The way in which the life of peoples is affected by the lands in which
they live is most interesting. The Eskimo live in the cold north; there
is little wood there for construction; fuels such as are used elsewhere
are rare; no fibre-yielding plants grow there. Yet the Eskimo has made
full use of what nature gives him. He builds his house, when necessary,
of the snow itself, heats it with animal fats and oils, clothes himself
in excellent garments of skins, knows the ways of all the animals and
birds around him for their destruction, and has invented an ideal
hunter’s boat and devised a beautiful series of weapons and tools. The
way in which he has fitted himself to the place in which he lives is
wonderful. The world over we notice the same thing: man everywhere
ransacks his home-land to find out what is useful and turns it to his
needs.
Often where two different peoples live in the same district marriage
takes place between them, and mixed types arise. Where one people has
long occupied a country alone the type is very well-marked, and all look
alike. Thus in the Andaman Islands, the little Mincopies look so much
alike that a person needs to know them well to tell them apart. We,
ourselves, are a great mixture. Even in one family there may be tall and
short, light and dark, blue-eyed or brown-eyed persons. Such differences
are only found where there has been much mixing between different
peoples. In Mexico, once purely Indian, there has been since the coming
of the Spaniards much mixture, and to-day a large part of the population
is of a new type—part Indian, part Spanish. The people range in color
from almost white to dark brown according to the amount of Spanish or
Indian blood each has.
II.
THE PEOPLES OF NORTH AMERICA: ESKIMO.
For the larger part, North America is now occupied by populations of our
own kind. The greater part of the people of Canada is of French or
English descent; the people of our own country are mainly Europeans or
of European descent. There are of course many negroes, especially in the
South, who have descended from African slaves. There are also some
Chinese, Japanese, Hindus, Malays, and others. Formerly the United
States and Canada were occupied by Indians, but now there are few left,
who mostly live upon reservations. South of the United States lie Mexico
and Central America. They, too, were Indian lands when first visited by
white men. In Northern Mexico a new, mixed population live; Southern
Mexico is yet quite purely Indian. In Central America we find the mixed
Spanish-Indian in some districts, and pure Indians in others. In the
northmost part of the continent live the Eskimo. We shall speak about
the Eskimo, wild Indians, and Mexicans.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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