In the central regions, the area from Coronation Gulf to Baffin Land and Labrador, the Thule culture has, as already stated, been superseded by the culture which is represented by the present-day Central Eskimo tribes, the Iglulik, Netsilik, Copper and Caribou Eskimos, the Baffinlanders and the Labrador Eskimos; that the latter two groups are in many respects more related to the Thule culture has been pointed out several times in the foregoing.
We shall therefore restrict ourselves in the following to a consideration of the other four tribes, which inhabit the region between Coronation Gulf and Hudson Bay and northern Baffin Land, the region from which we have the finds upon which the Thule culture is built. Attention has repeatedly been drawn to the contrasts between the two cultures. The four Central Eskimo tribes, which approach each other very closely in forms of implements, dwelling, dress and intellectual culture, lead a nomadic life principally based upon caribou hunting, live exclusively in snow houses and tents and clothe themselves in excellently-made caribou skin clothing. We find this culture most typical among the inland groups of the Caribou Eskimos; the other tribes have acquired in addition an aspect which turns towards the sea, but this has never been predominant and their culture must still be regarded as an inland culture which has been adapted to a life at the coast; the culture of all the present-day Central Eskimo tribes bears the decided impress of influence from the interior. This is confirmed by the important features in their intellectual culture, that there is a very decided difference between everything belonging to the land and everything belonging to the sea, a difference that is predominant in their taboo rules; we do not find this difference nearly so marked among the other Eskimo tribes nor among the extinct Sadlermiut.
Thus we can in the central region sharply differentiate between two forms of culture, a coast culture and an inland culture and, where these meet in the coast regions, the coast culture is decidedly the earliest. The question is, therefore, whether this transition from
