As the coasts of Labrador and Hudson Bay are ice-bound for a great part of the year, it is not likely that traffic by sea began there at any very early time; and consequently no particularly favourable conditions existed there for an early development of seamanship. Nor is this the case to any great extent on the east coast of North America farther south, which, with the exception of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, has little protection from the sea, and offers few facilities for coastal traffic.[53] Nor has it produced any other maritime people or any similar fishing-culture. Again, if the Eskimo culture had arisen there, it would be impossible to understand how they learned to use dogs as draught-animals. It is otherwise on the northern west coast of North America, which is indented by fjords and has many outlying islands, with protected channels between them and the land. Here seamanship might be naturally developed and form the necessary basis for a higher sealing-culture like that of the Eskimo. In addition there is abundance of marine animals which afforded excellent conditions for hunting. Here too we have many different peoples with maritime habits: on the one side the Eskimo northwards along the coast of Alaska; on the other side the Aleutians on the islands extending out to sea, besides Indian tribes along the coast of southern Alaska and British Columbia. Until, therefore, research has produced sufficient evidence for a different view, it must seem most natural that in these favourable regions with a rich supply of marine animals of all kinds we must look for the cradle of the culture that was to render the Eskimo capable of distributing themselves over the whole Arctic world of America. To this must be added that in these regions, by intercourse with people on the Asiatic side of Bering Strait, the seafaring Eskimo may have learnt the use of the dog as a draught-animal, which is an Asiatic, and not an American invention, and which is also of great importance to the whole life and distribution of the Eskimo in the ice-bound regions. We cannot here pursue further the inquiry into the still open question of the origin of the Eskimo and the development of their culture.[54]
Kayak-fishers and a women’s boat (“umiak”).
Woodcut from Greenland, drawn and engraved by a native
Earlier distribution
One might get the impression from the map, which shows where older traces of the Eskimo have been found, that they were more numerous and more widely distributed in former times. This is probably a mistake. They are hunters and fishermen who are entirely dependent on the supply of game, and who therefore frequently become nomadic and search for fishing-grounds where they think the prospects are good. Sometimes they settle in a good district for a considerable time, and then they may move again; but sometimes, if exceptionally severe winters chance to come, they may succumb to famine or scurvy. But everywhere they leave behind them their peculiar sites of houses and tents and other traces, and thus these must always be found over larger areas than are actually inhabited by the Eskimo themselves. It might be objected that on the American Arctic Islands they no longer live so far north as older traces of them are found; thus Sverdrup found many relics of Eskimo in the new countries discovered by him, especially along the sound by Axel Heiberg Land. But these people may, for instance, have migrated eastward to Greenland. If we suppose the reverse to be the case, that the most northerly Eskimo tribe now known, on Smith Sound, had moved westward to Sverdrup’s new islands or to the Parry Islands, then we should have found numerous traces of them in the districts about Smith Sound and Cape York, and might thus have concluded that the Eskimo were formerly more widely distributed towards the north-east.
Period of immigration into Greenland
How early the Eskimo appeared, and came to the most northern regions, we have as yet no means of determining. All we can say is that, as they are so distinct in physical structure, language and culture from all other known races of men, with the exception of the Aleutians, we must assume that they have lived for a very long period in the northern regions apart from other peoples. It would be of special interest here if we could form any opinion as to the date of their immigration into Greenland. It has become almost a historical dogma that this immigration on a larger scale did not take place until long after the Norwegian Icelanders had settled in the country, and that it was chiefly the hordes of Eskimo coming from the north that put an end, first to the Western Settlement, and then to the Eastern. But this is in every respect misleading, and conflicts with what may be concluded with certainty from several facts; moreover, the whole Eskimo way of life and dependence on sealing and fishing forbids their migration in hordes; they must travel in small scattered groups in order to find enough game to support themselves and their families, and are obliged to make frequent halts for sealing. They will therefore never be able to undertake any migration on a large scale.
There can be no doubt that the Eskimo arrived in Greenland ages before the Norwegian Icelanders. The rich finds referred to, amongst others, by Dr. H. Rink [1857, vol. ii.], of Eskimo whaling and sealing weapons and implements of stone from deep deposits in North Greenland show that the Eskimo were living there far back in prehistoric times.[55] They must originally have come by the route to the north of Baffin Bay across Smith Sound, and must have had at the time of their first immigration much the same culture in the main as now, since otherwise they would not have been able to support themselves in these northern regions.[56] Their means of transport were the kayak and the women’s boat in open water, and the dog-sledge on the ice. Their whaling and sealing were conducted in kayaks in summer, but with dog-sledges in winter, when they hunted the seal at its breathing-holes in the ice, the walrus, narwhale and white whale in the open leads, and pursued the bear with their dogs. In winter they usually keep to one place, living in houses of stone, or snow, but in summer they wander about with their boats and tents of hides to the best places for kayak fishing. In this way they came southward from Smith Sound along the west coast of Greenland to the districts about Umanak-fjord, Disco Bay, and south to the present Holstensborg (the tract between 72° and 68° N. lat.). Here they found an excellent supply of seal, walrus, small-whale and fish, there was catching from kayaks in summer and on the ice in winter; altogether rarely favourable conditions for their accustomed life, and it is therefore natural that they settled here in large numbers.[57] Some went farther south along the coast; but they no longer found there the same conditions of life as before, the ice was for the most part absent, the walrus became rare, seal-hunting became more difficult in the open sea, and winter fishing from the kayak was not very safe. Southern Greenland therefore had no great attraction, so long as there was room enough farther north. When they came round Cape Farewell to the east coast they found the conditions more what they were used to, although the sealing and whaling were not so good as on the northern west coast.
Routes of immigration