ODD CUSTOMS OF AN ODD PEOPLE
Hard as is the life of the Eskimo, his end is usually as rigorous. All
his life he is engaged in constant warfare with the inhospitable
elements of his country, and Death, when it arrives, usually comes in
some violent form. Old age has few terrors for the Eskimo, for he seldom
lives to reach it. He dies, as a rule, in harness, drowned by the
capsizing of his skin canoe, caught by the overturning of an iceberg, or
crushed by a snow-slide or a rock-slide. It is seldom that an Eskimo
lives to be more than sixty years of age.
Strictly speaking, the Eskimos have no religion, in the sense in which
we use the word. But they believe in the survival of the person after
death, and they believe in spirits--especially evil spirits. It may be
that their lack of any idea of a beneficent God, and their intense
consciousness of evil influences, result from the terrible hardships of
their lives. Having no special blessings for which to be grateful to a
kind Creator, they have not evolved a conception of Him, while the
constantly recurring menaces of the dark, the bitter cold, the savage
wind and gnawing hunger, have led them to people the air with invisible
enemies. The beneficent spirits are those of their ancestors (another
Oriental touch), while they have a whole legion of malevolent spirits,
led by Tornarsuk, the great devil himself.
They are constantly trying to propitiate Tornarsuk by incantations; and
when they kill game, an offering is made to him. The devil is supposed
to have a keen appreciation of these tidbits. On leaving a snow igloo
the Eskimos are careful to kick the front out of it, that the evil
spirits may not find shelter there, and when they throw away a worn-out
garment it is never left intact, but is torn in such a way that the
devil may not use it to warm himself. A comfortable devil is presumably
more dangerous than a shivering one. Any sudden and unexplained barking
or howling among the dogs indicates the invisible presence of Tornarsuk,
and the men will run out and crack their whips or fire their rifles to
scare away the invader. When, on board the _Roosevelt_ in winter
quarters, I was suddenly aroused from sleep by the crack of rifles, I
did not think there was a mutiny aboard--only that Tornarsuk had ridden
by upon the wind.
When the ice presses hard against the ship, an Eskimo will call on his
dead father to push it away; when the wind blows with special violence,
ancestors are again appealed to. Passing along a cliff, on a sledge
journey, a man will sometimes stop and listen and then say: "Did you
hear what the devil said just then?" I have asked the Eskimo to repeat
to me the words of Tornarsuk, up there on the cliff, and I would not
dream of laughing at my faithful friends at such a time; the messages of
Tornarsuk I receive with a respectful gravity.
There are no chiefs among these people, no men in authority; but there
are medicine men who have some influence. The angakok is generally not
loved--he knows too many unpleasant things that are going to happen, so
he says. The business of the angakok is mainly singing incantations and
going into trances, for he has no medicines. If a person is sick, he may
prescribe abstinence from certain foods for a certain number of moons;
for instance, the patient must not eat seal meat, or deer meat, but only
the flesh of the walrus. Monotonous incantations take the place of the
white man's drugs. The performance of a self-confident angakok is quite
impressive--if one has not witnessed it too many times before. The
chanting, or howling, is accompanied by contortions of the body and by
sounds from a rude tambourine, made from the throat membrane of a walrus
stretched on a bow of ivory or bone. The tapping of the rim with another
piece of ivory or bone marks the time. This is the Eskimo's only attempt
at music. Some women are supposed to possess the power of the angakok--a
combination of the gifts of the fortune teller, the mental healer, and
the psalmodist, one might say.
Once, years ago, my little brown people got tired of an angakok, one
Kyoahpahdo, who had predicted too many deaths; and they lured him out on
a hunting expedition from which he never returned. But these executions
for the peace of the community are rare.
Their burial customs are rather interesting. When an Eskimo dies, there
is no delay about removing the body. Just as soon as possible it is
wrapped, fully clothed, in the skins which formed the bed, and some
extra garments are added to insure the comfort of the spirit. Then a
strong line is tied round the body, and it is removed, always head
first, from the tent or igloo, and dragged head first over the snow or
ground to the nearest place where there are enough loose stones to cover
it. The Eskimos do not like to touch a dead body, and it is therefore
dragged as a sledge would be. Arrived at the place selected for the
grave, they cover the corpse with loose stones, to protect it from the
dogs, foxes, and ravens, and the burial is complete.
