186 SIBERIAN ORIGIN OF THE GREENLAND ESKIMO. 



We now come to the points of resemblance between the Arctic 

 Highlanders and some Siberian tribes. In physiognomy and 

 general appearance the Eskimos are unlike any other American 

 people. The Eskimo language in vocabulary and grammatical 

 construction is but a dialect of the language spoken by the Tuski, 

 the people in the Gulf of Anadyr in Siberia. The angekok super- 

 stition of the Eskimo resembles, even in minute particulars, the 

 Shamanism of Siberia. These points apply to the whole Eskimo 

 race ; and, in proving that the Arctic Highlanders are distinct 

 from the American Eskimo, I do not mean that they are not all the 

 same race, speaking dialects of the same language, but that they 

 have had no communication since their ancestors left Siberia, and, 

 crossing tho meridian of Behring Straits, wandered to the north- 

 ward and eastward. The American Eskimo migrated at some very 

 remote period, from Siberia by way of Behring Strait ; and the 

 Viking Thorwald found them on the coast of Labrador in the tenth 

 century. The migrations from the northern coast of Siberia were 

 later, and were caused by Central Asiatic encroachments from the 

 eleventh to the fourteenth centuries. This exodus took a distinct 

 and more northern route, along the coast of the Parry Islands, to 

 Greenland. Such are the proofs that have convinced me that 

 the cradle of the Eskimo race is to be found on the frozen tundra 

 of Siberia. 



Only a small remnant of these ancient wanderers is represented 

 by the Arctic Highlanders ; and, as I have already suggested, many 

 parties as the}- arrived, continued their journey to the south, where 

 they peopled Greenland. Others .probably took a more northern 

 course. As to the Greenland population, the historical testimony 

 of the Norsemen, and the universal tradition of the Greenlanders 

 themselves, unite in affirming that the first Skroellings came from 

 the north. 1 This is not the place for critically discussing the value 

 of ancient Icelandic records, which have been most ably edited by 

 learned Danes. From them we learn that the Norsemen were the 

 first inhabitants of Greenland, and that the present population first 

 appeared, coming from the north, in the fourteenth century. How 

 it was that the diminutive, though muscular and courageous, 

 Skroellings overcame and annihilated their gigantic Scandinavian 

 foes, must for ever remain a mystery. It may be that the Normans 

 were first thinned down by disease, and greatly reduced in num- 

 bers. One thing is certain : the Normans disappeared, leaving 



1 John Sackheuse, when he first saw the Arctic Highlanders, immediately 

 mentioned the universal tradition of hie people that they originally came from 

 the north, 



