The culture of the Caribou Eskimos is the subject of this work; but only a single aspect of it is to be dealt with. Our task is first of all to describe the outer side of the culture, that which may be called the material culture in the widest sense of the word, comprising occupations, technology, dwellings, intercourse, etc., and to a certain extent social life too. On the other hand religion, poetry and other aspects of their intellectual life will not be touched upon. It is readily admitted that, from a purely scientific point of view, this is a procedure that is open to criticism; a culture is a living organism which will not tolerate an arbitrary amputation, and not much more than an inanimate trunk is in fact left, when the very heart-blood, which in the form of the primitive philosophy of a primitive religion pulsates out into its extreme arteries, is lacking.
But whilst recognising this we are justified in taking regard to practical requirements. It is such a practical consideration as this, and not scientific premeditation, that has dictated the limitation of this work. On the Expedition the work among the Caribou Eskimos was divided in such a manner that Knud Rasmussen, as a natural consequence of his eminent knowledge of Eskimo mentality, undertook the whole study of their religion, tales, songs, etc., whilst I myself worked on just that material side of the culture which is here taken up for description and analysis. We have since made an exchange of what we more incidentally got to know outside our own particular fields — an arrangement for which I have probably more reason to be grateful than Knud Rasmussen.
Methodological considerations: the object and means of making the investigation. Our object ought to be this, not only to secure a description of the material culture, but also as far as possible an understanding of it, an understanding which, by making a retrospective examination of the development of the culture, makes clear both the influence of the geographical environment and the historical conditions which have contributed to its growth. That the purely psychological considerations ought also to be examined goes without saying; but the possibilities of getting hold of just what we need in this respect are as yet so regrettably few that for the most part psychology will have to rest in peace for the present.[1]
Thus our object is historical: a reconstruction of the culture development of the Caribou Eskimos and, through this, a defining of their cultural position among the Eskimos and the northern tribes in America as a whole. However, the path along which we must travel
- ↑ Scarcely any modern ethnographer will agree with Haberlandt (1911; 162) that ethnography is not culture history, but the psychology of social man.
