Introductory Sections. 
The Eskimo Culture and Theories on its Origin. 
HE Eskimo have never played a great réle in the world’s history, 
and it is scarcely likely that they ever will have the chance of 
doing so. Since early times their part in history has consisted only 
in the small, but dramatic, episode of the destruction of the Scandi- 
navian Colonies in South Greenland. 
Their later contact with the Europeans has been distinctly marked 
by peacefulness, and by the absolute impotency in a general martial ~~ 
and political sense, of this small population. On the other hand they 
have gained a certain respect from the Europeans with whom they estab- 
lished a connection, by producing a culture which has overcome the 
difficult conditions of subsistence in the Arctic North, and also, be- 
cause, as regards certain dexterities, they really furnish an example 
of the utmost effort of human ability. 
As regards popularity, the small, badly groomed, Eskimo have always 
been outshone by the Indians in their traditional form. Scientifically, also, 
a strong diversity has been conceived. As regards the purely physical 
appearance it seemed even to Cranz that there was more similarity 
between Eskimo and Tunguses and Kalmucks than there was between 
Eskimo and Indians; and when Rink, in 1871, read a paper in the 
Anthropological Institute in London, where he maintained the in 3 
rican origin of the Eskimo, it was refuted by CHarNoox, who empha- 
sized the gulf between the Eskimo and the Northern Indians, i 
linguistic, physical and other respects. 
In this way there are two continents in which the dispute as to 
the primeval home of the Eskimo is contested: America and Asia. The 
dispute is old, and can still be said to be far from being finally decided. 
Along what paths the knowledge of the Eskimo has passed into 
European literature is witnessed in the name of the tribe itself. The 
term Eskimo (Esquimaux) is, so to say, the French form for an Al- 
gonquin word, which means something like “those who eat raw meat.” 
The Frenchmen in Newfoundland and Canada heard it from the Ab- 
nakis who lived on the north side of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, in 
unceasing hostility to their Eskimo neighbours on the coast of Labrador; 
