HKDI.I.KA] SUMMARY 365 



Bering Sea. and southwestern Alaska is near to those of various sur- 

 rounding peoples, the inevitable resulting deduction is that, in the 

 light of our present knowledge, the origin of the Eskimo is to be 

 looked for in the western rather than the northern Arctic or the 

 northeastern area, and that particularly in the northern Bering Sea 

 and the adjacent, particularly perhaps the northern, Asiatic region. 

 The author is, therefore, led to regard the area between 160° west 

 and 160° east longitude and 60° to 75° north latitude as contain- 

 ing the primal Eskimo-genic center, and as the source of the oldest 

 Eskimo or proto-Eskimo extensions, while the larger part of the 

 Eskimo differentiations is in all probability American. 



13. The earlier notions relating to the western Eskimo, namely, 

 those that would attribute his physical characteristics to a large 

 admixture with the Indian, are now untenable for the following 

 reasons : 



a. The distribution of the western Eskimo traits and measure- 

 ments does not indicate any important heterogeneous mixture. 



h. The groups most distant from the Indians, such as the St. 

 Lawrence or Diomede islanders and the Asiatic Eskimo, show very 

 nearly the same somatological characteristics as the rest of the 

 southwestern and midwestern groups. 



c. Among the western Eskimo there are no data, no traditions, and 

 no linguistic or cultural evidence of any considerable Indian 

 admixture. 



d. The western contingents of the family do not represent a phys- 

 ical resultant or means of the more narrow and long-headed type 

 with the neighboring Indians of Alaska (or elsewhere in the north), 

 but they equal or even exceed the Indians in the principal features of 

 the skull, face, and in other particulars. 



14. The nearest physical relatives of the Eskimo are evidently some 

 of the Chukchi, with probably some other north Asiatic groups; their 

 nearest basic relatives in general are. according to many indica- 

 tions, the American Indians. The two families, Indian and Eskimo, 

 appear much, it may be repeated, like the thumb and fingers of one 

 and the same hand, the hand being the large, original palaeo- Asiatic 

 source of both. But the Eskimo are evidently a younger, smaller and 

 still a more uniform member: which speaks strongly lor their later 

 origin, migration and internal differentiation. 



15. With his numbers, purity of blood, approachability, present 

 facilities of language, many of the young speaking good English, 

 and other favorable conditions, the Eskimo offers to anthropology 

 one of its best opportunities for a thorough study of an important 

 human group, adapted to highly exceptional natural conditions. His 

 food, mode of life, the climate, and isolation, give promise of inter- 



