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An Anthropogeographical Study of the Origin of the Eskimo Culture. 197 
and like these must be regarded as derived from the dome tent. The 
conical tent is not very spacious, but it requires fewer skins than most 
other forms of tents. For this reason it is also occasionally found with 
the Central Eskimo in a small dwarfed form, which is only pitched where 
there is a lack of skins1. 
With the Central and Eastern Eskimo, however, we find a somewhat 
different form of tent, which must also be regarded as a conversion and 
a more direct one of the dome-shaped tent. When one gets to northern 
regions where drift-wood and whales’ bones are the only material fit for 
use as tent supports, one cannot make the dome-shaped tent, as this 
requires young pliable stems from the forest. 
One must therefore be contented with making a single arch or frame, 
over which the framework is then placed, and in such a way that the 
tent is highest in front. Behind, the ground-plan is a circular arch, 
which is cut straight off in front. 
A tent of this simple type is still in use with some central and eastern 
tribes, for example the Angmagsaliks*; in order to increase the space, 
the lower end of the tent poles may be fixed in a mound of earth and 
stones instead of being placed in the ground itself. In West Greenland 
the tent has an addition in front of a rectangular extension, a new frame 
heing connected with the door-frame by horizontal poles. 
With the Central Eskimo, the tents with a rectangular front part 
seem to predominate*®. On an average, however, the tents of the Central 
Eskimo are worse made than those of the Greenlanders on account of 
the greater scarcity of wood. This, for example, appears in the cases from 
. Iglulik and other places emphasized by Boas, where wood is rare, and 
/ where the carrying frames are replaced by perpendicular poles of wood 
or bones, while the horizontal bars in the ante-space are replaced by a 
horizontal cord. In these cases, however, the back of the tent has pre- 
‘served its circular form. On the other hand this is not the case in La- 
brador, where it has disappeared, and only the rectangular front has 
remained. Sarrert likewise explains that the arrival of this form of 
tent is due to lack of wood, and I believe he is right. In 1909 I found 
the same form of tent in use in West Greenland in the district round 
Egedesminde, and I then‘ assumed that perhaps it might be due to 
European influence. This, however, can scarcely have been the case, all 
the more so because, according to verbal reports to me from Knup Ras- 
MUSSEN, the same form of tent may be found now and then amongst 
the Polar Eskimo. 
After the tent I will mention the roundish, dome-shaped type of 
__ Eskimo house, but I must remark at once that undoubtedly my con- 
1 Boas II, pp. 552—553. 
2 Boas II, pp. 552—553. 
8 Cf. SaArFERT, pp. 26 sqq.; Boas II, pp. 559 sqq.; KLurscHak, p. 139. 
4M. o. G., Vol. 50, pp. 155 sqq. 
