To better understand the culture of the Eskimo, it is important to understand how far reaching their inhabitation is. The Eskimo call four countries home: Greenland, Russia, Canada, and the United States. Their population is highly concentrated in the regions just south of the Arctic Circle. There are more than 90,000 Eskimo flourishing in this aforementioned area. The word Eskimo was coined by the Algonquin Indians, and translates as, "eaters of raw meat." The term they use to refer to themselves is Inuit, meaning t

There were no tribes in traditional Eskimo society. Generally a group of people was known by a geographic term to which was added the suffix miut, meaning "people of." The basic unit of social organization in most areas was the extended family-a man, his wife and unmarried children, and his married sons and their wives and children. Usually several family groups would join together and exploit the animal resources of a given area.

In all Eskimo areas an annual cycle took place in which groups spent the harsh winters together in a larger settlement and then broke into smaller, family-sized bands during the summer. These seasonal groupings of settlements occurred in Greenland and western Alaska; during the summer, people would leave their permanent communities and live in animal-skin tents at favorite spots for seal hunting, for fishing, or for collecting birds, eggs, and plants. The igloo (from an Eskimo word meaning "home") was constructed of packed snow and used only during the winter, when villages of these structures were built on the firm ocean ice of the central Arctic to assist in seal hunting through holes in the ice. These types of dwellings were also used for temporary structures in Greenland and in parts of Canada and Alaska.

In Greenland and western Alaska, where the ocean surface does not freeze solid, seals and walrus come to open spaces between ice floes for air. In these areas, Eskimo hunters stood by the floes, hoping for a chance to throw their harpoons or chase the seals in kayaks. The northerly Eskimo used the utoq method. The utoq method basically involved keeping an eye out for seals seeking warmth. Seals climb onto the surface of the ice to bask in the sun. A hunter would slowly creep toward a sleeping animal, pushing a white shield of skin before him (to blend in with the environment) or else dressed and acting in such a manner so that the seal would look like another animal. He would get close enough to fix a harpoon (or, after contact with Europeans, shoot with a rifle) before the seal, sensing danger, could scramble back into the water.

he "real people". The two dialectical groups are the Inupik speakers (Greenland to western Alaska) and the Yupik speakers (southwestern Alaska and Siberia).

Traditional Eskimo subsistence patterns were closely associated with the annual cycle of changing seasons. The focal point tended to be the disappearing and reappearing of solid ice. During the summer, when the sea was free of ice, small groups of families traveled to their camps by open boat. In late spring and throughout the summer they hunted the northward-migrating caribou herds by killing them at river crossings or by driving them into a dead-end. Fish swimming upstream for spawning were netted or speared. They

Some common words found in the essay are:
Traditional Eskimo, Eskimo Eskimo, Bering Sea, Villages Siberian, Inuit Sub-zero, Siberia Regardless, Siberia-the Eskimo, American Russian, Algonquin Indians, Arctic Circle, social organization, greenland western alaska, greenland western, western alaska, understand culture, traditional eskimo, central canada, seal hunting, air eskimo, settled communities, utoq method, northerly neighbors inuit,
Approximate Word count = 1871
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)