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.

Back to Contents