What is the substance of the results of all these new observations and
studies on the western Eskimo, who is the main subject of this report?
In large lines this may be outlined as follows:
1. The western Eskimo occupied, uninterrupted by other people (save
in a few spots by the Aleuts), the great stretch of the Alaskan coast
from Prince William Sound and parts of the Unalaska Peninsula to Point
Barrow, all the islands in the Bering Sea except the Aleutians and
Pribilovs, and the northern and western coasts of the Chukchi Peninsula
in Asia.
They extended some distance inland along the Kuskokwim and Yukon
Rivers; along the interior lakes and rivers of the Seward Peninsula;
along a part of the Selawik River, most (perhaps) of the Kobuk River,
and apparently along the whole Noatak River, communicating over the
land with the lower Colville Basin. But no traces of original Eskimo
settlements have ever been found in the true Alaska inland or along
those parts of the Alaska rivers that constitute the Indian territory.
2. The present population is sparse, with many unpeopled intervals,
and not highly fecund, but, except when epidemics strike, it no
more diminishes; children and young people are now much in evidence,
hygienic and economic conditions have improved, and the people in
general are well advanced in civilization. Their condition and morale
are rather superior, in places very perceptibly so, to those of the
majority of the Alaska Indians.
3. Except where there has been more contact with whites, a large
percentage of these Eskimo are still full bloods. They are a sturdy,
cheerful, and liberal yet shrewd lot. They intermarry and mix not
inconsiderably among themselves (between villages). Some of the white
traders have married Eskimo women and raised promising families.
Where larger numbers of whites were or are in proximity clandestine
mixture is apparent. The better educated show often decidedly good
mental, mechanical, business, and artistic abilities. In the isolated
localities, such as St. Lawrence Island, the people have apparently
escaped the period of demoralization that so often attends the passing
from the old to new conditions.
Tuberculosis and venereal diseases are present but not prevalent;
rachitis seems absent. The people show much endurance, but longevity as
yet is not much in evidence. Alcoholism is almost nonexistent except on
occasions when drink is provided by whites.
4. The region of the western Eskimo shows a former larger population
of the same people. This is attested by many "dead" villages and old
sites. And this population evidently goes back some centuries at least,
for some of the remains are extensive and both their depth and their
contents give the impression of prolonged duration; though seemingly
all thus far seen could be comprised within the Christian era.
5. No habitations or remains belonging to a distinct people (Indians)
have thus far come to light anywhere within the territory of the
western Eskimo; and no trace has as yet been found of anything human
that could be attributed to greater antiquity than that of the
Eskimo. But the older beaches and banks where such remains might have
existed have either been covered with storm-driven sands and are now
perpetually frozen, or they have been "cut" away and lost; and there
seems no hope for finding such remains in the interior away from the
sea or streams, for such parts were never under recent geological
conditions favorable for human habitation.
6. The now known remains consist of the ruins of dwellings and of
accumulated refuse, the two together forming occasionally marked
elevated heaps or ridges. Some of these ridges are over 18 feet deep.
They contain many archeological specimens of stone, ivory, wood, and
bone. The ivory in the older layers is more or less "fossilized."
The upper layers of such remains usually contain some articles of
white man's manufacture (copper, iron, beads); lower layers are
wholly aboriginal. Indian artifacts occur in Eskimo sites only in the
proximity of the Indian on the rivers.
7. The prevalent or later culture shown by the remains is fairly
rich, of good to relatively rather high grade, and of considerable
uniformity. There are numerous indications of extensive trade in
various articles, particularly those of the Kobuk "jade."
8. On the Asiatic coast, in the northern parts of the Bering Sea, on
the Seward Peninsula, in the Kotzebue region and at Point Hope, the
deeper portions of the remains give examples of the higher and richer
"fossil ivory culture." This is distinguished by many objects of
high-class workmanship, and by curvilinear to scroll designs. The art
appears to have distinct affinities with, on one hand, deeper Asia,
and on the other with the northwest coast of America and even farther
south. It is not clearly separated from either the contemporaneous
or the later Eskimo art, yet it is of a higher grade and delicacy
and much distinctiveness. It is not yet known where this art begins
geographically, what preceded it, whence it was derived, just how far
it reached along the coasts, or even what was its main center. It seems
best for the present to reserve to it the name of the "fossil ivory
art" (rather than Jenness's too limiting "Bering Sea culture"), and to
defer all conclusions concerning it to the future.
9. It seems justifiable, however, to point to the significance of
what is already known. This "fossil ivory art" especially, but also
the general culture of the western Eskimo, are highly developed and
differentiated cultures, denoting considerable cultural background,
extended duration, and conditions generally favorable to industrial
and artistic developments. It has, it is already ascertained, certain
affinities in Asia. If this art and the attending culture were
advancing toward America, as seems most probable, then the question of
cultural influences and introductions from Asia to America will have to
be reopened.
10. Due to the perpetually frozen ground and the consequent necessity
of surface burials, the area of the western Eskimo was, until recently,
relatively rich in skeletal remains lying on the surface. It is no more
so now, due to storms, beasts, missionaries, teachers, and scientific
collectors. But while only a scattering remains of the surface
material, there is much and that of special importance lying in the
ground, mostly self-buried or assimilated by the tundra. This material,
which now and then is accompanied by interesting archeological
specimens, calls for prompt attention; it will help greatly in clearing
local and other problems.
