The land of the Eskimo is the most inhospitable desolate portion of Mother Earth, inhabited by man. Well has the Eskimo need of his cheerful watch word, or salutation, of Aksuse, which means be strong.
The wind, the cold, the ice, the snow, the sterility of the land, and a hundred other forbidding conditions under which he lives, all call for strength. And strength he has both of body and soul and he fights the battle of life against the elements where any other race placed in his environment would surely perish. In one of Harry Whitney's hunting stories he tells of a hunting party of Eskimos who set out on a reindeer hunt. They encountered a blizzard of great intensity and all of the party but one grizzled hunter turned back. The white hunter was much worried about the missing man, who happened to be one of his particular friends, but when he mentioned his fears to the Eskimos they only laughed. "He is all right," they said. "He take care of himself."
The hunter found later that his fears were groundless.
When the Eskimo found himself overtaken by the blizzard, he simply dug a good sized house in a snow bank and the dogs also dug in and he slept as comfortably as he would have at home in his own igloo.
The Eskimos are nominally Christian, those on the East coast of North America having come under the influence of the Moravian church in 1771. The Eskimos of the Alaskan peninsula probably felt the influence of the Greek church at about the same time as some of the most beautiful bells used upon the Greek churches in Asia were cast in Alaska, one hundred and fifty years ago.
The heathen conception that the Eskimo had of creation was much like that of most other primitive people. They believed that the earth was flat and supported by four pillars. But we believed that it was flat until about four hundred years ago. They believed that the sky was the floor of another world where some of the good people went after death. They also thought that there was another world under our world where some of the spirits of the dead went. They were fatalists and believed they were ruled by external powers and these powers were usually bad. Much of this fatalism still clings to them.
A missionary who was working among them tried to keep them from visiting among themselves during an epidemic. But they laughed at him, saying that if God intended that they would catch the disease they would get it. If he wanted them to die they would die, so what was the use of being careful.
Eskimo Land extends from lower Labrador along the coast to Greenland, most of that cold island being inhabited by this strange people. In the north of Greenland is found the only pagan tribe of Eskimos. These savage men never mingle with the civilized Eskimo and are very hardy and skillful hunters.
Along the northern coast of British America this desolate land extends to the Alaskan peninsula and down on the west coast to the Aleutian Islands, the Eskimo being closely related to the Aleutian Indians in customs and habits.
The Eskimo is a Mongol and some time came across the Behring Straits, just as many of the species of large game did. Then he gradually worked along the northern coast of British America until he came as far south as Labrador.
He is of medium height averaging about five feet five or six inches. He is rather stocky in build and often fat. His face is moon shaped and flat; his hair, black. Sometimes he has a small mustache, but never a beard. His eyes are small, black, and very keen. His habitual expression is a pleasant grin, by which you will know that he is usually good natured. His hands and feet are small, and his arms retain the roundness of the child until he is fully grown. In fact the Eskimos look very much like grown up children. Their mental equipment is also that of the child.
They have no chiefs as do other half civilized races, but the tribe is ruled over by a wise man called the Headman.
Their laws relate largely to hunting and to the possession of their utensils, but real estate they do not possess as they are constantly on the move following the good hunting and fishing.
The regulation Eskimo house is called an Igloo and it is usually made by using plank and small timbers for a frame which are obtained as drift wood and then covering the whole with sods and stone. This house is usually built on a side hill and is approached by a tunnel, perhaps fifty feet in length. So if you wish to enter an Eskimo house you must get down on all fours and crawl along a dark dirty hole. When you enter the house you pop up through the floor like a jack-in-the-box.
What light there is comes in through a window made of seal membrane. The sleeping bench usually occupies the side of the room opposite the entrance. This is covered with musk ox robes on which the hair is a foot in length. These robes together with many kinds of furs and skins insure a warm bed. This bed and the lamp are about the only furniture in the room. The lamp is a stone bowl from six to fifteen inches in diameter which is filled with seal oil. It is called Nan-uh. A moss wick is laid along one of the sloping sides of the bowl. The flame is white and, if properly tended, the light is even and fairly bright. All the cooking that the family do is done on this lamp and this accounts for the fact that the Eskimo eats most of his food raw.
The floor of the Eskimo house is strewn with pieces of raw meat, skins, garments and sometimes hunting utensils, although these are usually hung on the walls.
The families are large, consisting of eight and ten children, but the great mortality among the children keeps their numbers down. The adults also succumb easily to contagious diseases and die off like flies. That is why the entire Eskimo population of both North America and Asia is probably not more than forty thousand souls.
In the igloo the children are supreme. They are never punished and, considering that fact, are models of behavior. The parents seem almost to reverence the children just as the Chinese do their ancestors.
The ambition of the boy is to grow up and become a great hunter, and the girl to make good reindeer skin boots and bird skin shirts.
The young man seeks a mate when he arrives at the age of twenty. In the olden days before most of the Eskimos became Christian the young man bought his wife, but now he is more civilized. If he is very bashful, his parents will interview the parents of the girl upon whom his heart is set. If there is acquiescence all around, they at once set off to find a missionary or some teacher who is a notary public to marry them. If such officials are not available, the marriage is celebrated according to Eskimo customs, or not at all. As soon as they are married, the man marches away to his igloo if he is lucky enough to have one. His new wife follows obediently behind, walking in his footsteps. He never looks back until they reach the house.
