Prichard, 1847:[232] "A question has been raised, to what department
of mankind the Esquimaux belong. Some think them a race allied to
the northern Asiatics, and even go so far as to connect them with
the Mongolians. Others, with greater probability, consider them as
belonging to the American family. All the American writers eminent for
their researches in the glottology of the New World, among whom I shall
mention Mr. du Ponceau and Mr. Gallatin, are unanimous in the opinion
that the Esquimaux belong to the same great department of nations as
the Hunting Tribes of North America."
* * * * *
Rink, 1890:[233] "* * * kann es wohl keinem Zweifel unterworfen sein,
dass die Eskimos den sogenannten Nordwest-Indianern an der Küste
Alaskas und weiter südwärts am nächsten stehen. Es dürfte deshalb der
Untersuchung werth sein, ob sie nicht auch wirklich als das äusserste
nördliche Glied dieser Völkerstämme zu betrachten wären. Man hat
angenommen, dass diese letzteren, dem Laufe der Flüsse folgend, vom
Binnenlande zur Küste gekommen sind. Sie lernten dann, theilweise und
um so mehr wohl, je weiter nach Norden sich ihren Lebensunterhalt
aus dem Meere zu verschaffen. Die Eskimos endigten damit, sich
ausschliesslich der Jagd auf dem Meere zu widmen, und erlangten dadurch
ihre merkwürdige Fähigkeit, allen Hindernissen des arktischen Klimas
Trotz bieten zu können. Betrachten wir demnach, wie man vermeintlich
noch jetzt die Spuren der Veränderungen beobachten kann, denen sie nach
und nach unterworfen worden sind, indem sie sich, unserer Vermuthung
zufolge, nach Norden und Osten verbreiteten."
Rink, 1873:[234] "As far as can now be judged, the Eskimo appear
to have been the last wave of an aboriginal American race, which
has spread over the continent from more genial regions, following
principally the rivers and watercourses, and continually yielding to
the pressure of the tribes behind them, until at last they have peopled
the seacoast. * * *
"The author explains some of the most common traditions from Greenland
as simply mythical narrations of events occurring in the far northwest
corner of America, thereby pointing to the great probability of that
district having been the original home of the nation, in which they
first assumed the peculiarities of their present culture."
Captain Pim also expressed his belief that "the Eskimo were pure
American aborigines, and not of Asiatic descent."
* * * * *
Rink, 1875:[235] "If we suppose the physical conditions and the climate
of the Eskimo regions not to have altered in any remarkable way since
they were first inhabited, their inhabitants of course must originally
have come from more southern latitudes, * * * it appears evident on
many grounds that such a southern tribe has not been a coast people
migrating along the seashore, and turning into Eskimo on passing beyond
a certain latitude, but that they have more probably emerged from
some interior country, following the river banks toward the shores of
the polar sea, having reached which they became a coast people, and,
moreover, a polar-coast people. The Eskimo most evidently representing
the polar-coast people of North America, the first question which
arises seems to be whether their development can be conjectured with
any probability to have taken place in that part of the world. Other
geographical conditions appear greatly to favor such a supposition *
* *. The rivers taking their course to the sea between Alaska and the
Coppermine River, seem well adapted to lead such a migrating people
onward to the polar sea. * * *
"The probable identity of the 'inlanders' with the Indians has already
been remarked on. When the new coast people began to spread along the
Arctic shores, some bands of them may very probably have crossed Bering
Strait and settled on the opposite shore, which is perhaps identical
with the fabulous country of Akilinek. On the other hand, there is very
little probability that a people can have moved from interior Asia to
settle on its polar seashore, at the same time turning Eskimo, and
afterwards almost wholly emigrated to America.
"On comparing the Eskimo with the neighboring nations, their physical
complexion certainly seems to point at an Asiatic origin; but, as far
as we know, the latest investigations have also shown a transitional
link to exist between the Eskimo and the other American nations, which
would sufficiently indicate the possibility of a common origin from the
same continent."
