WOMANHOOD IN THE ARCTICS.
In the meantime, the women, left in the village on shore, have been far
from idle. As soon as the husband has gone off for the day the wife
sets about her domestic affairs. First, she rolls up the bedding and
tidies the sleeping bench. The next job is to sweep the hoar-frost from
the window and the cupola, to prevent the dripping of any moisture, and
then to sweep up the floor—littered, likely enough, with the remains of
a good feed overnight. These duties are performed with a brush made of
the outspread wings of a duck or raven; it might almost be called a
double-bladed brush. The backs are sewn together and the upper bones
form the handle. Such a contrivance is a very handy affair altogether,
and will last quite a long time.
The next task is to prepare a quantity of blubber for oil. This is
pulped with a bone hammer or koutak, and the fuel so obtained is
suspended over the shallow lamps in such a way as to dip into them and
keep them supplied. New wick is fashioned from dried moss and cotton
plant trimmed upon the lamps. Next comes the stew for supper. The
Eskimos have only one way of cooking meat, and that is stewing it in
the stone “kettles” already described. These are partly filled with sea
water for the sake of the salt, a quantity of seal’s blood is added,
and then comes the meat. The whole thing hangs simmering over the lamps
all day, and by the time the men come back at night a reeking hot meal
is ready, rich, nourishing, and as tender as a sharp-set hunter could
desire.
Water is the next consideration. The Eskimo housewife hauls it in skin
buckets from the nearest stream, bailing it up through a hole in the
ice; or, failing that, she brings in the ice itself, or snow, and sets
it to melt over a spare lamp. These people are thirsty souls, and water
is hard to come by in the winter. Every drop that can be obtained is
used for drinking or cooking, so that washing (except the hands and
face), is dispensed with perforce of arctic circumstance. Fresh water
ice melts more quickly than beaten snow, and it is an interesting fact
that an iron or tin pot used for melting the former will last much
longer than for melting snow. The latter process causes it to become
quickly pitted with spots of rust and perforated. Aluminium vessels
last the longest. In the old days—i.e., prior to the establishments of
trading posts—the Eskimos had no utensils of any sort except those of
native manufacture from bone, or stone, or ivory. Nowadays they have
steel-tipped spears, iron nails, and tinware for cooking purposes.
Perhaps the next most important employment of the feminine portion of
the community is the preparation of skins, the softening of leather,
and the finer animal tissues, the washing, drying, and stretching of
gut, and the manufacture of the marvellously fine sinew used for sewing
and stitchery. All this includes the making of tents and clothing. The
old women help the housewives as far as they are able, and the girls
watch and learn, with a view to rendering themselves eligible in the
eyes of the young men as accomplished brides-to-be. The women are
perpetually employed chewing the edges of skins and leathers to make
them pliable and soft for sewing. This process tends to wear down the
teeth to very unsightly stumps.
The heavy work is done by the hale and hearty, who leave only the
lighter tasks, such as the tending of the lamps and the minding of the
house, to the older folk. Womanlike all the world over, the crones love
to get together and indulge in unlimited gossip. All the women, indeed,
pay a constant round of visits, and gathering, now here, now there, sit
about smiling and gossiping, as is their wont from the tropics to the
pole.
The Eskimo are a genial, jovial, peaceable people, among whom
quarrelling is a crime, and he or she who disturbs the general peace is
a villain of the deepest dye. So, whatever else comes of all the
gossip, it is not—in an Eskimo village—malevolence, backbiting and
spite. They talk—these fur-clad, hard-working women—of their last
year’s journeyings, who and what they saw and heard, of their trials
and vexations, of their children and relations and husbands—each one’s
contribution to the conversation being punctuated by a chorus of “Ah,
Ah’s,” “Elarle! Elarle!” (Indeed! Yes!) from the rest.
Suddenly, however, just when their enjoyment may be at its height, the
children’s cry of “Kumokse! Kumokse! Netsérkpok!”—(A sled, a sled! He’s
got a seal!) breaks up the gathering in excited confusion. There is a
rush, each wife to her own home. Cries of joy and anticipation fill the
air, and the whole village is stirred with cheerful and prosperous
bustle. The hunters are returning, and fresh supplies are at hand. Very
soon the cracking of the dog whips is heard, shouts of command, barks
and howls; and the teams appear, scrambling over the sigjak (the broken
ice along the shore), with their welcome loads. Quickly the harness is
thrown off and safely bestowed, the lines and everything eatable being
carried into the sukso; the dogs are fed and quieted, and curl round
and go to sleep in the snow.
