8  SMITHSONIAN    MISCELLANEOUS    COLLECTIONS  VOL.    96 
carry  it  farther  and  meet  new  requirements  as  they  came  up.    Where  and  how 
he  acquired  the  fundamentals  is  obscure It  is  conceivable  that  the  origin 
of  the  Eskimo  is  to  be  set  at  a  time  later  than  that  of  the  American  race  and 
somewhere    in    Asia Somewhere   in    the    Siberian    region,   then,   within 
occasional  reach  of  influences  emanating  from  higher  centers  of  civilization  in 
Asia  or  Europe,  the  Eskimo  may  have  laid  the  foundations  of  their  culture, 
specialized  it  further  as  they  encountered  new  conditions  in  new  Asiatic  habitats, 
and  evolved  only  the  finishing  touches  of  their  remarkable  adaptation  after  they 
spread  along  the  northernmost  shores  of  America. 
The  past  decade  has  witnessed  a  greatly  increased  interest  in  the 
problem  o£  the  Eskimo.  This  has  been  due  in  large  part  to  the  in- 
vestigations into  the  ethnography,  archeology,  language,  and  folklore 
of  the  Central  Eskimos  inaugurated  by  the  late  Dr.  Knud  Rasmussen 
and  carried  out  by  himself  and  his  colleagues,  Kaj  Birket-Smith  and 
Therkel  Mathiassen.  Among  the  noteworthy  results  of  the  Fifth 
Thule  Expedition  are  the  reports  by  Birket-Smith  on  the  Caribou 
Eskimos  and  by  Mathiassen  on  the  archeology  of  the  Central  Eskimos. 
Both  of  these  works  are  landmarks  in  Eskimo  research,  not  only  for 
the  mass  of  factual  material  they  embody,  but  also  because  the  op- 
posing theories  therein  expressed  have  served  as  the  center  of  dis- 
cussion in  recent  years  on  the  question  of  the  origin  of  Eskimo  culture. 
When  Knud  Rasmussen  and  Birket-Smith  came  upon  the  Caribou 
Eskimos  in  the  Barren  Grounds  west  of  Hudson  Bay  they  felt  that 
they  had  found  in  these  remote  and  primitive  people  "  a  somewhat — 
though  not  essentially  altered  relic  of  an  ancient  culture  layer,  a  form 
[of  culture]  which  ....  may  be  called  '  Proto-Eskimo '."  (Birket- 
Smith,  1929,  vol.  2,  pp.  222,  223.)  In  his  important  monograph  "  The 
Caribou  Eskimos  "  Birket-Smith  has  undertaken  an  extensive  analysis 
of  Eskimo  culture  and  has  assembled  a  vast  amount  of  comparative 
material  which  he  feels  bears  out  his  theory  of  the  ancestral  status  of 
this  particular  group  of  Eskimos.  However  much  one  may  differ  from 
the  views  therein  expressed,  one  can  not  fail  to  be  impressed  by  the 
brilliant  argument  and  the  industrious  marshalling  of  data  in  support 
of  the  author's  bold  and  stimulating  theory  of  the  origin  of  Eskimo 
culture.  In  addition  to  presenting  a  detailed  picture  of  one  of  the 
most  interesting  aboriginal  groups  in  Arctic  America,  Birket-Smith's 
book  is  a  highly  important  contribution  to  theoretical  ethnography. 
In  its  most  essential  features  Birket-Smith's  theory  follows  that  of 
Steensby,  although  the  argument  is  more  detailed  and  the  final  struc- 
ture considerably  more  elaborate. 
Briefly,  the  hypothesis  in  question  tends  to  show  the  following :  Originally 
the  Proto-Eskimo  lived  inland  from  Hudson  bay  and  farther  west.  Whereas 
some  of  them,  of  whom  the  Caribou  Eskimo  are  the  last  survivors,  remained 
