions they had to discard this adornment 
on account of climatic conditions. Also in apparel, skill in craft- 
manship, and social conditions an apparent development is affected 
from Alaska to Greenland, and Rrnx thought, besides, to find support 
for his views in the contents and distribution of various legends. 
In the various works where Rink treated the subject of the 
Eskimo he cleared the way by his sound reflections for the calm 
1 Rink, VIII, pp. 6 sqq. 
