An Anthropogeographical Study of the Origin of the Eskimo Culture. 169 
From Continental Culture to Coast Culture. 
The Eskimo are always described as a coast people, and their cul- 
ture as a well-marked coast culture. This is of course true as regards 
the Subarctic Eskimo; but, properly speaking, it does not in reality 
apply to the Arctic Eskimo. 
It is true that, in a strictly geographical sense, the Arctic Eskimo 
are inhabitants of the coast. But in reality their culture is not adapted 
to a coast-life in the general meaning of the term. This is at once seen 
by looking at the table for the Summer and Winter cultures of the deci- 
dedly Arctic Eskimo (p. 157). Normally, the summer is spent inland, 
and they do not move to the coast until the sea is frozen over. 
The typical mode of life of the Arctic Eskimo consists, then, in moving 
to and fro between the interior and the sea-ice, while the coast and the 
open sea play so insignificant a rdle for them that they must be des- 
cribed as quite continental in their mode of living’. 
This continentality is interestingly illustrated by the fact that the 
testaceous and crustaceous animals of the coast, which are otherwise 
so important as reserve food for inhabitants of the coast with a hunting 
culture, play no réle whatever for the Arctic Eskimo. There is hardly any 
other explanation for this than that the latter descended, or at any rate 
have inherited their mode of living and way of thinking, from inhabi- 
tants of the inland who have moved direct out to the Arctic sea coast, 
where they have developed this mode of living with its continental 
characteristics. As regards the observation mentioned above, I shall 
cite Srrransson®: “No sort of shell fish ever seems to have been used 
as food by the Eskimo, north of the mouth of the Yukon River, at least, 
although clams and shrimps abound in certain places, and their use is 
just now being introduced by white men.” 
It is seen, then, that the Eskimo culture in its older, original form 
— viz. the Arctic form — has still preserved its continental character. 
The modification of the Eskimo culture into a real coast culture takes 
place, then, only gradually, as it gets away from the Arctic Archipelago 
and becomes Subarctic. 
A Palezeskimo and a Neoeskimo Layer of Culture. 
Herewith we finish the anthropogeographical investigation, in which 
we have studied the economic culture of the various Eskimo groups 
such as it has developed in various places on the basis of the geogra- 
phical adaptation. 
It appears, however, that the Eskimo culture ought not to be regar- 
ded exclusively as a result of the geographical adaptation. Influence 
'1 Cf. M. 0. G., Vol. 34, p. 402. 
2 Steransson, IJ, pp. 450—451. 
ie 
