100 



Hunters of the Aleutian Islands, would have been denied tliem. Dr. Rink 

 further draws comparisons between the tales, language, customs, and espe- 

 cially the traditions of different branches of the Innuit stock, and shows an 

 astonisliing uniformity, almost amounting to identity, between them. This 

 identity exists in the stories received from the people of Cape Farewell and 

 Labrador, for instance, who appear to have had no intercourse with each 

 other for upward of a thousand years. As the distance from Cape Fare- 

 well to Labrador, by the ordinary channels of Eskimo communication, is 

 as great as from either of these two places to the most western limit of tlie 

 Eskimo region, it may be assumed that a certain stock of traditions is more 

 or less common to all the tribes of Eskimo. Dr. Rink's studies (and no one 

 has investigated the subject of Innuit traditions more thoroughly or with 

 greater success) lead him to the following conclusions: 



"I. That the principal stock of traditions were not invented, from time 

 to time, but originated in the stage of their migrations while they were 

 making the great step, from habits of life which had matured inland, to 

 those rendered necessary by an occupation of the coast. At this same 

 period, the national development was going on in other branches of culture. 

 The traditions subsequently springing up are more or less composed of 

 elements taken from the older stories, and have only had a comparatively 

 temporary existence. 



"II. That the real historical events upon which some of the principal 

 of the oldest tales are founded consisted of wars conducted against the"same 

 hostile nations, or of journeys to the same distant countries ; and that the 

 original tales were subsequently localized, the present narrators each pre- 

 tending that the events took place in the country in which they now reside, 

 as for instance iu Greenland, or even in special districts of it. By this 

 means, it has come to pass that the men and animals of the original tales, 

 which are wanting in the several localities in which the tribes have now 

 settled, have been converted into supernatural beings, many of whom are 

 now supposed to be occupying the unknown regions in the interior of 

 Greenland." 



I may add that the old tale of the half-human, half-supematural beings 

 which inhabit the interior is also common to the Aleuts, who call these 



