—w 
An Anthropogeographical Study of the Origin of the Eskimo Culture. 147 
discovery, so now, fishing and the hunting of aquatic mammals form their only 
occupation, and the Aleut’s food still consists chiefly of dried or raw fish, and 
of sea-urchins and other testaceous animals. Fish is caught with hook or net, 
and in this region, where the sea is never frozen over, the aquatic mammals 
can only be killed from kayaks, therefore in the Aleutian Islands it has always 
been, and is to this day, a necessity for every man to be a clever hunter. The 
use of the kayak for one man (the Baidark) requires the usual appurtenances, 
viz., a water-tight jacket, double paddles, throwing boards and harpoon. As 
regards the skill with which they manage their water craft, the Aleuts are 
equal to the Greenlanders, and Vensaminov expresses his admiration in his 
remark, that he does not know “whether the Baidark was created for the Aleut 
or the Aleut for the Baidark.” The Baidare or two-men’s kayak is used just 
as at Kadiak for hunting the sea-otter and the whales, which aquatic mammals 
are hunted with bow and arrow and slate-bladed throwing lance respec- 
tively. The kayak for three was not an original form, but came into existence, 
through Russian influence, as a quick and convenient travelling-boat that could 
hold one passenger and two paddlers. The umiak is now rare, and has probably, 
as at Kadiak and in Prince William Sound, been used for purposes of war as 
well as for travelling. 
After the Aleuts were discovered on Brrina’s last voyage, and had again 
been visited in 1745, a long time elapsed before the Russians discovered that 
the people they met on the Aleutian Islands and on Kadiak belonged to two 
different tribes. For a long time they designated them commonly as Aleuts, 
and it was as late as about 1785 that ScuELEcHow observed that a decidedly 
linguistic difference existed between them. VENJAMINOV, who lived from 1824 
to 1838, partly on the Aleutian Islands and partly on Sitka, proved this 
definitely. F 
VENJAMINOY, on the basis of tales ard myths which, however, he has mis- 
interpreted (cf. for instance Perrorr), tries to show that the Aleuts are of 
Asiatic origin, and the Aleutian Islands have often been made to serve as that 
bridge across which a stream of people immigrated from Asia to America. Even 
if one sets aside the language, which is of a type similar in construction to the 
American language, the cultural conditions, and the opinion current among the 
tribes themselves that they originated from the east, the idea of an immigration 
from Asia can be dismissed by simply referring to the close geographical con- 
nection with America and the distance from the other continent, as also to the 
fact that the western islands in the chain are, and have always been, unin- 
habited. The kitchen middens and other evidences of a former population, 
which Datu has investigated and demonstrated, cease simultaneously with the 
present colonisation of the island of Attu’. 
The next interesting and important question which presents itself con- 
cerns the reciprocal relation and kinship of the Aleuts and the Eskimo. 
‘That the Russians failed to see the difference between them was due to the mate- 
1 Dax III, p. 43. 
10* 
