Steller, 1743:[208] Several references which indicate that Steller
regarded the Eskimo as related to the northeastern Asiatics.
Cranz, 1779:[209] Points out the resemblances of the Eskimo (and their
product) to the Kalmuks, Yakuts, Tungus, and Kamchadales, and derives
them from northeastern Asia (forced by other peoples through Tartary to
the farthest northeast of Asia and then to America).
Blumenbach, 1781:[210] The first of the five varieties of mankind
"and the largest, which is also the primeval one, embraces the whole
of Europe, including the Lapps, * * * and lastly, in America, the
Greenlanders and the Esquimaux, for I see in these people a wonderful
difference from the other inhabitants of America; and, unless I am
altogether deceived, I think they must be derived from the Finns."
But in his "Beiträge zur Naturgeschichte," 2d ed., Göttingen, 1806,
Blumenbach classes both the Lapps and the Eskimo with the Mongolians
(Anthr. Treatises of Blumenbach, Lond., 1865, p. 304): "The remaining
Asiatics, except the Malays, with the Lapps in Europe, and the
Esquimaux in the north of America, from Bering Strait to Labrador and
Greenland. They are for the most part of a wheaten yellow, with scanty,
straight, black hair, and have flat faces with laterally projecting
cheek bones, and narrowly slit eyelids."
Von Wrangell, 1839:[211] "* * * ihre sclavische Abhängigkeit von den
Rennthier-Tschuktschen beweist, dass die letztern spätere Einwanderer
und Eroberer des Landes sind, welches sie jetzt inne haben."
* * * * *
Lawrence, 1822:[212] "The Mongolian variety * * * includes the numerous
more or less rude, and in great part nomadic tribes, which occupy
central and northern Asia; * * * and the tribes of Eskimaux extending
over the northern parts of America, from Bering Strait to the extremity
of Greenland. * * *
"The Eskimaux are formed on the Mongolian model, although they inhabit
countries so different from the abodes of the original tribes of
central Asia."
* * * * *
Latham, 1850:[213] "Our only choice lies between the doctrine that
makes the American nations to have originated from one or more separate
pairs of progenitors, and the doctrine that either Bering Strait or the
line of islands between Kamskatka and the Peninsula of Alaska, was the
highway between the two worlds--from Asia to America, or vice versa. *
* * Against America, and in favor of Asia being the birthplace of the
human race--its unity being assumed--I know many valid reasons. * * *
Physically, the Eskimo is a Mongol and Asiatic. Philologically, he is
American."
* * * * *
1851:[214] "Just as the Eskimo graduate in the American Indian, so do
they pass into the populations of northeastern Asia--language being the
instrument which the present writer has more especially employed in
their affiliation. From the Peninsula of Alaska to the Aleutian chain
of islands, and from the Aleutian chain to Kamskatka is the probable
course of the migration from Asia to America--traced backwards, i. e.,
from the goal to the starting point, from the circumference to the
center."
* * * * *
Pickering, 1854:[215] "The Arctic Regions seem exclusively possessed by
the Mongolian race."
* * * * *
Wilson, 1863:[216] "The same mode of comparison which confirms the
ethnical affinities between the Esquimaux and their insular or Asiatic
congeners, reveals, in some respects, analogies rather than contrast
between the dolichocephalic Indian crania and those of the hyperborean
race."
* * * * *
Markham, 1856:[217] "The interesting question now arises--whence
came these Greenland Esquimaux, these Innuit, or men, as they call
themselves, and as I think they ought to be called by us? They are
not descendants of the Skroellings of the opposite American coast, as
has already been seen. It is clear that they can not have come from
the eastward, over the ocean which intervenes between Lapland and
Greenland, for no Esquimaux traces have ever been found on Spitzbergen,
Iceland, or Jan Mayen. We look at them and see at once that they have
no kinship with the red race of America; but a glance suffices to
convince us of their relationship with the northern tribes of Siberia.
It is in Asia, then, that we must seek their origin."
* * * * *
Whymper, 1869:[218] "That the coast natives of northern Alaska are but
Americanized Tchuktchis from Asia, I myself have no doubt."
* * * * *
Peschel, 1876:[219] "The identity of their language with that of the
Namollo, their skill on the sea, their domestication of the dog, their
use of the sledge, the Mongolian type of their faces, their capability
for higher civilization, are sufficient reasons for answering the
question, whether a migration took place from Asia to America or
conversely from America to Asia, in favor of the former alternative;
yet such a migration from Asia by way of Bering Strait must have
occurred at a much later period than the first colonization of the New
World from the Old one * * *.