* * * * *
Rink, 1875:[236] "The author, who has traveled and resided in Greenland
for 20 years, and has studied the native traditions, of which he has
preserved a collection, considers the Eskimo as deserving particular
attention in regard to the question how America has been originally
peopled. He desires to draw the attention of ethnologists to the
necessity of explaining, by means of the mysterious early history of
the Eskimo, the apparently abrupt step by which these people have been
changed from probably inland or riverside inhabitants into a decidedly
littoral people, depending entirely on the products of the Arctic Sea;
and he arrives at the conclusion that, although the question must still
remain doubtful, and dependent chiefly on further investigations into
the traditions of the natives occupying adjacent countries, yet, as far
as can now be judged, the Eskimo appear to have been the last wave of
an aboriginal American race, which has spread over the continent from
more genial regions, following principally the rivers and watercourses,
and continually yielding to the pressure of the tribes behind them,
until at last they have peopled the seacoast. * * *
"When we consider the existing intercourse between the inhabitants on
both sides of Bering Strait, we find many circumstances to justify the
conclusion that those traditions of the Greenland Eskimo refer to the
origin of the Eskimo sledge dog from the training of the Arctic wolf,
to the first journeys upon the frozen sea, and to intercourse between
the aboriginal Eskimo and the Asiatic coast."
* * * * *
Rink, 1886:[237] "Grönland kann ja nur von Westen her seine eskimoische
Bevölkerung empfangen haben. Dasselbe lässt sich mit Wahrscheinlichkeit
auch von den nächsten Nachbarländern jenseits der Davisstrasse
annehmen, und wenn wir diese Vermutung weiter erstrecken, gelangen
wir zum Alaskaterritorium als der wahrscheinlichen Heimat der jetzt
so weit zertreuten arktischen Volkes. Zunächst findet diese Annahme
eine Bestätigung darin, dass die Eskimos hier nicht auf die Küste
beschränkt, sondern auch längs der Flüsse ins Binnenland verbreitet
sind, nur dass der ungeheure Fischreichtum dieser Flüsse es möglich
gemacht haben kann, dass hier ursprünglich eine noch viel grössere
Bevölkerung, als jetzt, sich sammelte, welche durch Auswanderung
das notwendige Kontingent zur Entstehung der auf die Meeresküste
beschränkten Stämme geliefert haben kann."
* * * * *
Wilson, 1876:[238] "Some analogies confirm the probability of a portion
of the North American stock having entered the continent from Asia by
Bering Strait or the Aleutian Islands; and more probably by the latter
than the former. * * *
"In this direction, then, a North American germ of population may have
entered the continent from Asia, diffused itself over the Northwest,
and ultimately reached the valleys of the Mississippi, and penetrated
to southern latitudes by a route to the east of the Rocky Mountains.
Many centuries may have intervened between the first immigration
and its coming in contact with races of the southern continent; and
philological and other evidence indicates that if such a northwestern
immigration be really demonstrable, it is one of very ancient date. But
so far as I have been able to study the evidence, much of that hitherto
adduced appears to point the other way. * * *
"With Asiatic Esquimaux thus distributed along the coast adjacent to
the dividing sea; and the islands of the whole Aleutian group in the
occupation of the same remarkable stock common to both hemispheres:
The only clearly recognizable indications are those of a current of
migration setting toward the continent of Asia, the full influence of
which may prove to have been more comprehensive than has hitherto been
imagined possible. * * *"
* * * * *
Grote, 1877:[239] Regards the Eskimo as the original inhabitants of
North America and believes they extended down to 50° in the eastern and
60° in the western part of the continent.
* * * * *
Krause, 1883:[240] "Ueberblickt man nun die gegenwärtige Verbreitung
der Eskimos in Asien, so wird man der Ansicht von Dall und Nordenskiöld
beistimmen, dass die asiatischen Eskimo aus Amerika eingewandert
sind und nicht, wie Steller, Wrangell, und andere vermutheten,
zurückgebliebene Reste einer ehemals zahlreicheren, nach Amerika
hinübergezogenen Bevölkerung. Immerhin würde durch die Annahme
eines amerikanischen Ursprunges der jetzigen Eskimobevölkerung die
Möglichkeit früherer Wanderungen in entgegengesetzter Richtung nicht
ausgeschlossen sein, nur giebt die gegenwärtige Verbreitung keinen
Anhalt für eine solche, und historische Beweise fählen."