Then comes the evening meal. The stewpot is taken from the slings and
set in front of the mistress of the igloo. The sturdy men and children
crowd round her and each one is served with a generous piece of
sealmeat. They hold it in their hands to eat. Each bronzed or
wind-blackened face glows with enjoyment and contentment in the homely
lamplight, and an atmosphere of unfeigned goodwill and cheer dominates
the little group. The hungry folk whose husbands and fathers have not
been successful all day simply distribute themselves through the
village, and share the food of the lucky. The captor of to-day may
return empty handed to-morrow, when he may look for hospitality to his
guests of to-night.
As soon as the meal in the pot is finished, the soup is poured out into
a drinking bowl and handed round, each one taking a good pull in turn.
The air soon reeks—the tight-packed assemblage of unwashed humanity,
the stench of seal oil and blubber, the strong odours from the pot and
the exhalations of garments spread out on the racks to dry, all
contribute to the malodorous atmosphere. But what of that to those
accustomed to nothing else, to whom the whole means warmth and plenty
and the nearness of his own, in the frozen immensity of the awful
arctic world without?
As soon as the meal is done the day’s catch of seals is cut up. Each
animal is placed on its back on the floor, opened and dismembered, and
pieces of the meat and blubber are given to the needy. Open hospitality
is the law of the land in the Arctics. Travellers, whether native or
European, are always sure of welcome and shelter on reaching an Eskimo
village. On these occasions the stranger is always the first to be
served from the generous family stew.
This sanguinary and odoriferous business being despatched, and the
neighbours having taken themselves off, the door is fixed for the
night—the door being a slab of snow cut to fit the main entrance to the
igloo, and set on one side during the day. The lamps are trimmed to a
low flame, wet clothes are spread on the drying frames above them, and
each member of the family rolls up in a fur blanket on the sleeping
bench and so goes to bed. Occasionally the mother wakes up, to trim the
lamps and turn the clothes during the night. She will be the first to
wake and rise in the morning, since it is part of the woman’s work
“which is never done,” to rub and soften the leathern clothing of her
good man and the boys, which had hardened in drying while they slept.
Before the advent of the white man and his methods, the Eskimo used to
start a fire by means of “firesticks.” The writer has seen this done
repeatedly at the present day. An oblong piece of wood with a
depression made in it to hold the tinder (a mixture of dried moss and
cotton plant), receives the spindle. Another small piece of wood,
placed on top of the latter, is held in position by the teeth and
pressed down firmly upon it. The spindle is made to rotate rapidly by
means of a rough bow until a spark, caused by the friction, starts up
in the tinder. This is gently blown to a flame, and the fire is
kindled. Nowadays, steel, or pieces of iron, are used in place of the
driftwood board and spindle, especially on hunting expeditions; for
although matches have found their way into the Eskimo igloo, they are
costly, and apt to get damp.
There seems to be a happy sort of sex equality among these people, or
perhaps it should rather be said that a mutually agreeable division of
equally essential labours cause the men and women to live more on a
common footing than they seem to do among many other uncivilised folk.
Old women, widows, and orphan girls, never want for protection and
sustenance, so long as the rest can shelter and support them. The
Eskimo are a very improvident people, never taking thought for the
hungry morrow when they can feast to-day; but so long as the good
things last, so long as they are to be had, the old and helpless of
both sexes are never neglected. If a time should come when there arises
a question of superfluous mouths to fill, the old people go into a sort
of voluntary retreat in their own houses, and willingly die the death
of starvation. More will be said on this subject elsewhere.
On one dreadful occasion an Eskimo woman was betrayed by force of
circumstances into an act of cannibalism. This woman was a tall,
commanding figure from the south coast, with a grave, intelligent face.
She was an excellent huntress, equally at home with gun or spear. She
could wield her needle, too, and together with her husband, was a
first-rate worker and much respected by all the tribe.