"It is not likely that the Eskimo spread from America to Asia, because
of all Americans they have preserved the greatest resemblance in
racial characters to the Mongolian nations of the Old World, and
in historical times their migrations have always taken place in an
easterly direction."
* * * * *
Kuhl, 1876:[220] "Bilden so die Eskimo in der Sprache das Bindeglied
zwischen America und Asien, so ist dies noch viel mehr der Fall in
Bezug auf ihren Typus: dieser stimmt bei den Polarvölkern diesseits und
jenseits der Beringsstrasse 'zum Verwechseln' überein, wie denn auch
ein beständiger Verkehr hinüber und herüber stattfindet. Hierin liegt
der unwiderstehliche Beweis, dass diese Polarvölker wenigstens von
einer Herkunft sind und dass eine Einwanderung von einem Continente in
das andere hier stattgefunden hat. Haben wir nun die Wahl, entweder die
Eskimo aus Asien nach America, oder die Tschuktschen, die dort auf der
Asiatischen Seite wohnen, aus America einwandern zu lassen--wofür sich
auch Stimmen erhoben haben--so werden wir keinen Augenblick zweifelhaft
sein: eine spätere Rückwanderung eines einzelnen Stammes in das Land
der Väter wäre immerhin denkbar; aber wer über die Tschuktschen hinweg
die Sache in's Grosse sieht, kann für die Urzeit nur eine Einwanderung
von Asien nach America, nicht umgekehrt, annehmen, und hierfür finden
wir ausser den allgemeinen Gründen, welche uns der Verlauf unserer
Untersuchungen nahe gebracht, noch zwei besondere Beweise bei den
Eskimo: einmal können wir die Spur ihrer Wanderungen historisch
verfolgen, und diese wären nach Osten gerichtet, sodass sie Grönland,
mit dem heute ihr Name so eng verbunden ist, zuletzt erreichten
(S. 209); sodann haben die Eskimo allein unter den Americanischen
Stämmen das Mongolische Gepräge ganz unversehrt bewahrt--dies bliebe
unerklärlich, wenn sie Americanische Autochthonen wären * * * Einen
deutlichen Hinweis auf die Urheimath Asien enthalten auch die
Wanderungen der Stämme durch das Americanische Continent, soweit wir
dieselben verfolgen können."
* * * * *
Dall, 1877:[221] "I see, therefore, no reason for disputing the
hypothesis that America was peopled from Asia originally, and that
there were successive waves of emigration.
"The northern route was clearly by way of Bering Strait; * * *
Linguistically, no ultimate distinction can be drawn between the
American Innuit and the American Indian. * * * I shall assume, what
is also assumed by Mr. Markham, that the original progenitors of the
Innuit were in a very primitive, low, and barbarous condition. * * *
"I assume, then, that the larger part of North America may have been
peopled by way of Bering Strait. * * * I believe that this emigration
was vastly more ancient than Mr. Markham supposes, and that it took
place before the present characteristics of races and tribes of North
American savages were developed. * * *
"My own impression agrees with that of Doctor Rink that the Innuit
were once inhabitants of the interior of America; that they were
forced to the west and north by the pressure of tribes of Indians from
the south; that they spread into the Aleutian region and northwest
coast generally, and possibly simultaneously to the north; that their
journeying was originally tentative, and that they finally settled in
those regions which afforded them subsistence, perhaps after passing
through the greater portion of Arctic America, leaving their traces
as they went in many places unfit for permanent settlement; that
after the more inviting regions were occupied, the pressure from
Indians and still unsatisfied tribes of their own stock, induced still
further emigration, and finally peopled Greenland and the shores of
northeastern Siberia; but that these latter movements were, on the
whole, much more modern, and more local than the original exodus, and
took place after the race characteristics and language were tolerably
well matured. * * *
"I conclude that at present the Asiatic Innuit range from Koliuchin Bay
to the eastward and south to Anadyr Gulf. * * *
"To the reflux of the great wave of emigration, which no doubt took
place at a very early period, we may owe the numerous deserted huts
reported by all explorers on the north coasts of Asia, as far east as
the mouth of the Indigirka. At one time, I thought the migration to
Asia had taken place within a few centuries, but subsequent study and
reflection has convinced me that this could not have been the case. No
doubt successive parties crossed at different times, and some of these
may have been comparatively modern."
* * * * *
Rae, 1878:[222] "All the Eskimos with whom I have communicated on the
subject, state that they originally came very long ago from the west,
or setting sun, and that in doing so they crossed a sea separating the
two great lands.
