BULL. 30] 



ESKIMO 



485 



same might almost be said for each family, 

 although there are customs and prece- 

 dents, especially with regard to hunting 

 and lishing, which define the relations ex- 

 isting between them. Although hardly 

 deserving the name of chief, there is 

 usually some advisory head in each settle- 

 ment whose dictum in certain matters, 

 particularly as to the change of village 

 sites, has much weight, but he has no 

 power to enforce his opinions. 



The men engage in hunting and fish- 

 ing, while all the household duties fall to 

 the lot of the women — they must cook, 

 make and mend clothes, and repair the 

 kaiaks and boat covers, pitch the tents, 

 and dry the fish and meat and stow them 

 away for the winter. In some tribes 

 skin-dressing is done by the men, in 

 others by the women. Monogamy, po- 

 lygamy, and polyandry are all practised, 

 their occurrence being governed some- 

 what by the relative proportion of the 

 sexes; l)ut a second marriage is unusual 

 where a man's first wife has borne him 

 children. The execution of law is largely 

 left to the individual, and blood-revenge 

 is universally exacted. 



The Eskimo believe in spirits inhabit- 

 ing animals and inanimate objects. Their 

 chief deity, however, is an old Avoman 

 who resides in the ocean and may cause 

 storms or withholdseals and other marine 

 animals if any of her tabus are infringed. 

 Her power over these animals arises from 

 the fact that they are sections of her fin- 

 gers cut off by her father at the time when 

 she first took up her abode in the sea. 

 The chief duty of angakoks, or shamans, 

 is to find who has infringed the tabus and 

 thus brought down the wrath of the 

 supernatural beings and to compel the 

 offender to make atonement by public 

 confession or confession to the angakok. 

 The central Eskimo suppose two spirits to 

 reside in a man's body, one of which stays 

 with it when it dies and may temporarily 

 enter the body of some child, who is then 

 named after the departed, while the other 

 goes to one of several lands of the souls. 

 Some of the lands of souls lie above the 

 earth's surface, some beneath, and the 

 latter are generally more desirable. 



Although the theory of Asiatic origin 

 of the Eskimo was long popular, many of 

 their ethnic peculiarities are opposed to 

 such a notion, and recent researches 

 seem to indicate that their movements 

 have rather 1 )een from E. to W. They are 

 peculiar as being the only race of American 

 aborigines who certainly had contact 

 with white people before the days of Co- 

 lumbus, for Greenland was occupied dur- 

 ing the 10th and 11th centuries by 

 Norwegians, whose expeditions extended 

 even as fai; as the American mainland. 



Later Frobisher and other European nav- 

 igators encountered Eskimo along the 

 E. coasts, while the Russians discov- 

 ered and annexed the w. part of their 

 domain. This occupancy in its earlier 

 period proved disastrous to the Aleut 

 (q. V. ) in particular, who were harshly 

 dealt with and whose number was greatly 

 reduced during the Russian domination 

 {see liussian i)ifluence). The larger por- 

 tion of the Greenland and Labrador Es- 

 kimo have been Christianized by Mo- 

 i-avian and Danish missionaries, while 

 the Alaskan representatives of the family 

 have had Russian missionaries among 

 them for more than a century. Those 

 of the central groups, however, owing 

 to the remoteness of their situation, 

 have always been much less affected by 

 outside influences. The Eskimo have 

 proved almost indispensable assistants to 

 Arctic explorers. 



The Eskimauan stock embraces two 

 well-marked divisions, the Eskimo proper 

 and the inhabitants of the Aleutian ids., 

 the Aleut. Other divisions are rather 

 geographical than political or dialectic, 

 there being great similarity in language 

 and customs from one end of the Eskimo 

 domain to the other. They can be sepa- 

 rated, however, into the following fairly 

 well marked ethnological groups (based 

 on information furnished by Dr Franz 

 Boas ) : 



I. The Greenland Eskimo, subdivided 

 into the East Greenlanders, West Green- 

 landers, and Ita Eskimo, the last transi- 

 tional between the Greenland Eskimo 

 proper and the next gr(jup. 



II. The Eskimo of s. Baffin land and 

 Labrador, embracing the following divi- 

 sions: Akudnirmiut, Akuliarmiut, Itivi- 

 miut, Kaumauangmiut, Kigiktagmiut, 

 Nugumiut, Okomiut, Padlimiut, Sikosui- 

 larmiut, Suhinimiut, Tahagmiut. 



III. The Eskimo of Melville penin., 

 North Devon, n. Baffin land, and theN. w. 

 shore of Hudson bay, embracing the Ago- 

 miut, Aivilirmiut, Amitormiut, Iglulir- 

 miut, Inuissuitmiut, Kinipetu, Koung- 

 miut, Pilingmiut, 8auniktumiut. 



IV. The Sagdlirmiut of Southampton 

 id., now extinct. 



V. The Eskimo of Boothia Felix, King 

 William land, and the neighboring main- 

 land. These include the Netchilirmiut, 

 Sinimiut, Ugjulirmiut, Ukusiksalirmiut. 



VI. The Eskimo of Victoria land and 

 Coronation gulf, including the Kangor- 

 miut and Kidnelik, which may, perhaps, 

 be one tribe. 



VII. The Eskimo between C. Bath- 

 urstand Herschelid., includingthe mouth 

 of Mackenzie r. Provisionally they may 

 be divided into the Kitegareut at C. Bath- 

 urst and on Anderson r., the Nageuktor- 



