m them more than any of these Germanic
nations deviate from each other. The Celts of Great Britain and Ireland
are sharply distinguished from the whole body of continental Celts in
physical features, temperament, and cultural development. In Ireland the
primitive Catholic Church underwent a distinctive development. It was
closely bound up in the tribal organization of the Irish people, lacked
the system, order and magnificence of the Latinized Church, had its
peculiar tonsure for monks, and its own date for celebrating Easter for
nearly three hundred years after the coming of St. Patrick.[840] The
Japanese, in their physical and mental characteristics, as in their
whole national spirit, are more strikingly differentiated from the
Chinese than the agricultural Chinese from the nomadic Buriat shepherds
living east of Lake Baikal, though Chinese and Japanese are located much
nearer together and are in the same stage of civilization. The Eskimo,
who form one of the most homogeneous stocks, and display the greatest
uniformity in language and cultural achievements of all the native
American groups, have only one differentiated offshoot, the Aleutian
Islanders. These, under the protection and isolation of their insular
habitat from a very remote period, have developed to a greater extent
than their Eskimo brethren of the mainland. The difference is evident in
their language, religious ceremonies, and in details of their handiwork,
such as embroidery and grass-fiber weaving.[841] The Haidas of the Queen
Charlotte Archipelago show such a divergence in physique and culture
from the related tribes of the mainland, that they have been accredited
with a distinct origin from the other coast Indians.[842]

[Sidenote: Differentiation of language in islands.]

The differentiating influence is conspicuous in the speech of island
people, which tends to form a distinct language or dialect or, in an
archipelago, a group of dialects. The Channel Isles, along with their
distinctive breeds of cattle, has each its own variant of the _langue
d'oil_.[843] According to Boccaccio's narrative of a Portuguese voyage to
the Canaries in 1341, the natives of one island could not understand
those from another, so different were their languages. The statement was
repeated by a later authority in 1455 in regard to the inhabitants of
Lancerote, Fuerteventura, Gomera and Ferro, who had then been
Christianized. A partial explanation is supplied by the earlier