The Natural History of the Varieties of ManLatham, R. G. (Robert Gordon)
Science
The Natural History of the Varieties of Man
Latham, R. G. (Robert Gordon)
Ethnology
It is not so with the Eskimos of Russian America, and the parts that
look upon the Pacific. _These_ are so far from being separated by any
broad and trenchant line of demarcation from the proper Indians or
the so-called Red Race, that they pass gradually into it; and that
in respect to their habits, manner, and appearance, equally. So far
is this the case that he would be a bold man who should venture, in
speaking of the southern tribes of Russian America, to say _here the
Eskimo area ends, and here a different area begins_.
Whenever this has been done, it has been done on the strength of an
undue extension of the phenomena of the Eskimo area on the Atlantic; it
being supposed that as the Eskimo and Indians differ unequivocally on
one side of the continent, they must needs do so on the other also--a
natural, but a hasty and incorrect assumption.
Beginning with the Eskimo of the parts between Asia and America, the
first we meet with are--
_The Aleutians._--The inhabitants of the Aleutian Islands, properly
so-called (_i.e._, of Behring's and Copper Islands), of the
Rat-Islands, of the Andreanowsky Islands, of the Prebülowüni-Islands,
of Unalashka, and of Kadiak, are all Eskimo; a fact which numerous
vocabularies give us full means of ascertaining. In respect to the
difference of speech between particular islands, there is external
evidence that it is considerable. The people of Atcha have a difficulty
in understanding the Unalashkans, and _vice versâ_. Again, the
Kadiak vocabulary, as found in Lisiansky, differs very notably from
the Unalashkan of the same author; indeed, I doubt whether the two
languages are mutually intelligible.
_The Namollos._--These are the Asiatic Eskimo of the Continent. The
distribution is along the coast from Tshuktshi-Noss to the mouth of
the Anadyr; from each of which we have vocabularies in Klaproth's Asia
Polyglotta. In respect to their position in Asia, two views may be
taken.
1. That they are the aborigines of the country which they inhabit,
and, consequently, that they are an _older_ stock than those of
America.--This is favoured by the fact, that habitations of a Namollo
character have been found in the country of Tshuktshi, and even in that
of the Yukahiri.
2. That they are of comparatively recent date as Asiatics, and, as
such, but offsets from the parent stock in America.--This is favoured
by the similarity of language; since the differences between the
Namollo and the American Eskimo are not such as indicate a very long
separation.
_The Konægi._--Occupants of the Island of Kadiak, and of the Peninsula
of Aliaska.
_The Tshugatsi._--These are the natives of Prince William's Sound,
closely allied to the Kadiaks. According to tradition, they came from
the North.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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