Disclaimer: The question I have is in the context of using the terminology “Indian” rather than “Native American”, and can’t really be explained otherwise, so if anyone is offended by the usage, I ask forgiveness.
It used to be that anytime American Indians and Eskimos were discussed, the writer was generally quick to point out that Eskimos should not be considered Indians, although there might be a distant relationship between the Innuit language and certain languages spoken further south.
However, the latest issue of National Geographic has a feature on Native American cultures, including the Innuit, and on skimming this article, I noticed that the usual “disclaimer” about Eskimos and “Indians” seemed to be absent. Does this reflect a new trend in the ethnography of the New World? Do the estimated dates of the inmigration of various groups mean that it’s no longer tenable to keep the Innuit “off to the side”, as it were? Or is there evidence of Innuit/northern “Indian” cultural and spousal exchange that wasn’t there before?
I don’t know of any linguist who would suggest that Eskimo-Aleut languages are related at all to any American Indian languages. Even Joseph Greenberg of Stanford University, who proposed grouping all New World languages into only three families (very controversial), classified Eskimo-Aleut languages as a completely separate, unrelated family. Some long-range linguists think there may be a distant relationship of Eskimo-Aleut with the Uralic-Yukaghir language family of the Old World. Maybe you were thinking of Na-Dene languages, which extend from Alaska, the Yukon, and the Northwest Territories to Arizona and New Mexico (Navajo and Apache). Some Na-Dene speakers up north are neighbors of Eskimos, but their languages are completely unrelated.
Eskimos (or Esquimaux, if you prefer – and Inuit is preferred anyway) are physically of a quite different body form than the various body forms of Native Americans/Indians/First Peoples. Insofar as “race” has an actual real-world meaning, it references local physical types, not broad-brush groups like “Negro” and “Caucasian” – and Inuit are a very different “local race” than any Amerind group.
Minor hijack: Is there some definite evidence linking Yukaghir to the Uralic family now? That’s interesting news I hadn’t heard. And how reliable do you think the linking of Eskimo-Aleut to it is? I’ve seen attempts to tie them to Luorawetlan, but (though it appealed to the Nostraticist in me) I didn’t think much of the idea.
Eskimo is generally the preferred term in Alaska. Something like 60% of Alaskan Eskimos are not Inuit, but Yuit (from the southwestern part of the state). The Eskimos of the northern part of the state are Inuit. The term “Eskimo” is the only one that encompasses both groups. In Canada, there are no Yuit (except perhaps a few recent immigrants) so “Inuit” is an appropriate term (and the preferred one). The Eskimos of Greenland are Inuit, but they generally prefer the term “Kalaallit” (meaning Greenlander).
Perhaps the confusion arises from assuming the words “Indian” and “Native American” are interchangeable. The former is a subset of the latter, but the two are not equivalent. Both Eskimos and Indians are “Native Americans”, but Eskimos aren’t Indians and Indians aren’t Eskimos. It would be somewhat akin to talking about Europeans when referring to both French and German populations. Accept, as has already been pointed out, the difference bewteen Indians and Eskimos is significant both ethnically and linguistically, while neither is as significanly different between Frenchmen and Germans.
That’s part of it, and my possibly mistaken notion that Indians migrated from Asia during several periods, the later of which might not have been so much earlier than the Eskimo migrations. Then also that the article I referred to in the OP included the Eskimo parka as an example of Indian ingenuity. Finally, I noticed in a recent thread about Alaska that many people use “Alaska Native” to take in both NW Amerinds and Eskimos.
Well, not to get into a semantics argument here, but ‘Inuit’ and ‘Yuit’ basically mean the same thing: “the people”. Yuit is merely the Yu’pik word for Inuit. ‘Eskimo’ is not an Inuit word, but rather an Algonquin word meaning ‘meat eater’ or some such. The preferred generic term here is “Alaska Native”, as this encompasses both the Eskimo and Indian tribes that co-exist here.
It’s not known how many waves of migration brought the “Indians” to NA, but it is thought that the last wave was about 10k years ago. Eskimos on the other hand are thought to have migrated to Alaska about 5k years ago, with some continued contact between Siberia and Alaska.