* * * * *
Ray, 1885:[241] "Of their origin and descent we could get no trace,
there being no record of events kept among them. * * *
"That they have followed the receding line of ice, which at one time
capped the northern part of this continent, along the easiest lines
of travel is shown in the general distribution of a similar people,
speaking a similar tongue, from Greenland to Bering Strait; in so
doing they followed the easiest natural lines of travel along the
watercourses and the seashore, and the distribution of the race to-day
marks the routes traveled. The seashore led them along the Labrador and
Greenland coasts; Hudson Bay and its tributary waters carried its quota
towards Boothia Land; helped by Back's Great Fish River, the Mackenzie
carried them to the northwestern coast, and down the Yukon they came to
people the shores of Norton Sound and along the coast to Cape Prince
of Wales. They occupied some of the coast to the south of the mouth of
the Yukon, and a few drifted across Bering Strait on the ice, and their
natural traits are still in marked contrast with their neighbors, the
Chuckchee. They use dogs instead of deer, the natives of North America
having never domesticated the reindeer, take their living from the
sea, and speak a different tongue. Had the migration come from Asia it
does not stand to reason that they would have abandoned the deer upon
crossing the straits."
* * * * *
Keane, 1886:[242] "Dr. H. Rink, in the current number of the Deutsche
Geographische Blätter (Bermen, 1886) * * * makes it sufficiently
evident that their primeval home must be placed in the extreme
northwest, on the Alaskan shores of the Bering Sea * * * the Aleutian
Islanders, who are treated by Doctor Rink as a branch of the Eskimo
family, but whose language diverges profoundly from, or rather shows no
perceptible affinity at all to, the Eskimo. The old question respecting
the ethnical affinities of the Aleutians is thus again raised, but not
further discussed by our author. To say that they must be regarded as
'ein abnormer Seitenzweig,' merely avoids the difficulty, while perhaps
obscuring or misstating the true relations altogether. For these
islanders should possibly be regarded, not 'as abnormal offshoot,'
but as the original stock from which the Eskimos themselves have
diverged. * * * Doctor Rink himself advances some solid reasons for
bringing the Eskimo, not from Asia at all, or at least not in the first
instance, but from the interior of the North American continent. He
holds, in fact, with some other ethnologists, that they were originally
inlanders, who, under pressure from the American Indians, gradually
advanced along the course of the Yukon, Mackenzie, and other great
rivers, to their present homes on the Bering Sea, and Frozen Ocean."
No individual or decided standpoint on the question is taken in the
author's Man, Past and Present, 1920 edition.
* * * * *
Brown, 1881:[243] "The Eskimo are therefore an essentially American
people, with a meridional range greater than that of any other
race. * * *
"It is also clear that this migration has always been from west to
east, as also has been that of the Indian tribes; * * *
"Did these hyperboreans come from Asia or are they evolutions,
differentiations, as it were, of some of the other American races?
That all of the American peoples came originally from Asia, is, I
think, an hypothesis for which a great deal might be said. Unless they
originated there or were autochthonic, an idea which may at once be
dismissed; they could scarcely have come from anywhere else, * * * but
the central question is whether the Eskimo are of a later date than the
Indians or are really Indians compelled to live under less favorable
conditions than the rest of their kinsfolk. The latter will, I think,
be found to be the most reasonable view to adopt. * * *
"Doctor Rink seems not far from the truth when he indicates the rivers
of Central Arctic America as the region from whence the Eskimo spread
northward. * * *
"It is not at all improbable that the original progenitors of the race
may have been a few isolated families, members of some small Indian
tribe, or the decaying remnants of a larger one. Little by little they
were expelled from their hunting and fishing grounds on the original
river bank until, finding no place amid the stronger tribes, they
settled in a region where they were left to themselves. * * *
"It may, however, be taken as proved that the Eskimo are in no respect
and never were a European people; that they are not and never were an
Asiatic one, except to the small extent already described; that the
handful of people settled on the Siberian shore migrated from America,
and that it is very probable the Eskimo came from the interior of
Arctic America, Alaska more likely than from any other part of the
world."
* * * * *
Virchow, 1877:[244] "Ich möchte namentlich darauf aufmerksam machen,
dass diejenigen, welche den nächsten Anknüpfungspunkt für die
Urbevölkerung Amerika's bei den Eskimo's suchen, welche ferner die
Sprache und die Formen der Eskimo's nach Asien hinein verfolgen,
leicht ein petitio principii machen dürften, insofern als es wohl sein
könnte, dass sie ein späteres Phänomen für ein früheres halten. Warum
sollte nicht die Einwanderung der Eskimo's von Asien erst erfolgt sein,
nachdem längst andere Theile des Continents ihre Bewohner erhalten
hatten?"
