_Origin in Asia._--Many opinions on the origin of the Eskimo have been
expressed by different authors. Among the earliest of these were those
of missionaries, such as Crantz (1779), and of the early explorers,
such as Steller, v. Wrangell, Lütke and others. They were based on the
general aspect of the Eskimo, particularly that of his physiognomy; and
seeing that in many features he resembled most the mongoloid peoples
of Asia they attached him to these, which meant the conclusion that he
was of Asiatic derivation. Quite soon, however, there began to appear
also the opinions of students of man. The first of these was that of
Blumenbach, as expressed in his Inaugural Thesis of 1781. In this
thesis, more particularly its second edition, he classifies the Eskimo
expressly as a part of the Caucasian or white race. But after obtaining
an Eskimo skull and an Eskimo body he changes his opinion and in
1795-1806 he comes out with a definite classification of the Eskimo as
a member of the Mongolians; and a similar conclusion, with its implied
or expressed consequence of a migration from Asia to America, has been
reached since, mainly on somatological but also in part on linguistic
and cultural bases, by a large number of authors, including Lawrence,
Morton, Pickering, Latham, Flower, Peschel, Topinard, Brinton, Virchow
(1877), Quatrefages and Hamy (1882), Thalbitzer, Bogoras and numerous
others. With all of this, the conception of the Asiatic origin of the
Eskimo has not passed the status of a strong probability, lacking a
final conclusive demonstration.
A chronological list of the more noteworthy individual statements is
given at the end of this section.
_Origin in America._--Since the earlier parts of the nineteenth century
the opinion began to be expressed that the Eskimo is not of Asiatic but
of American origin. Already in 1847 Prichard tells us that there are
those who "consider them as belonging to the American family," and he
plainly favors this conception.
Between 1873 and 1890 the American origin of the Eskimo is repeatedly
asserted by Rink, who for 16 winters and 22 summers lived with the
eastern Eskimo, first as a scientific explorer and later as royal
inspector or governor of the southern Danish settlements in Greenland
(preface by R. Brown to Rink's Tales and Traditions, 1875). In this
opinion, briefly, the Eskimo were derived from the inland Indian tribes
of Alaska; without referring to the origin of the Indian.
Rink's authoritative opinion was followed or paralleled by Daniel
Wilson (1876), Grote, Krause, Ray, Keane, Brown, and others. In
1887 Chamberlain expresses the somewhat startling additional theory
that it was not the Eskimo who was derived from the Mongolians but
the Mongolians from the Eskimo or their American ancestors. And in
1901-1910 Boas comes to the conclusion that the Eskimo probably
originated from the inland tribes (Indian?) in the Hudson Bay region.
An interesting case in these connections is that of Rudolf Virchow. In
1877 (see details at the end of this section) he expresses the belief
in the Eskimo coming from Asia; in 1878 he seems to be uncertain;
and in 1885 he comes out in support of the opinion that the original
home of the Eskimo may have been in the western part of the Hudson
Bay region. Among later students of the problem, Steensby[205] and
Birket-Smith[206] incline on cultural grounds to this hypothesis.
Wissler, not explicit as to the Eskimo in 1917 (The American Indian),
in 1918 (Archæology of the Polar Eskimo) finds, after Steensby, the
most acceptable theory of the Eskimo origin to be that "they expanded
from a parent group in the Arctic Archipelago"; but in 1922, in the
second edition of his The American Indian, he repeats word for word his
opinion of 1917, which appears to favor an Asiatic derivation.
_Origin in Europe--Identity with Upper Palaeolithic man._--About the
sixties of last century growing discoveries in France of implements,
etc., of later palaeolithic man brought about a realization that
not a few of these implements and other objects, particularly those
of the Magdalenian period, resembled like implements and objects
of the Eskimo; from which, together with the considerations of the
similarities of fauna (reindeer, musk-ox, etc.), and of climate,
there was but a step to a more or less definite identification of the
Magdalenians and Solutreans with the Eskimo. In 1870 Pruner-Bey[207]
claims a similarity between Solutrean and Eskimo skulls. In 1883 these
views received the influential support of De Mortillet (see details).
In 1889 the theory receives strong support from the characteristics
of the Chancelade (Magdalenian) skeleton which Testut declares are in
many respects almost identical with those of the Eskimo. And within
the next few years the notion is upheld by Hamy and Hervé. It remains
sympathetic as late as 1913 to Marcellin Boule, and finds most recent
champions in Morin and Sollas.
However, there were also many who opposed the effort at a direct
connection of the upper palaeolithic man of Europe and the Eskimo.
Among these were Geikie, Flower, Rae, Daniel Wilson, Robert Brown,
Déchelette, Laloy. At present the theory is supported mainly by Morin
and Sollas, opposed by Steensby, Burkitt, Keith, MacCurdy, and others;
while most students of the Eskimo ignore the question.
_Other hypotheses._--Besides the preceding ideas which attribute the
origin of the Eskimo to Asia, or America, or old Europe, there were
also others that failed to receive a wider support; and there were
authors and students who remained undecided or were too cautious to
definitely formulate their beliefs. Some of the former as well as the
latter deserve brief mention.
Gallatin, in 1836, mainly on linguistic grounds, recognizes the
fundamental relation of the Eskimo and the Indian and seems inclined to
the American origin of the former, but makes no clear statement to that
effect. For Meigs (1857), who probably followed an earlier opinion, the
Eskimo came "from the islands of the Polar Sea." C. C. Abbott (1876)
saw Eskimo in the early inhabitants of the Delaware Valley. To Grote
(1875, 1877), the Eskimo were "the existing representatives of the
man of the American glacial epoch"; they were modified Pliocene men.
Nordenskiöld (1885) follows closely Meigs and Grote; the Eskimo may be
"the true autochthones of the Polar regions," having inhabited them
from before the glacial age, during more genial climate. Keane (1886)
believed the Eskimo developed from the Aleuts. For De Quatrefages
(1887), man originated in the Tertiary in northern Asia, spread from
there, and some of his contingents may have reached America and been
the ancestors of the Eskimo; the western tribes of the latter being a
mixture of the Eskimo with Asiatic brachycephals. Nansen (1893) avoids
a discussion of the origin of the Eskimo; and the same caution is
observable more or less in most modern writers.
The following chart of the more noteworthy opinions regarding the
origin of the Eskimo will show at a glance the diversity of the views
and their lack of conclusiveness.