194 POLAR PROBLEMS 



ture. In the eastern type the reindeer, badly tamed, are watched by 

 the shepherds themselves without the help of dogs. 



To the first type belong the Lapps, Samoyeds, Zyryans, and some 

 of the Ostyaks; to the second the Chukchis, Koryaks, Yukagirs, 

 Tunguses, and some of the Yakuts. The backriding type is practiced 

 in the sub-Arctic regions, its representatives being mainly the Tun- 

 guses (Lamuts). 



Reindeer breeding apparently has slowly spread from west to 

 east and is beginning to envelop the Asiatic Eskimos living near 

 Bering Strait, but, as an autochthonous institution, it apparently 

 has not yet had time to cross Bering Strait into polar America, although 

 the American caribou is not less useful for domestication than the Asi- 

 atic reindeer. (The introduction of the domesticated reindeer into 

 Alaska by the United States government during the latter part of 

 the nineteenth century is, from the ethnographical viewpoint, of 

 course, an artificial importation.) 



Dog breeding and dog driving are more ancient than reindeer 

 breeding, as the dog is the earliest domestic animal. But only in 

 the North, besides being used for hunting and guarding, is the dog a 

 draft animal, like the horse, reindeer, and ox. 



Dog driving also originated apparently in Arctic Asia, but it has had 

 time to cross to America. As to the method of harnessing the dogs 

 there are two main types, the fan type and the chain type. The fan 

 type is earlier, and it is this type that crossed to America. In Asia 

 dog breeding, like reindeer breeding, spread along the Pacific coast 

 to the mouth of the Amur and Sakhalin Island, within the area 

 occupied by the Tunguses and Tungusicized Paleoasiatic tribes. 



A problem for the future to explain is the mutual relation of the 

 reindeer-breeding and dog-breeding tribes.^ In this, special im- 

 portance attaches to the study of frontier spaces and influences. For 

 instance, east of the Yenisei River lives a reindeer-breeding tribe 

 of Tungus origin (with admixture of Yakut elernents), the Dolgans, 

 who combine the practice of the second and third reindeer-breeding 

 types and may represent an intermediate link. 



The Yenisei River in general is a dividing line between the western 

 and eastern divisions of the Eurasian polar regions, the eastern region 

 having many cultural relations with America. 



Hunting and Trapping 



As in the whole circumference of the Arctic belt we find an almost 

 identical fauna on sea and land, the types of hunting and trapping 



1 In the paper in Proc. 21st Internatl. Congr. of Americanists referred to above the author discusses 

 this problem at some length (pp. 237-240) and presents a reconstruction of the ancient ethnography of 

 the polar zone in relation to the use of the reindeer and the dog. — Edit. Note. 