1878:[245] "Nun ist es sehr bemerkenswerth, dass gegenüber dieser
physiognomischen Aehnlichkeit der Eskimos und der Mongolen eine
absolute Differenze Zwischen ihnen in Bezug auf die Schädelkapsel
existirt" (examined six living Greenland Eskimos).
1885:[246] "Verbinden wir dieses mit dem Umstande, dass die Sagen
der Ungava-Eskimos stets nach Norden über die Hudson-Strasse
verlegt werden, dass man im Baffin-Lande stets über die Fury- und
Hecla-Strasse fort nach Süden als dem Schauplatz alter Sagen hinweist,
und dass die westlichen Eskimos ebenso den Osten als das Land ihrer
sagenhaften Helden und Stämme betrachten, so gewinnt die Vermuthung an
Wahrscheinlichkeit, dass im Westen des Hudson-Bay-Gebietes die Heimath
der weitverbreiteten Stämme zu suchen ist."
* * * * *
Chamberlain, 1889:[247] "In a paper read before the Institute last
year (Proc. Can. Inst., 3d. ser., Vol. V., Fasc. i., October, 1887, p.
70), I advanced the view that instead of the Eskimo being derived from
the Mongolians of northeastern Asia, the latter are on the contrary
descended from the Eskimo, or their ancestors, who have from time
immemorial inhabited the continent of America."
* * * * *
Boas, 1901:[248] "All these data seem to me to prove conclusively
that the culture of the Alaskan Eskimo is very greatly influenced by
that of the Indians of the North Pacific coast and by the Athapascan
tribes of the interior. This is in accord with the observation that
their physical type is not so pronounced as the eastern Eskimo type. I
believe, therefore, that H. Rink's opinion of an Alaskan origin of the
Eskimo is not very probable. If pure type and culture may be considered
as significant, I should say that the Eskimo west and north of Hudson
Bay have retained their ancient characteristics more than any others.
If their original home was in Alaska, we must add the hypothesis that
their dispersion began before contact with the Indians. If their home
was east of the Mackenzie, the gradual dispersion and ensuing contact
with other tribes would account for all the observed phenomena. *
* * On the whole, the relations of North Pacific and North Asiatic
cultures are such that it seems plausible to my mind that the Alaskan
Eskimo are, comparatively speaking, recent intruders, and that they at
one time interrupted an earlier cultural connection between the two
continents."
To which he adds in the second part of this work,[249] speaking of the
Eskimo taboos: "It may perhaps be venturesome to claim that the marked
development of these customs suggests a time when the Eskimo tribes
were inland people who went down to the sea and gradually adopted
maritime pursuits, which, however, were kept entirely apart from their
inland life, although in a way this seems an attractive hypothesis."
Boas, 1910:[250] "There is little doubt that the Eskimos, whose
life as sea hunters has left a deep impression upon all of their
doings, must probably be classed with the same group of peoples. The
much-discussed theory of the Asiatic origin of the Eskimos must be
entirely abandoned. The investigations of the Jesup North Pacific
Expedition, which it was my privilege to conduct, seem to show that the
Eskimos must be considered as, comparatively speaking, new arrivals in
Alaska, which they reached coming from the east."
* * * * *
Clark Wissler, 1917.[251] Page 363: "The New World received a
detachment of early Mongoloid peoples at a time when the main body had
barely developed stone polishing."
Pages 361-362: "Our review of New World somatic characters revealed
the essential unity of the Indian population. It is also clear that
there are affinities with the Mongoloid peoples of Asia. Hence, we
are justified in assuming a common ancestral group for the whole
Mongoloid-Red stream of humanity. We have already outlined the reasons
for assuming the pristine home of this group to be in Asia."
Page 335: "For example, the Eskimos, whose first appearance in the New
World must have been in Alaska, spread only along the Arctic coast belt
to its ultimate limits."
1918[252]. Page 161: "The most acceptable theory of Eskimo origin is
that they expanded from a parent group in the Arctic Archipelago."
1922.[253] Pages 368, 396, 398: Identical in every word again with that
of 1917.