The Hollow Earth
Chapter 6:
The Origin of the Eskimos
By: Dr. R. W. Bernard, B.A., M.A., Ph.D.
William F. Warren, in his book, "Paradise Found, or the
Cradle of the Human Race,"
presents the view that the human race originated on a tropical
continent in the Arctic, the famed Hyperborea of the ancient Greeks, a
land of sunshine and fruits, whose inhabitants, a race of gods, lived
for over a thousand years without growing old.
The ancient writings of the
Chinese, Egyptians, Hindus and other races, and the legends of the
Eskimos, speak of a great opening in the north and a race that lives
under the earth's crust, and that their ancestors came from this
paradisical land in the Earth's interior. (May not Santa Claus
represent a race memory of a benefactor of humanity who came from this
subterranean race, who came to the surface through the north polar
opening - perhaps on a flying saucer, symbolized by his flying sled and
reindeer?)
Most writers on the subject claim
that the interior of the earth is inhabited by a race of small
brown-skinned people and also say that the Eskimos, whose racial origin
differs from that of all other races on the earth's surface, came from
this subterranean race. One explorer declared that those known as the
Arctic Highlanders came from the interior of the earth. When the
Eskimos were asked where their forefathers came from, they pointed to
the north. Some Eskimo legends tell of a paradisical land of great
beauty to the north. Eskimo legends also tell of a beautiful land of
perpetual light, where there is neither darkness at any time nor a too
bright sun.
This wonderful land has a mild
climate where large lakes never freeze, where tropical animals roam in
herds, and where birds of many colors cloud the sky, a land of
perpetual youth, where people live for thousands of years in peace and
happiness. There is a story of a British king named Herla, whom the
Skraelings (Eskimos) took to a land
f paradise beneath the earth. The
Irish have a legend about a lovely land beyond the north, where are
continuous light and summer weather. Scandinavian legends tell of a
wonderful land far to the north, called "Ultima Thule."
Palmer comments: "Is Admiral
Byrd's `land of mystery, center of the great unknown' the same as the
`Ultima Thule' of Scandinavian legend?"
Speaking of the origin of the
Eskimo, Gardner says:
"That the Eskimo came from the
interior of the earth, that is to say, from a location which they could
not easily explain to the Norwegians who might have asked them where
they originally came from, is shown by the fact that the early
Norwegians regarded them as a supernatural people, a species of fairy.
When we remember that in the efforts of these Eskimos to tell where
they came from they would point to the north and describe a land of
perpetual sunshine, it is easy to see that the Norwegians who
associated the polar regions with the end of the world, certainly not
with a new world, would wonder at the strange origin thus indicated.
They would naturally assume that these were supernatural beings who
came from some region under the earth - as that was always considered
to be the abode of fairies, gnomes and similar creatures."
And according to Nansen this is
precisely what happened. He says:
"I have already stated that the
Norse name 'Skraeling' for Eskimo must have originally been used as a
designation of fairies or mythical creatures. Furthermore there is much
that would imply that when the Icelanders first met with the Eskimo in
Greenland they looked upon them as fairies. They, therefore, called
them `trolls,' an ancient common name for various sorts of supernatural
beings. This view persisted more or less in later times."
Nansen goes on to tell us that
when these Skraelings, or Eskimos, were mentioned in Latin writings,
the word was translated as "Pygmaei," meaning "short, undergrown people
of supernatural aspect." In the middle ages they were supposed to
inhabit Thule, which refers to the ultimate land beyond the north. This
belief in Thule, a land beyond the Pole, inhabited by a strange people,
was very widespread. Nansen tells us that from St. Augustine the
knowledge of these pigmies reached Isidore, and from him it passed over
all of medieval Europe - in the sense of a fabulous people from the
uttermost parts of the north, a fairy people.
A Welshman, Walter Mapes, in the
latter part of the twelfth century, in his collection of anecdotes,
tells of a prehistoric king of Briton called Herla, who met with the
Skraelings or Eskimos, who took him beneath the earth. Many early
legends tell of people going under the earth into a strange realm,
staying there for a long period of time and later returning. The
ancient Irish had a legend of a land beyond the sea where the sun
always shone and it was always summer weather. They even thought that
some of their heroes had gone there and returned - after which they
were never satisfied with their own country.
