HYPERBOREAN RACES. CG9 



CHAPTER TIL 



THE INHABITANTS OF THE ARCTIC WILDERNESSES : THE LAPLANDERS 



SAMOIEDES OSTIAKS KAMTSCHATDALES ESKIMOS, OR ESQUI- 

 MAUX. 



To the various populations which occupy tne Arctic regions of both 

 the Old and the New World, the general appellation of Hyperboreans 

 is sometimes given. Do these populations truly form, as some eth- 

 nologists assert, a distinct and homogeneous race ; or are they not 

 rather independent offshoots of the Japhetic race in Europe, of the 

 Mongolian in Asia, of the Redskins in America ? To this question I 

 can give no satisfactory reply. I will only say that if the different 

 fractions of this great group exhibit among themselves external 

 differences of a very marked character, they are drawn together, on 

 the other hand, by no less striking resemblances. In truth, these 

 resemblances are markedly physiological, and should, I think, be 

 exclusively attributed to the powerful and irresistible action of ex- 

 ternal agencies. If there be, indeed, one region where the influence 

 of climate on the constitution of man is manifest, that region is 

 assuredly the Polar Zone. There the conditions of life differ wholly 

 from those which prevail in all other parts of the globe, and it neces- 

 sarily results that modifications take place in the. organism of the 

 men subject to those conditions, which ought to be regarded as 

 wholly independent of the origin of races and of their ethnographic 

 characters properly so called. 



The Hyperboreans are small, squat, ugly, and deformed. Their 

 legs are short and sufficiently straight, but so thick, says Bory de St. 

 Vincent, that to the spectator they seem swollen and diseased. Their 

 head is generally of large size. The} r have long, coarse, straight ha.ir, 

 a thin beard, a broad countenance, a great mouth, high cheek-bones, 

 and half-closed eyes, of a light colour, as gray or yellowish, but never 



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