It would be rather difficult to discover all the causes that resulted in the establishment of the various features of this twofold organization, for they happened in the course of a historical development that was probably quite long and during a migration of extraordinary scope. Yet we would like at least to indicate some of the factors that underlie this phenomenon, if only to distinguish social causes from others of a limited and purely physical nature.
Most observers have usually been satisfied with simple explanations. They note that the communal house1 and the quasi-subterranean one retain heat better, that the presence of a number of individuals under the same roof is enough to raise the temperature, and that the clustering of several families economizes on fuel. They thus see in this organization nothing more than a means of fighting the cold. Yet, though there is some truth to these notions, they are only partial explanations. First, it is inaccurate to say that the Eskimo inhabit the coldest regions of the world.2 A certain number are settled in relatively temperate regions; for example, in the south of Greenland or Labrador, where the major difference between summer and winter is a result of the proximity of the inland ice or of the ice that is carried by the glacial stream rather than of any real lowering of temperature. Second, the Indians of the interior of Labrador, the Montagnais, the Cree of the Barren Grounds3 and the Indians of the Alaskan forest,4 live in higher latitudes and experience conditions of a continental climate that is basically harsher than that of their coastal Eskimo neighbours. Yet these Indians all live in tents throughout the year and though their tent is similar to that of the Eskimo, the opening at its top – the smoke-hole, with which the Eskimo are unacquainted – makes it a great deal less efficient against the cold, even in summer. It is thus surprising that the Indians have not borrowed from their neighbours an invention as useful as the house. This is just another piece of evidence to contradict those theories that suppose that they have accounted for a social institution by showing from whom it has been borrowed. Third, where there are good reasons for altering the form of the house, these alterations have not taken place; this can be taken as evidence that the winter house is, as it were, a distinctive feature of Eskimo society. Thus, in the forested districts of Alaska, some tribes have gone beyond the shores of the rivers and have their winter settlements closer to the woods than to the seal-hunting grounds. But instead of installing a hearth of wood and opening their roofs to allow the smoke to escape, these tribes prefer to purchase oil for their lamps, at considerable expense,5 from those of their neighbours who have some.
One explanation that shows an awareness of this problem and its complexity is that proposed by Steensby.6 He has argued that primitive Eskimo culture was once an Indian type of culture whose closest approximation can still be observed among the Eskimo during the summer; on the other hand, the form of the Eskimo house corresponds to the same type as that of the Plains Indians (from the Mandan to the Iroquois). The house is supposedly the result of primitive borrowing and was developed, along with the whole of the winter technology, at a time when the Arctic Ocean began to approach and overtake the Eskimo. But nowhere do we find a single trace of any Eskimo group whose principal occupation was hunting and whose only dwelling was the tent. From the moment that the Eskimo appear as a specific social group, they already have their well-established twofold culture. Thus the oldest summer settlements are always near the oldest winter settlements. Moreover, any comparison between an Indian long-house and an Eskimo house is relatively inexact, for in an Indian long-house there is neither a passage, nor benches, nor places for lamps – the three characteristic traits of an Eskimo house.
We must therefore put aside these explanations and see how we might otherwise account for the concentration of the Eskimo in the winter and their dispersion in the summer.
We have already seen how strongly the Eskimo are attached to their way of life, however poor it may be. They can hardly conceive of the possibility of leading another kind of existence. Never do they seem to have made an effort to modify their technology. Neither the examples they see of neighbouring peoples with whom they have contact, nor the clear prospect of a better life, is enough to induce in them the desire to change their ways. Some Eskimo in the northern part of America have carried on a steady commerce with their neighbours, the Athapascans and Algonquins. If they had adopted the snowshoe from these Indians instead of retaining their waterproof boot, small groups of Eskimo would have been able to pursue animals in the middle of the winter that they were unable to stop in their summer migration.7 But the Eskimo keep so much to their traditional organization that they hardly dream of changing.
It is by means of this technology, a social phenomenon, that Eskimo social life becomes a veritable phenomenon of symbiosis that forces the group to live like the animals they hunt. These animals concentrate and disperse according to the seasons. In winter, walruses and large numbers of seals assemble at certain points along the coast. The seal needs a sheet of ice to protect its young and also a spot where the ice is open for as long as possible in order to come and breathe easily at the surface; the number of these spots near shoals, beaches, islets and capes is fairly restricted, despite the great expanse of coastline. It is only at these points, at this time, that it is possible to hunt seal, given the technology of the Eskimo. On the other hand, as soon as the water is open and ‘leads’ appear, the seals move and disperse to frolic in the sea, in the depths of the fiords and below the steep cliffs, and the hunters must spread out in the same way to reach them, for it is quite exceptional for seals to congregate. At the same time, the opportunities to fish in fresh water for salmon and other smaller sorts of fish and to hunt deer and reindeer8 in the high pastures or in the delta tundras lead to a nomadic life and a scattering in pursuit of game. During the summer, this dispersion is just as easy for the Eskimo as it is for their Indian neighbours, for they do not need snowshoes to follow and pursue the animals. As for river fishing, they do this precisely at those points where game are known to pass.9
In summary, summer opens up an almost unlimited area for hunting and fishing, while winter narrowly restricts this area.10 This alternation provides the rhythm of concentration and dispersion for the morphological organization of Eskimo society. The population congregates or scatters like the game. The movement that animates Eskimo society is synchronized with that of the surrounding life.
Nevertheless, although biological and technological factors may have an important influence, they are insufficient to account for the total phenomenon. They provide an understanding of how it happens that the Eskimo assemble in winter and disperse in summer. But they do not explain why this concentration attains that degree of intimacy which we have already noted and which the rest of this study will confirm. They explain neither the reason for the kashim nor the close connection that, in some cases, seems to unite it to other houses. Eskimo dwellings could supposedly be grouped together without concentrating on this one point and without giving birth to the intense collective life which we will consider when we examine the effects of this organization. Neither need they have been long-houses. The natives could have placed their tents side by side, covered them better, or they could have constructed small houses instead of living in family groups under the same roof. One ought not to forget that the kashim, or men’s house, and the large house where several branches of the same family reside are not confined to the Eskimo. They are found among other peoples and, consequently, cannot be the result of special features unique to the organization of these northern societies. They have to be related, in part, to certain characteristics that Eskimo culture has in common with these other cultures. These characteristics cannot be investigated here; the question, by its very generality, goes beyond the framework of this study. But the state of Eskimo technology can only account for the time of the year when these movements of concentration and dispersion occur, their duration and succession, and their marked opposition to one another.11