Occasionally burials were made or dead bodies were left in old houses.
These remains, too, may prove of special value.
11. Observations on both the living and the skeletal remains in
the western Eskimo area, supplemented by those on the northern
and northeastern Eskimo, are now ample enough to justify certain
generalizations. These are:
_a._ Barring the Aleuts, who are Indian, the Eskimo throughout belong
somatologically to but one family, and this family appears as a
remarkably pure racial unit, somewhat admixed in the south with the
Aleut, on the western rivers with the Indian, and in the east and a few
spots elsewhere with recent white people.
_b._ Within this family there is observable a considerable cranial
change, with moderate differences in nasal breadth, stature, and color,
but the general characteristics of the physiognomy, and of the body and
the skeleton, remain remarkably similar.
_c._ The changes in the skull affect mainly the vault, which, in
dimensions, ranges through all the intermediary grades from moderately
broad, short, and moderately high to pronouncedly narrow, long, and
high, and in form from moderately convex over the top to markedly keel
shaped.
The distribution of skull form is somewhat irregular, but in general
the broader and shorter heads predominate in the Asiatic and the
southwestern and midwestern American portions of the Eskimo region,
while the longest and narrowest heads are those of parts of the Seward
Peninsula, and especially those from an isolated old settlement near
Barrow with those of Greenland (exclusive of the Smith Sound), Baffin
Land, and, judging from other data, also eastern Labrador. More or less
transitional forms are found between the two extremes, without there
being anywhere a clear line of demarcation.
The breadth of the nose, too, averages highest in the Asiatic, Bering
Sea, and the more southern Eskimo of the Alaska coast, the least along
the northern Arctic coast and in the northeast. The stature is highest
along the western Alaska rivers and parts of the coast, least in
Greenland and Labrador.
The skin, while differing within but moderate limits, is apparently
lightest along parts (at least) of the northern Arctic.
12. The whole distribution of the physical characteristics among the
Eskimo strongly suggests gradual changes--within the family itself;
and as the long, narrow, high skull with keeled dome, occurring in
a few limited localities in the west but principally in southern
Greenland and neighboring territories, appears to be the farthest limit
of the differentiation which finds no parallel in the neighboring
or other peoples, while the form found in northeastern Asia, the
Bering Sea, and southwestern Alaska is near to those of various
surrounding peoples, the inevitable resulting deduction is that, in
the light of our present knowledge, the origin of the Eskimo is to
be looked for in the western rather than the northern Arctic or the
northeastern area, and that particularly in the northern Bering Sea
and the adjacent, particularly perhaps the northern, Asiatic region.
The author is, therefore, led to regard the area between 160° west and
160° east longitude and 60° to 75° north latitude as containing the
primal Eskimo-genic center, and as the source of the oldest Eskimo
or proto-Eskimo extensions, while the larger part of the Eskimo
differentiations is in all probability American.
13. The earlier notions relating to the western Eskimo, namely, those
that would attribute his physical characteristics to a large admixture
with the Indian, are now untenable for the following reasons:
_a._ The distribution of the western Eskimo traits and measurements
does not indicate any important heterogeneous mixture.
_b._ The groups most distant from the Indians, such as the St. Lawrence
or Diomede islanders and the Asiatic Eskimo, show very nearly the same
somatological characteristics as the rest of the southwestern and
midwestern groups.
_c._ Among the western Eskimo there are no data, no traditions, and no
linguistic or cultural evidence of any considerable Indian admixture.
_d._ The western contingents of the family do not represent a physical
resultant or means of the more narrow and long-headed type with the
neighboring Indians of Alaska (or elsewhere in the north), but they
equal or even exceed the Indians in the principal features of the
skull, face, and in other particulars.
14. The nearest physical relatives of the Eskimo are evidently some
of the Chukchi, with probably some other north Asiatic groups; their
nearest basic relatives in general are, according to many indications,
the American Indians. The two families, Indian and Eskimo, appear
much, it may be repeated, like the thumb and fingers of one and the
same hand, the hand being the large, original palaeo-Asiatic source of
both. But the Eskimo are evidently a younger, smaller and still a more
uniform member; which speaks strongly for their later origin, migration
and internal differentiation.
15. With his numbers, purity of blood, approachability, present
facilities of language, many of the young speaking good English, and
other favorable conditions, the Eskimo offers to anthropology one of
its best opportunities for a thorough study of an important human
group, adapted to highly exceptional natural conditions. His food,
mode of life, the climate, and isolation, give promise of interesting
conditions of the internal organs, perhaps even blood, and of
physiological as well as chemical and pathological peculiarities. This
opportunity, together with the excellent and important opportunities
for archeology in the Bering Sea and neighboring regions, should be
utilized to the possible limit within the present generation, for the
western Eskimo, on one hand, is rapidly becoming civilized, changing
his food, clothing, housing, and habits; is also becoming more mixed
with whites; and is most assiduously exploiting the archeological sites
in his region for the sake of the income that comes to him from the
ever-rising demand for beads, etc., and from "fossil" ivory.