According to Eskimo ideas, the after-world is a distinctly material
place. If the deceased is a hunter, his sledge and kayak, with his
weapons and implements, are placed close by, and his favorite dogs,
harnessed and attached to the sledge, are strangled so that they may
accompany him on his journey into the unseen. If the deceased is a
woman, her lamp and the little wooden frame on which she has dried the
family boots and mittens are placed beside the grave. A little blubber
is placed there, too, and a few matches, if they are available, so that
the woman may light the lamp and do some cooking in transit; a cup or
bowl is also provided, in which she may melt snow for water. Her needle,
thimble, and other sewing things are placed with her in the grave.
In former years, if the woman had a small baby in the hood it was
strangled to keep her company; but I have, of course, discouraged this
practice, and during the last two expeditions I have not heard of any
strangled babies. Among the members of my own party I have simply
forbidden the practice, and have promised the relatives sufficient
condensed milk and other foods to keep the infant alive. If they have
reverted to the old custom during my absence, they have not mentioned
the fact to me, knowing of my disapproval.
If a death occurs in a tent, the poles are removed, and the tent is left
on the ground to rot or blow away. It is never used again. If the death
occurs in an igloo, the structure is vacated and not used again for a
long time. The relatives of the dead observe certain formalities in
regard to food and clothing, and the name of the lost one is never
mentioned. If any other members of the tribe have the same name, they
must take another until an infant is born to which the proscribed name
can be given. This appears to remove the ban.
Eskimos are children in their grief, as in their pleasure; they weep for
a dead friend a few days, then they forget. Even a mother who has been
inconsolable at the death of her baby soon laughs again and thinks of
other things.
In a country where the stars are visible for so many weeks at a time it
is not strange perhaps that they receive much attention from the
natives. The Eskimos are, within barbaric limits, astronomers. The
principal constellations visible in northern latitudes are well known to
them and they have given them their own names and descriptions. In the
Great Dipper they see a herd of celestial reindeer. The Pleiades are to
the Eskimos a team of dogs pursuing a solitary polar bear. Gemini they
describe as two stones in the entrance of an igloo. The moon and the sun
represent to the Eskimo, as to some of our North American Indian tribes,
a fleeing maiden and her pursuing admirer.
Time is, of course, of small value to the Eskimo, so far as he is
himself personally concerned, yet after the Eskimo has been trained to
the ways of the white man he seems to absorb an excellent notion of the
value of punctuality and will carry out orders with a surprising degree
of promptness and despatch.
The strength and capacity for enduring hardships exhibited by this
people is extraordinary and is not, I believe, exceeded by that shown by
any other aboriginal race now in existence. It is true that the average
size of the Eskimo is, judged by our own standards, small; but I could
give the names of several of them who stand five feet ten inches and
weigh 185 pounds. The popular idea that they are clumsily fashioned is
not correct. That notion is merely another case of judging a man by the
clothes he wears, and an Eskimo's garments are not precisely what we
should call of fashionable cut.
To my mind, the skin canoe of these Northern aborigines is, with its
hunting implements, one of the most complete and ingenious
manifestations of intelligence to be found in any aboriginal tribe. Over
a light framework, an almost infinite number of small pieces of wood
deftly lashed together with sealskin thongs, is stretched the tanned
skin of seals, the seams being neatly sewed by the women, and then
rendered water-tight by an application of seal oil and soot from the
native lamps. The result is a craft of great buoyancy, some grace, and
especial fitness and effectiveness for the purposes for which it is
intended, that is, to enable the hunter to creep softly and noiselessly
upon seal, walrus, or white whale. This canoe, while varying somewhat
with the size of the owner and maker, will average between twenty and
twenty-four inches in width by sixteen or eighteen feet in length. It
carries one man only. I may have helped the Eskimos a little in
perfecting it, by giving them more suitable material for the framework,
but the canoe is original with them.
