2  SMITHSONIAN    MISCELLANEOUS    COLLECTIONS  VOL.    96 
tions  which  related  that  these  had  formerly  been  occupied  by  the 
"  Namollo  ",  or  "  Onkilon  ",  a  maritime  people  who  were  driven  by 
the  Chukchee  to  some  remote  and  undiscovered  islands  in  the  Polar 
Sea.  From  there  Markham  assumed  that  they  had  continued  eastward 
and  southward  to  the  positions  they  now  occupy. 
Rink,  in  1871,  was  the  first  to  formulate  a  theory  which  took  into 
account  the  specific  elements  of  Eskimo  culture  and  the  conditions 
under  which  they  might  have  arisen.  According  to  Rink,  the  Eskimos 
were  originally  an  inland  race,  dwelling  in  the  interior  of  Alaska  and 
possibly  of  Canada.  The  transition  from  an  inland  to  a  maritime  life 
took  place  as  they  gradually  descended  the  rivers  to  the  coasts,  mean- 
while adapting  their  culture  to  new  conditions.  When  this  had  been 
effected,  they  were  able  to  take  possession  of  the  Arctic  regions,  a 
few  of  them  crossing  Bering  Strait  to  Siberia,  the  others  continuing 
eastward  to  occupy  the  long  stretch  of  coast  from  Alaska  to  Greenland. 
In  the  pages  which  follow  I  will  try  to  show,  how  ....  the  peculiarities 
of  the  tribes  in  the  different  domains  of  culture  agree  with  the  supposition 
that  the  original  Eskimo  inhabited  the  Interior  of  Alaska,  that  apart  from  the 
true  Eskimo  a  side  branch  of  them  in  the  farthest  remote  period  peopled  the 
Aleutian  islands,  whereas  people  of  the  principal  race  later  on  settled  at  the 
river-mouths,  spreading  northward  along  Bering  Strait  and  hiveing  off  some 
colonies  to  the  opposite  shore  proceeded  around  Point  Barrow  to  the  east,  the 
Mackenzie  river,  over  the  Central  Regions  or  Arctic  Archipelago,  and  finally 
to  Labrador  and  Greenland.  This  dispersion  may  have  taken  thousands  of  years ; 
they  can  only  have  proceeded  in  small  bands,  very  much  as  still  they  are  used 
to  move  about  during  certain  seasons.  Their  only  way  of  procuring  subsistence 
in  the  vast  deserts  they  passed  over,  excluded  the  possibility  of  national  migra- 
tions on  a  larger  scale.  While  in  this  way  they  continued  to  discover  new 
countries,  some  families  were  induced  to  go  farther,  others  remained  and  finally 
gave  rise  to  the  present  scattered  settlements.  But  in  proposing  this  hypothesis 
I  consider  it  a  matter  of  course  that  Alaska  as  the  original  home  of  the  Eskimo 
is  not  to  be  taken  in  the  strictest  sense,  absolutely  excluding  adjacent  parts  of 
the  continent  towards  the  east.  Tribes  of  the  same  race  may  have  come  down 
the  Mackenzie  or  even  more  easterly  rivers,  but  amalgamated  with  the  principal 
stock,  learning  their  inventions  and  adopting  their  mode  of  life.  [Rink,  1887, 
PP-  4.  5-] 
Rink's  theory  of  a  primary  dispersal  from  the  interior  of  Alaska 
was  opposed  by  Murdoch  on  the  ground  that  the  progressive  develop- 
ment of  culture  from  southern  Alaska  to  Greenland  was  not  as  regular 
as  Rink  supposed ;  that  the  culture  of  the  south  Alaskan  Eskimos  was 
highly  specialized  rather  than  primitive;  and  that  the  really  primitive 
Eskimos  were  those  of  the  Central  regions. 
According  to  my  theory  the  tribes  of  the  Central  Region,  with  their  primitive 
culture,  are  nearest  to  the  original  home  of  the  race,  which  would  have  been 
