The way in which the life of peoples is affected by the lands in which they live is most interesting. The Eskimo live in the cold north; there is little wood there for construction; fuels such as are used elsewhere are rare; no fibre-yielding plants grow there. Yet the Eskimo has made full use of what nature gives him. He builds his house, when necessary, of the snow itself, heats it with animal fats and oils, clothes himself in excellent garments of skins, knows the ways of all the animals and birds around him for their destruction, and has invented an ideal hunter’s boat and devised a beautiful series of weapons and tools. The way in which he has fitted himself to the place in which he lives is wonderful. The world over we notice the same thing: man everywhere ransacks his home-land to find out what is useful and turns it to his needs.
Often where two different peoples live in the same district marriage takes place between them, and mixed types arise. Where one people has long occupied a country alone the type is very well-marked, and all look alike. Thus in the Andaman Islands, the little Mincopies look so much alike that a person needs to know them well to tell them apart. We, ourselves, are a great mixture. Even in one family there may be tall and short, light and dark, blue-eyed or brown-eyed persons. Such differences are only found where there has been much mixing between different peoples. In Mexico, once purely Indian, there has been since the coming of the Spaniards much mixture, and to-day a large part of the population is of a new type—part Indian, part Spanish. The people range in color from almost white to dark brown according to the amount of Spanish or Indian blood each has.
II. THE PEOPLES OF NORTH AMERICA: ESKIMO.
For the larger part, North America is now occupied by populations of our own kind. The greater part of the people of Canada is of French or English descent; the people of our own country are mainly Europeans or of European descent. There are of course many negroes, especially in the South, who have descended from African slaves. There are also some Chinese, Japanese, Hindus, Malays, and others. Formerly the United States and Canada were occupied by Indians, but now there are few left, who mostly live upon reservations. South of the United States lie Mexico and Central America. They, too, were Indian lands when first visited by white men. In Northern Mexico a new, mixed population live; Southern Mexico is yet quite purely Indian. In Central America we find the mixed Spanish-Indian in some districts, and pure Indians in others. In the northmost part of the continent live the Eskimo. We shall speak about the Eskimo, wild Indians, and Mexicans.