It will scarcely be considered strange that I have grown to love this
childlike, simple people, as well as to value their many admirable and
useful qualities. For it must be borne in mind that for nearly a quarter
of a century they have been more thoroughly known to me than any other
group of human beings in the world. The present generation of
able-bodied Eskimos has practically grown up under my personal
observation. Every individual member of the tribe--man, woman, and
child--is known to me by name and sight as thoroughly as the patients of
an old-fashioned family physician are known to him, and perhaps the
feeling existing between us is not so very different. And the knowledge
of individuals gained in this intimate way has been priceless in the
work of reaching the Pole.
Take, for example, the quartet of young Eskimos who formed a portion of
the sledge party that finally reached the long-courted "ninety North."
The oldest of the four, Ootah, is about 34 years of age. This young man
is one of the sturdiest of the tribe. He stands about 5 feet 8 inches
and is a fine hunter. When I first saw him he was a young boy. Egingwah,
another of the group, is about 26 years old, a big chap weighing about
175 pounds. Seegloo and Ooqueah are about 24 and 20 respectively. All
four of them have been brought up to regard me as the patron,
protector, and guide of their people. Their capacities, peculiarities,
and individual characteristics were perfectly known to me, and they were
chosen out of the whole tribe for the final great effort because I knew
them to be most perfectly adapted to the work in hand.
[Illustration: THE DOG MARKET AT CAPE YORK]
Before taking up the story of our advance from Cape York, a word ought
to be said about those remarkable creatures, the Eskimo dogs, for
without their help success could never have crowned the efforts of the
expedition. They are sturdy, magnificent animals. There may be larger
dogs than these, there may be handsomer dogs; but I doubt it. Other dogs
may work as well or travel as fast and far when fully fed; but there is
no dog in the world that can work so long in the lowest temperatures on
practically nothing to eat. The male dogs average in weight from eighty
to one hundred pounds, though I had one which weighed one hundred and
twenty-five pounds. The females are somewhat smaller. Their special
physical characteristics are a pointed muzzle, great breadth between the
eyes, sharp-pointed ears, very heavy coat underlaid with a thick, soft
fur, powerful, heavy-muscled legs, and a bushy tail or brush similar to
that of the fox. There is only one breed of Eskimo dogs, but they are
variously marked and of different colors, black, white, gray, yellow,
brown, and mottled. Some scientists believe that they are the direct
descendants of the Arctic wolf, yet, as a rule, they are as affectionate
and obedient to their masters as our own dogs at home. Their food is
meat, and meat only. That they cannot live on any other food I know,
for I have made the experiment. For water they eat snow.
[Illustration: THE WHALE BOAT RETURNING TO THE SHIP FROM THE WALRUS
HUNT]
The dogs are not housed at any season of the year; but summer and winter
they are tied somewhere near the tent or igloo. They are never allowed
to roam at large, lest they be lost. Sometimes a special pet, or a
female that has young puppies, will be taken into the igloo for a time;
but Eskimo puppies only a month old are so hardy that they can stand the
severe winter weather.
[Illustration: KING ESKIMO DOG]
Enough has been said to give the reader a general idea of these strange
people, that have been so valuable to me in my arctic work. But I want
to say again, at the risk of being misunderstood, that I hope no efforts
will ever be made to civilize them. Such efforts, if successful, would
destroy their primitive communism, which is necessary to preserve their
existence. Once give them an idea of real-estate interest and
personal-property rights in houses and food, and they might become as
selfish as civilized beings; whereas now any game larger than a seal is
the common property of the tribe and no man starves while his neighbors
are gorging themselves. If a man has two sets of hunting implements, he
gives one of them to the man who has none. It is this feeling of
good-fellowship which alone preserves the race. I have taught them some
of the fundamental principles of sanitation and the care of themselves,
the treatment of simple diseases, of wounds, and other accidents; but
there I think their civilization should stop. This opinion is not based
on theory or prejudice, but on eighteen years of intimate study and
experience.
[Illustration: THE CAPE JESUP GRENADIERS]