Indian Linguistic Families of America, North of Mexico: Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1885-1886, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1891, pages 1-142Powell, John Wesley
History
Indian Linguistic Families of America, North of Mexico: Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1885-1886, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1891, pages 1-142
Powell, John Wesley
Indians of North America -- Languages; Indians of North America -- Languages -- Bibliography
> Aleut, Bancroft, Nat. Races, III, 562, 1882 (two dialects, Unalaska
and Atkha).
> Konjagen, Holmberg, Ethnograph. Skizzen Volker Russ. Am., 1855
(Island of Koniag or Kadiak).
= Orarians, Dall in Proc. Am. Ass., 265, 1869 (group name; includes
Innuit, Aleutians, Tuski). Dall, Alaska and Resources, 374, 1870. Dall
in Cont. N.A. Eth., 1, 8, 9, 1877.
X Tinneb, Dall in Proc. Am. Ass., 269, 1869 (includes “Ugalense”).
> Innuit, Dall in Cont. N.A. Eth., 1, 9, 1877 (“Major group” of
Orarians: treats of Alaska Innuit only). Berghaus, Physik. Atlas, map
73, 1887 (excludes the Aleutians).
Derivation: From an Algonkin word eskimantik, “eaters of raw flesh.”
GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION.
The geographic boundaries of this family were set forth by Gallatin
in 1836 with considerable precision, and require comparatively little
revision and correction.
In the linear extent of country occupied, the Eskimauan is the most
remarkable of the North American linguistic families. It extends
coastwise from eastern Greenland to western Alaska and to the extremity
of the Aleutian Islands, a distance of considerably more than 5,000
miles. The winter or permanent villages are usually situated on the
coast and are frequently at considerable distances from one another,
the intervening areas being usually visited in summer for hunting and
fishing purposes. The interior is also visited by the Eskimo for the
purpose of hunting reindeer and other animals, though they rarely
penetrate farther than 50 miles. A narrow strip along the coast,
perhaps 30 miles wide, will probably, on the average, represent
Eskimo occupancy.
Except upon the Aleutian Islands, the dialects spoken over this vast
area are very similar, the unity of dialect thus observable being in
marked contrast to the tendency to change exhibited in other linguistic
families of North America.
How far north the east coast of Greenland is inhabited by Eskimo is
not at present known. In 1823 Capt. Clavering met with two families of
Eskimo north of 74° 30′. Recent explorations (1884-’85) by Capt. Holm,
of the Danish Navy, along the southeast coast reveal the presence of
Eskimo between 65° and 66° north latitude. These Eskimo profess entire
ignorance of any inhabitants north of themselves, which may be taken as
proof that if there are fiords farther up the coast which are inhabited
there has been no intercommunication in recent times at least between
these tribes and those to the south. It seems probable that more or less
isolated colonies of Eskimo do actually exist along the east coast of
Greenland far to the north.
Along the west coast of Greenland, Eskimo occupancy extends to
about 74°. This division is separated by a considerable interval of
uninhabited coast from the Etah Eskimo who occupy the coast from Smith
Sound to Cape York, their most northerly village being in 78° 18′. For
our knowledge of these interesting people we are chiefly indebted to
Ross and Bessels.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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