CHAPTER XXVIL 

 The Eskimo Inhabitants. 



THEIR ORIGIN — THEIR COUNTRY — APPEARANCE AND DRESS — DWELL- 

 INGS — OCCUPATION — IMPLEMENTS — FOOD — MORAL CHARACTER 

 — RELIGION — LANGUAGE — POPULATION — MARRIAGE, COURTSHIP, 

 ETC. 



SKIMO, or Esquimau, is the name applied to that peculiar 



people, in widely separated tribes, scattered along the coasts 

 of the arctic regions of America and Asia. The French 

 ^W^ name for these people is Esquimau, or Esquimaux. The 

 Danish form of the word is Eskimo, or Eskimos, and the latter has 

 taken the place of the former in general use. The meaning of the 

 word is " those who eat raw flesh." The name which these people 

 apply to themselves is " Innuit," or " the people." 



The Eskimos are the most widely-spread aboriginal people in the 

 world. They are unknown in Europe, and are confined to the arctic 

 coast of America, and to a small portion of the shore of Behring's 

 Strait in Russian America. In America they are found in broken, 

 scattered tribes, from east Greenland to the shores of Alaska, never 

 very far inland from the coast or south of the icy regions. They 

 thus stretch for much over three thousand miles. 



They do not maintain much intercourse with each other, yet the 

 separate tribes of these people have preserved a common language 

 and common customs for over a thousand years. 



It is conjectured that they originally belonged to America, but at 

 a very remote period. There is also the idea that the Eskimos were 

 formerly fishing Indians, living on the banks of the great rivers 

 flowing into the arctic sea, and were gradually driven seaward by 

 the more southern Indians, against whom, for some reason, they 

 maintain, until the present day, a thorough hatred. 



