The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-01-31
Commander Peary Gives
 His Theory As to the
 Origin of the Eskimos

Commander Robert B. Peary gives !, in the February number of Hampton's
 Magazine, his own solution to rid dle that has puzzled explorers and sci
 entists for the past few centuries. That riddle is the origin of the Eskimos. The Commander reveals the impor- tance of Well-trained Eskimos in polar travel and he incidentally gives a re- 1 markable sketch of the Greenland tribe that he himself employed. He says: .'The members of this little tribe in habiting the western coast of Green land from Cape York to Etah are in many ways quite different from the
 Ekimos of Danish Greenland, or thoso of any other Arctic territory. There are now between 220 and 230 in the 1 tribe. They are savages, but they are
 not savage; they are without govern
 are utterly uneducated according to our standard yet they exhibit a re- | markable degree of intelligence. In temperament like children, with all a l childs delight in little things, they are nevertheless enduring as the most ma tured of civilized men and women, and the best of them are faithful unto death. Without religion and having
 no idea of God, they will share their l last meal with anyone who is hungry. while the aged and the helpless among | them are taken care of as a matter l or course. They are IedllIly duu pure
 blooded; they have no vices, no intOX- | icants, no bad habits-not even gam
 bling Altogether they are a people
 unique upon the face of the earth. A
 friend of mine calls them philosophic
 anarchists of the North.
 | 1T have been studying the Eskimo
 for eighteen years, and no more effec-
 tive instrument for Arctic work could
 be ina agined than these plump, bronze ] skinned keen-eyed and black-maned 1 children of nature. Their very limita- | tions were their most valuable endOW-
 ments for the Purposes of my work.
 "There is a theory, first advanced | by Sir Clements Markham, President | of the Royal Geographical Society of | London, that the Eskimos are the l remnants of an ancient Siberian tribe, l the OnkiloH; that the last members of ! this tribe were driven out on the Arc 1 tic Ocean by the fierce waves of Tar ] tar invasion in the Middle Ages, and 1 that they found their way to the New 1 Siberian Islands, thence eastward ov- l CT lands yet undiscovered to Grinnell l Land and Greenland. 1 am inclined to | believe in the truth of this theory for
 the following reasons:
 "Some of the Eskimos are of a dis l tinctly Mongolian type, and they dis 1 play many Oriental characteristics, 1 such as mimicry. ingenuity, and pa- tience in mechanical duplication. 1 There is a strong resemblance be- | tween their stone houses and the ruins 1 of houses found in Siberia. The Els kimo girl brought home by Mrs.
 Peary, in 1894 was mistaken by China men for one of their own people. It has been suggested that their invoca- 1 ton of the spirits of their dead may
 be a survival of Asiatic ancestor
 worship
 Other parts of the narrative tell of l the flora and fauna of the Arctic.
 'In some places" says the Com
 mander, ''on this coast in summer, the | grass is thick and long as New 1 England farm, Topples bloom here with dandelions, buttercups and sax | ifrage: though to the best of my knowl- l edge the flowers are all devoid of per i fume. I have seen bumblebees even
 north of Whale Sound; there are flies
 and mosquitoes, and even a few spid-