OUR ESKIMO ARTIST
Karnah is an Eskimo settlement on Whale Sound north of Thule and just
inside Northumberland Island where we were wrecked. The last time we
were not able to get in on account of ice. We headed for there now, to
get hunters, the Whale Sound territory being fine for walrus and
narwhal. Also some white whales are caught just to the north.
When we were about three miles from Karnah a kayak came alongside. A
man climbed out who grinned from ear to ear when he saw Rasmussen. He
proved to be the missionary at Karnah, named Olsen, an old friend of
Rasmussen’s. Seeing the masts he had come out to meet us. We were, of
course, the only vessel of the year. He showed us the way in to Karnah,
where there was plenty of good water for the vessel.
By the time the anchor was down there were a dozen or more men on
board. Soon Rasmussen and Dad went ashore and arranged for hunters to
go out after narwhal. Very soon after we got there great processions of
the narwhal began to move up and down the sound in front of the
village. Several times we saw a kayaker practically on top of one,
ready to throw the harpoon, but something happened and he didn’t get
it. Another man came in, who had got a harpoon into a narwhal, and told
us his line had broken.
A narwhal seems to jump just about the same as a porpoise, only he runs
larger. He is very pretty, with a mottled skin like castile soap with
blotches of white and lead color. The male has a big tusk sticking out
of his head, on the left side and straight out in front. It is ivory,
with a twisting spiral surface. The biggest tusk I’ve seen is about ten
feet long. They have been called “Unicorns of the Sea.” The biggest
narwhal we got was fifteen feet long, and I expect they run up to
twenty feet.
We spent most of the night at Karnah, visiting and getting narwhal
skulls, while the hunters were out. It was decided that Rasmussen would
take Bob Peary and the big dory with the Johnson engine and go up the
fjord to try and get a couple of narwhal.
Later I learned that just after Dad had turned in at three-thirty two
hunters got their narwhal near by. In the morning when I came on deck
there was a fine big narwhal with a tusk. He was fifteen feet long, not
counting the tusk, which was about seven or eight feet long. Later a
small female was brought in, about nine feet long.
All day Fred and Harry worked on these narwhal. Because the narwhal
were so heavy, to get them on board we had to use the two throat
halyards. Fred took plaster casts of the heads and tails and fins.
Photos were taken from all angles, and measurements and strips of skin
were taken, so that a whole narwhal model can be constructed at the
Museum. After this work was done we started in to clean the meat off
the bones. Most of us wore rubber boots so as not to mind walking in
the blood, but the Eskimos didn’t mind at all. They, of course, get the
meat for themselves. While we would flounder around and have to cut two
or three times the Eskimos would go ahead very quickly and skillfully,
as they have done this sort of thing so many times. The skeletons were
completely stripped in a few hours.
From Karnah we took with us six hunters with their kayaks to help us
get walrus. Four of them used to be with Peary and their names are
Etukashuk, Pooadloona, Kudluktoo and Kesingwah. The last named was one
of the Eskimos who came back with Captain Bob from 87 degrees 47
minutes north, only a few miles from the North Pole when he was with
Peary in 1909, who went on to the Pole itself.
They are all fine looking men and although they speak very little
English they catch on to things very quickly and are awfully nice
people to be with.
There are two fine boys. One is Pooadloona’s son, Matak. The other is
Nils, who is sixteen. He has very light hair, about the color of mine,
and blue eyes. He comes from South Greenland, and his father, I guess,
is a Dane. He is awfully good in a kayak and built solid all around.
While three years older than I am he doesn’t come quite to my shoulder.
Of course all these people are very small. Very few of the men, I
think, are over five feet five inches, but they are built like oxes
usually with short legs and thick bodies and a little fat although
hard. This boy Nils has killed seal and narwhal all by himself.
Also we took on board a nice Eskimo called Kakutia, which means
something like “He of the Quiet Voice.” He is a fine artist and loves
to make drawings of the weapons they use, of the animals and things
like that.
We gave him paper and pencils and during two days he worked along and
made a fine lot of drawings. Some of them will be used as decorations
in the book that will be made from this. It’s great fun to think that
my little book about Greenland is to be illustrated, partly, by a real
Eskimo, and that the pictures themselves actually were made in the
cabin of the Morrissey, here with me and Dad, right in Whale Sound in
latitude seventy-eight north.
Later on I found out that Kakutia is the son of Panikpah, whom Captain
Bob knows very well. He was one of the Peary men and was an artist too.
A number of his sketches are used in different Peary books. It’s
interesting to see this being able to draw inherited by the son from
the father.
We are giving Kakutia a big roll of paper, some pads, pencils and a
fine lot of lovely crayons, most of them Crayola given me by Grandpa
Bub. He is delighted with all this and I expect will have a lot of fun
this winter drawing and coloring pictures. And of course we gave him
also useful things, for he has been fine to me. I hope later, by
Rasmussen or in some way, to send him copies of the book, for Dad says
his name is to appear on the title-page as the one who made the
decorations.