ESCHIMESI. – Collective name for a group of small tribes inhabiting Greenland, Labrador, the Canadian Arctic as far as Alaska, and Siberia. The E. became known to Europeans in the sixteenth century, when attempts were being made to find the Northwest Passage. They were so called by the Algonquin Indians, who drove them into the deserted regions of the north. “Eskimo” (agashimose) means “eater of raw meat”; they themselves, however, call themselves Lunit (that is, “men”).
The inhospitable regions of the Arctic north impose upon the E. a much more primitive way of life. They live in small groups of a few families and obtain their food through hunting and fishing. During the months of the brief summer they live under tents, and during the winter in huts of ice and snow called igh. Their clothing is made from the skins of animals they have killed. Religious life consists of superstitious rites from birth to death, in which the sorcerer exercises great influence.
All the Eskimo tribes, except the Aleuts, who have their own language, speak the same language in different dialects. The language is synthetic, indeed polysynthetic, with declensions and agglutinations within the same word; it is rich not in different substantial ideas, but in all the nuances and immaterial relationships of thought, and is therefore highly philosophical.