MASKS OF THE INXTTIT. 



It is generally known that the Innuit or Eskimo form one of the 

 most distinct, sharply defined, and homogeneous aboriginal stocks in 

 America. Their only offshoots are the Aleuts, who have undergone a 

 local development under special conditions, which has altered them iu 

 many respects from the parent stock ; and the Yuit of the Asiatic side 

 of Bering Strait, forced emigrants from America, who, from hunger, 

 privation, constant association with the alien Chukchi, and separation 

 by hostility from people of their own race, have become to a certain ex- 

 tent degraded and crushed. 



Apart from these, in language, traditions, arts, handiwork, mode of 

 hunting, and even for the most part, iu physique, the Innuit of Labra- 

 dor and those of Aliaska Peninsula are separated by no differences of an 

 essential kind. Their lives are, of course, modified to their particular 

 environment, but it is said, and I believe with truth, that a man, un- 

 derstanding thoroughly the dialect of either extreme, could pass from 

 village to village, from Greenland to Labrador, from Labrador to Ber- 

 ing Strait, and thence southward to the Copper or Atna River, staying 

 five days in each halting place, and that in all that journey he would 

 encounter no greater differences of speech and customs than he could 

 master in the few days devoted to each settlement. 



Probably there is no other race in the world distributed over an equal 

 territory, which exhibits such solidarity. 



From this Dr. Rink argues that they must at some time have been 

 distributed in much more compact fashion, and attained nearly their 

 present degree of culture before their separations and migrations began, 

 a conclusion which seems eminently sound. 



It is possible that the Aleuts branched off somewhat earlier, but we 

 have every reason for supposing that the Yuit have passed into Asia 

 within three hundred years at most. According to Gibbs aud Swan, 

 the Indians of Fuca Strait have distinct traditions of the Inuuit as a 

 race of dwarfs, who live in "the always dark country" on the ice, dive 

 and catch whales with their hands, and produce the aurora borealis by 

 boiling out the blubber, it being the reflection from their fires on the 

 sky. They are magicians, and their names must not be pronounced. 

 As the Western Eskimo, on the whole, are nearly as tall and quite 

 as athletic as the Indians, this idea has probably been transmitted from 

 North to South with its attendant modifications iu passing from mouth 

 to mouth, rather than derived from any actual contact in the past. 



However, the point to be brought into the strongest light is the fact 

 that, notwithstanding the homogeneousness of the Innuit race, the prac- 



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