The principal accomplishment that the Eskimo wants in his wife is that she be a good boot maker. The reindeer boots are a most important article of apparel with this strange people and a good boot maker is a prize. The wife also will be expected to skin most of the small animals such as foxes, martins and wolverines and to prepare their skins for market. In fact, this and sewing make up almost her entire life.
As soon as the baby comes, there will be a new idol in the igloo for the Eskimos are very fond of their children. This little snow baby will be tucked away in the mother's hood whenever she goes outside. When in the house, the baby will occupy a small bag made of reindeer skin and warmly lined. No white man will make more sacrifices for his family than will the untutored Eskimo. It really takes a deal of labor on his part to provide for the wants of a large family and a team of dogs, for every well-to-do Eskimo supports a dog team.
It would astonish a white man to know how much this Eskimo family will eat. An adult Eskimo will eat ten pounds of raw meat per day. So a family of twelve with ten dogs would want about a hundred pounds of meat and fish each day. It is quite important to feed the dogs enough so that they will not tear down the reindeer skin tent and eat that, or chew up the traces of their own harnesses. They often try to do this when in harness. To cure them the driver pounds a dog's teeth until they are so sore he cannot chew the leather. They are very cruel with their dogs and never pet them or show them any extra kindness. The Eskimo says that kindness spoils the dogs and makes them soft.
The Eskimo medicine man is still somewhat in evidence, but for the most part they rely on the medicine furnished by the missionaries, or by the government teachers. Eskimo musicians who play loudly on drums furnish the music for the crude dances of this simple people. About the only relaxation of the Eskimo is visiting. He is very sociable and as the tribes intermarry, every one is every one else's cousin.
The women are beautiful garment makers. Their stitches are so even that one would think they had been made by machinery. The garments always fit well, although no patterns are used. Nearly all the garments are made from skins sewed together with sinews from the reindeer or the narwal.
The Eskimo shirt is especially beautiful, being made of about a hundred skins of the auk, one of the most useful birds in the arctic. The coat made of reindeer skin is called a parka and is very warm. Not even the arctic weather can penetrate this wonderful clothing.
The Eskimo men are skillful sledge makers and also carve ivory ornaments from the walrus and the narwal tusks. In making the sledge no nails are used, but the crosspieces are lashed to the runners by means of thongs. The Eskimo despises nails and screws which he says break too soon.
The Eskimo is a hunter and a fisherman. His skill in each of these professions will discount that of any white man who tries to hunt in his territory. Hunting the walrus is perhaps his most exciting and dangerous sport. He harpoons this huge beast and then the handle of the harpoon comes out and the walrus is allowed to drag the line with a float attached. Finally the hunter creeps up and drives more harpoons into the wounded beast or dispatches him with a rifle. They are very successful in lifting these great carcasses upon the ice. Two men by means of a rude pulley will walk a walrus out of the water on to the ice, although his weight is about a ton. This is a feat that would severely tax the resources of a white man.
The narwal, which is also called the unicorn of the sea, likewise affords lively sea fishing. This creature is also harpooned and dispatched as is the walrus.
The seal is also indispensable to the Eskimo. He gets oil for his lamp, and food and clothing from that much-hunted creature.
The Eskimo hunts the musk ox and the reindeer, as well as bears. The musk ox is hunted by the help of the dog teams. The dogs are cut loose when the game is finally sighted and they soon bring it to bay. Reindeer are hunted by means of the still hunt and they often lead the hunter many miles before he gets a shot.
All of this hunting is of the most strenuous kind. It is done on the ice, or in the open sea, and over the roughest country imaginable. Cold that would freeze the white man's blood in his veins is cheerfully endured. Large and dangerous animals are encountered. The Eskimo's only desire is that he may make a good kill for the woman and the little ones at home in the igloo.
The Eskimo's fishing is not as strenuous as the hunting, so the women often help about that. A painted float or colored hooks are used, but no bait. Dried fish is the chief article of food for the dogs on long hunting trips. The eider ducks also furnish good eating, while thousands of eggs are cached each summer by the provident families. It will not matter if they are half rotten when eaten.
The Eskimo's igloo is always very untidy. Vermin abound and the white man stopping for a day in an Eskimo village is infected.
The Eskimos count to twenty on their fingers and toes, but this is the limit of their figuring. After that they shake their heads.
One cannot become acquainted with these simple children of the snow, for they are really but grown up children and not admire their pluck, their skill, and their good nature. Hardship they expect as much as the white man expects good fortune. Cold they laugh at, and they make Mother Nature give up for their daily needs where she is most niggardly in some particulars. But birds abound in these cold regions as they do not in warmer climes.
So here is wishing you luck, Mr. and Mrs. Eskimo and all the little Eskimos, be there ten or twenty. You certainly make a good fight against hard conditions. You always grin, even when things go hard, and by that token we know your heart is all right. You never swear, and, although you are rather quick-tempered, you soon forgive, and that also is commendable.
You love your children and you have many of them, both of which are virtues the white man might emulate.
You live up to all the good you know, and that is more than the rest of us do. If your lives are cramped and narrow and your lot hard, you cannot help that. You make the best of your lives where fate has placed you, and we take off our hats to you and wish you longer summers and shorter winters, and plenty of good hunting and fishing, so there will be joy in the igloo and happiness in your brave hearts.