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been gradual, in groups, and it is not certain that the same paths have always been followed. But in Greenland the Eskimos at any rate found such excellent living conditions that the population here, both as to number and culture, has far surpassed the central regions whence they came.
Steensby[1] frames the hypothesis that at any rate the Polar Eskimos have immigrated into Greenland by the route which he calls the musk ox road: Boothia — west coast of North Devon and Ellesmere Land — from there partly to Etah and partly via Lake Hazen on to the north-east north about Greenland. It was the musk ox that was supposed to have enticed them along this route, and this he maintains is the explanation of the fact that the Polar Eskimos lacked the most important implements for the usual Eskimo summer occupations, the kayak and the bow. Whether at some time or other there has been an immigration into the Cape York district along this route I would not say; but the immigration of the Thule culture into Greenland has hardly gone this way. The Thule culture is a pronouncedly coast culture, which has also known the women's boat, and it is therefore more reasonable to assume an advance along the coasts, based upon hunting in the open water from kayak and women's boat, and to me the path seems to be indicated by the many house ruins on the south and east coast of Ellesmere Land. Possibly then the scarcity of wood in the Cape York district has had the effect that the women's boat, kayak and bow have disappeared; the composite bow of antler was not, it seems, known in the Thule culture, and the baleen bow is of course dependent upon whaling. And furthermore, the find from Comer's Midden shows that at any rate the bow and arrow have been known in the Cape York district even in very early times.
- ↑ 1910, p. 402.
