Eskimos
Eskimos are a Mongoloid people with yellow skins and black hair, who live along the northern shores of North America, and the coasts of eastern Siberia and Greenland. In these areas, winters are long and severe. The summer season is brief. Numbering only about 54,000, the Eskimos depend on the hunting of arctic animals for their livelihood, such as seals, walruses, and bears. They also fish and gather edible plants. Some tribes build winter houses of snow, called igloos.
There are several distinct tribes of Eskimos, each with its own dialect, traditional skills, and way of life. After the European explorations of the 17th century, contact with traders and explorers changed their lives. New tools were made available to them, as well as firearms. But they also suffered from the introduction of the white man's diseases, formerly unknown because of their intensely cold and almost germ-free surroundings.
Eskimos have a highly developed art and are skilled carvers of bone and walrus tusks. They dress almost entirely in furs, use sleds pulled by dogs for transport in winter, and skin-covered canoes or kayaks in summer. They hunt in small groups and are very self-reliant and independent.
Many Eskimos have now left the old tribal life and become skilled workers. In Greenland, in particular, the Eskimos (who prefer to be known as Greenlanders) have become increasingly civilized. Only a small percentage now follows the traditional way of life. Many have trained in schools to a high educational level. Some have even taken university degrees in Denmark, or undergone specialized technical training. In North America there are special government schemes to help them, and they are often employed in radar stations and other defense works in northern Canada, Alaska and Greenland.

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