"That these people (the Eskimos) have been driven from their own
country in the northern parts of Asia by some unknown pressure of
circumstances, and obliged to extend themselves along the whole
northern coast line of America and Greenland, appears to be likely, and
that the route followed after crossing Bering Strait was of necessity
along the coast eastward, being hemmed in by hostile Indians on the
south, and driven forward by pressure from the west * * *.
"Such were my opinions 12 years ago, and their correctness has been
rather confirmed than otherwise, by all that we have since learned. * *
*"
* * * * *
1887:[223] "Professor Flower said that his investigation into the
physical characteristics of the Eskimos led him to agree entirely with
Doctor Rae's conclusions derived from other sources. He looked upon
the Eskimos as a branch of the North Asiatic Mongols (of which the
Japanese may be taken as a familiar example), who in their wandering
across the American continent in the eastward direction, isolated
almost as perfectly as an island population would be, hemmed in on
one side by the eternal polar ice, and on the other by hostile tribes
of American Indians, with whom they rarely, if ever, mingled, have
gradually developed special modifications of the Mongolian type, which
increase in intensity from west to east, and are seen in their greatest
perfection in the inhabitants of Greenland. * * *
"Doctor Rae also thinks that the Eskimos came from across Bering
Strait from Asia. Their traditions and many other things point in that
direction, and they are in no way related to the ancient cave men of
Europe."
* * * * *
Dawson, 1880:[224] Eskimo: "On the eastern side of the continent these
poor people have always been separated by a marked line from their
Indian neighbors on the south, and have been regarded by them with the
most bitter hostility. On the west, however, they pass into the Eastern
Siberians, on the one hand, and into the West-coast Indians, on the
other, both by language and physical characters. They and the northern
tribes at least of West-coast Indians, belong in all probability to a
wave of population spreading from Bering Strait."
* * * * *
Quatrefages et Hamy; 1882:[225] "Les Esquimaux ou Eskimos, qui se
nomment eux-mêmes Innuits, constituent dans la série mongolique un
groupe exceptionnel, qui diffère à maints égards de ceux qui viennent
de passer sous nos yeux, mais dont l'origine asiatique n'est plus
aujourd'hui contestée et dont les affinités occidentales frappent de
plus en plus les observateurs spéciaux."
* * * * *
Brown, 1888:[226] "It is only when we come to the region beginning
at Cape Shelagskii and extending to the East Cape of Siberia that we
find any traces of them. This tract is now held by the coast Tchukchi,
but it was not always their home, for they expelled from this dreary
stretch the Onkilon or Eskimo race who took refuge in or near less
attractive quarters between the East Cape and Anadyrskii Bay."
* * * * *
Ratzel, 1897:[227] "If we ask whence they came, Asia seems most
obvious, since between the American and Asiatic coasts of Bering
Straits, intercourse has always been ventured upon even in the rudest
skin-boats. * * *
"Ethnographic indications also point predominantly to the west. * * *
"But we have an equal right to suppose a migration from America into
Asia."
Thalbitzer, 1914:[228] "I still believe (like Rink), that the common
Eskimo mother-group has at one time lived to the west at the Bering
Strait, coming originally from the coasts of Siberia."
* * * * *
Fürst and Hansen, 1915:[229] "We are to some extent acquainted with
the diffusion of the Eskimos over the earth, and know that they could
not have come directly from Europe and that Greenland was populated
from the west, one may naturally conclude, as has often been concluded
before, that their descent is from the west, in other words from Asia,
though the time at which such an immigration took place and the racial
type which they then possessed must remain still more hypothetical than
immigration itself."
* * * * *
Mathiassen, 1927:[230] "We must therefore imagine that the Thule
culture, with all its peculiar whaling culture, has originated
somewhere in the western regions, in an Arctic area, where whales were
plentiful and wood abundant, and we are involuntarily led toward the
coasts of Alaska and East Siberia north of Bering Strait, the regions
to which we have time after time had to turn in order to find parallels
to types from the Central Eskimo finds. There all the conditions have
been present for the originating of such a culture, and from there
it has spread eastward right to Greenland, seeking everywhere to
adapt itself to the local geographical conditions. And it can hardly
have been a culture wave alone; it must have been a migration. The
similarities between east and west are in many directions so detailed
that it is difficult to explain them without assuming an actual
migration of people from the one place to the other."
* * * * *
Jochelson, 1928:[231] "In discussing the question of former Eskimo
occupation of the Siberian Arctic coast a very remote period of time is
not meant, so that in this sense the assumed recent Eskimo migrations
from Asia into America and vice versa do not interfere with the general
theory of the Asiatic origin of the American population."