A thirteenth century Norwegian
writer is quoted by Nansen, according to whom the Eskimos were believed
at this time to be a supernatural people, small in stature, and hence
different in their origin than the other inhabitants of the earth.
Gardner writes:
"Nansen says that Eskimo
settlements increase not only by the tribe growing in numbers, but by
`fresh immigration from the north,' which clearly points to further
additions from the interior of the earth.
"That they originally came from
a land of constant sunshine, from a country much past the northern ice
barrier is the tradition of the Eskimos themselves, and it is a
tradition which must be given full weight, for it could not have arisen
among them in the first place without cause. On this point Dr. Senn
says: `When questioned as to the land of their origin, they invariably
point north without having the faintest perception what this means.'
"Naturally the Eskimos do not
know that the earth is hollow and that ages ago they lived in its
interior, but they have clung to that one simple fact - they came from
the north. Dr. Senn denies that they have any characteristics in common
with the North American Indian and thinks that they are the remnant of
`the oldest inhabitants of the western hemisphere.' In this attributing
of great antiquity to them he may be right - at least he there agrees
with Nansen. But the interior of the earth and not the western
hemisphere is evidently the place of their original abode.
"As for the land of perpetual
sunshine, the Eskimo, of course, does not remember that as something he
himself has seen, for it is very questionable if any of the Eskimos of
the present generation have ever penetrated to the interior. But it is
a well known fact that every race has its idea of a `golden age' or
paradise which is generally composed of the elements being handed down
in its stories and myths as being characteristic of its earliest home.
Thus the Eskimo legends handed down generation after generation, tales
of the interior land with its ever shining sun, and what could be more
natural than when the Eskimo came to build in fancy a paradise for
himself and his loved ones after they should die, that he should
reconstruct this first home of which he had heard only dim legends?
That at any rate, is just what he had done.
Dr. Senn, discussing their
religion says:
"They believe in a future world.
The soul descends beneath the earth into various abodes - the first of
which is somewhat in the nature of a purgatory. But the good spirits
passing through it find that the other mansions improve till at a great
depth they reach that of perfect bliss, where the sun never sets, and
where by the side of great lakes that never freeze, the deer roam in
large herds and the seal and the walrus always abound in the waters.'
"That paradise might serve as
almost a literal description of the land in the interior of the earth,
and the way in which the Eskimo indicates a preliminary purgatory
before it can be reached may be the reflection of a memory handed down
in the tribe of the great hardships and difficulties of the ice barrier
between that wonderful home and the present situation of the Eskimo on
the southern side of that great natural obstacle.
"It is also interesting to note
that when the Eskimo first saw Peary's effort to get further north than
the great ice-cap of Greenland - beyond which they themselves had no
ambition to explore - they immediately thought that the reason for his
trying to get further north was to get into communication with other
tribes there. That idea would hardly have occurred to them if it were
not for the fact that they had traditional or other evidence of people
in the supposedly unpopulated north.
"With such a weight of evidence
all pointing one way it is very hard to resist the conclusion that in
the Eskimo we find a type, changed now and mixed with other types, but
still something of a type of human being that has inhabited or very
likely still inhabits the interior of the earth. We can certainly find
no origin for them that explains their present situation. And their
legends admit of no other explanation either. For those legends
certainly point to the same sort of land as every chapter of this book
has pointed to - a land of perpetual sunlight and a mild climate, a
land corresponding to the `Ultima Thule' of ancient legend and that
may, sooner than the skeptic expects, be opened up once more to those
who go properly equipped to seek it."
Gardner says that both the Eskimo
and Mongolian race came from the interior of the earth, since they
resemble each other in many ways, including the unusual formation of
their eyes, so different from that of other races.
Gardner writes:
"It is quite possible that the
Eskimos are not descended from any tribes driven out of China as that
might imply, but that the Chinese as well as the Eskimos originally
came from the interior of the earth.
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