ABSTRACT

Recently, however, an Indian population closely similar to some of the Eskimo in race type has been identified among the Chipewayan living in the vicinity of Lake Athabaska.

The Eskimo dialects from Greenland to East Cape in Siberia belong to a single stock. No relation has yet been found between their speech and those of other peoples, far or near, except the kindred Aleuts of the South Bering Sea. Equally remarkable, the variation over this immense distance is very small, and is only of the order of difference of that between the Germanic tongues. Rasmussen, in his famous journey through the whole length of Eskimo territory, was able to understand something of every dialect he heard. This relative uniformity of speech over such enormous distances-a great contrast with Arctic Asia-suggests that the dispersion of the Eskimo along the immense Arctic frontier is very recent. But since it is known that peoples of Eskimo culture have occupied these

108 HABITAT, ECONOMY AND SOCIETY areas for perhaps two thousand years it is possible that earlier and more divergent dialects have been submerged by a recent expansion.