A party of women, including herself and her baby, were travelling to a
trading station. Their sled was well provisioned and their dogs in good
condition, and the route lay over mountains and valleys, and across all
the intervening fiords and bays. Soon after they started things began
to go wrong. The weather changed and a wind got up, bearing snow. Storm
after storm swept the country, through which the travellers could
scarcely force their way. The dogs sank to their shoulders in the deep
drift, and at last could make no further progress at all. The little
expedition called a halt. They built a sleeping place and prepared to
wait till the violence of the weather abated. But, as day after day
went howling by, each as impossible as the last, the stock of rations
became exhausted, and the whole party reached the verge of starvation.
The Eskimo woman from the south fell ill, in consequence of the
hardships and privations, and lost consciousness. While she happened to
be in this state, a council was held by the others of the party, who
decided to keep life going by killing and eating the child. This was
accordingly done, and as soon as she could be partially roused, a
portion was given to the famished mother. Not knowing what it was she
did, she ate the meat—and survived. Some time afterwards the forlorn
band was rescued by some hunters and taken to their camp, and only then
the woman learnt the truth about her supposedly dead baby. Years after
the horrible thing occurred the writer met her and had the story from
her own lips.
Women and their adventures figure largely in Eskimo folk tales. One of
them might almost point to a feminist movement in the Arctics! Two
brides, it is narrated, ran away from their homes before their very
first children ever saw the light. After awhile the fathers went in
search of their lost daughters. When the girls found they were
discovered they wept bitterly, and declared themselves most unwilling
to return to their husbands. The fathers, however, were quite relieved
to find them comfortably off where they were, and having stayed a
couple of “sleeps” in their daughters’ house, returned home without the
brides. When they got back to the tribe they had this amazing thing to
tell—that two women without the company of any men, lived happily all
by themselves, and were never in want!
There is a charming little story of a lonely woman who owned a bear
cub, and loved it and brought it up like a child and called it her son.
The bear repaid her devotion, and supported her by his prowess in
hunting so well that the rest of the villagers grew jealous and planned
to kill him. So, conscious of their evil designs, he departed, almost
as much to the grief of the children of the village as to that of his
“mother.” He never ceased, however, to repay her love, and continued
out on the ice floes to catch seals for her support.
The gruesome story of the murderess Toodlânak has never hitherto—so far
as the writer can ascertain—been included in any ethnologist’s
collection of the Eskimo legends.
It is narrated by the Ancient Ones that there lived this Toodlânak, who
was an evil spirit in female disguise. She had a large house
(igloovegak) built by the side of the route used by hunters going
inland after deer. It was far up country, many days’ journey either
from the sea or from the pastures of the interior. The house was large
and comfortable, and Toodlânak had a reputation for hospitality. She
loved to entertain any who passed that way and to give them food and
shelter for the night. She allotted to them the best rugs and the most
comfortable part of the sleeping bench. Presently, however, it began to
be noticed that few if any of these hunters returned. At last the
brother of one of these inexplicably missing men determined to look
into things. He started out with a companion, and in due course both
reached the half-way house. Out came Toodlânak, as usual, all smiles
and amiability, inviting them to enter and refresh and rest themselves
there for the night. They did so, but the suspicious young man kept his
wits about him, and never relaxed a sharp look-out on his hostess. He
had a notion that she knifed her guests in their slumber.
Unknown to Toodlânak, he secreted a flat stone within the bosom of his
tunic (the netseak), and, rolling himself in his blanket, lay flat on
his back apparently in deep sleep. His hostess had also retired to
rest, and seemed also quite dead to the world. But, about midnight, he
saw her rise by the dim light of the lamp, and creep over to his
companion where he also lay asleep on the bench. The movement betrayed
the fact that the awful creature had a knife-like tail with which she
struck her victim through the chest and killed him. She then crept
stealthily towards the watcher, and would have served him the same way
but that he was ready for her. The vicious tail struck, indeed, at his
chest, but shivered on the hidden stone, broke off, and left Toodlânak
defenceless. The hunter sprang up and killed her on the spot. He
searched all over the place, and found the remains of innumerable
victims, and their property hoarded away. He broke down the house,
buried his luckless companion, and returned home with the news that at
last the country was ridded of its pest and might be safely travelled.