TRIBAL LIFE
In their family and tribal life the Eskimo carry out a very smooth
running sort of communism, the chief tenets of which are rigidly
enforced peaceableness, open hospitality to the stranger, and a sharing
of food and the necessaries of precarious existence among each other.
Tribal government is wholly patriarchal in character. The Angakooeet,
or chief conjurors—a class of men apart—hold the first place in public
esteem and common council. After them the village is ruled by the
successful hunters, who foregather with the former and with the aged
and experienced, when it is a question of deciding where to go and what
to do about the hunting, or change of encampment, or treatment of a
delinquent.
The Eskimo have no idea of authority, except that which one man may
exercise over another in virtue of his superior wisdom, experience,
skill or strength. There has recently been some question of
inaugurating a reindeer and musk ox industry on the vast moss pastures
of the hinterland of Baffin Land, and the purport of much evidence
given on this subject before a Royal Commission abundantly confirms the
experience of the present writer, and emphasises the remarks that have
been made as to the inadvisability of rushing matters with regard to
“civilising” the Eskimo, and radically changing his mode of life from
that to which the conditions of his environment have hitherto formed
him. Savage as these conditions are, the Eskimo has wrought out his own
well-being, and in his native state is as happy and contented an
individual as could be desired. He has his hard seasons of
semi-starvation, when the hunting is poor; but even these are borne
with cheerfulness and equanimity.
“They seem to have the communal idea very strongly implanted,” said D.
Jewess, Esq., one of the witnesses. “Theirs is a community in which one
man is equal to any other man. The idea of one man being a servant to
another would not seem to be native to the Eskimo; it is a foreign
idea. It would seem that they must learn the whole idea of one man
serving another before they could be counted upon as reliable
employees.
“An Eskimo will serve you faithfully on certain conditions, and will
expect his payment afterwards. He will serve you for a limited time and
perform almost any work, and will then expect his payment. The moment
that payment is made he is an absolutely free man; but for the period
of work, if he understands his contract clearly, he will serve you
faithfully. They seem to work partly through the binding force of a
promise; but a great factor in keeping them at work seems to be that of
having them understand that they will be well rewarded at the end. As
is the case with all human beings, they vary; but on the whole they may
be considered as faithful as white people found in civilised
communities. Experience seems to show that they will keep to an
agreement unless they get angry. In this event, they seem to forget
their promise. If they, in a casual manner, more or less promise to do
a thing, they are as likely as not to fail. Like most primitive people,
if they trust you they will do what they can to justify your confidence
in them.
“At the present time the Eskimo is not responsible. He would make an
excellent servant, and in time an excellent trapper, guide and hunter.
This is speaking of the Coronation Gulf Eskimo, who have known white
men only during the past four or five years. It would seem that the
Eskimo of Hudson Bay and of the east generally have other
characteristics which have been moulded through this influence. It is
not thought that this contact with white men is necessarily an
advantage, if one is trying to convert the Eskimo into a reliable,
responsible servant or working man. A great deal naturally depends upon
the kind of white men with whom the natives have had to associate.”
It must be remembered that life in an Eskimo tribe is almost a family
one. Each family is interdependent upon the others, and all have close
ties and relationships. Thus anything which interferes with the general
harmony is dangerous and, in the unwritten law, a crime.
Matte, a good hunter and a man of standing in the tribe of X——, in the
locality of Z——, had for long disturbed the peace of the rest. He had
quarrelled, had spread ill reports about the doings of the hunters, had
divulged their secrets, and been generally independent and unsociable.
For a long time Matte was a thorn in the side of his tribe. He
disregarded their customs and traditions, and became, according to
Eskimo law, altogether a first-class misdemeanant. At last he became
unbearable. His big voice and burly frame were no longer tolerable in
the settlement. A day came when, in his absence, the Angakooeet and
chief men met in council to decide what should be done. His case was
reviewed and discussed at length, and arguments were brought forward
both for and against the accused. At length the verdict was given by
the Angakut, the Chief of the Conjurors, and ratified by the Council.
Matte was to be put to death.
Five men were chosen by the Angakut, and instructed in their duties.
Two were to hold the prisoner’s arms, two his legs, and the fifth was
to strike and kill.
As the time for the man’s return approached the executioners went out
and waited for him in the path outside the village. No sooner had he
appeared than they seized upon him. Matte read his doom in their eyes.
He had but time for one ejaculation of despair when the knife struck
through his breast and justice was done. The body was thrown aside and
left for the dogs and wolves to rend and devour.
The five men returned to their homes. One of them (the one who
afterwards related the story to the writer), married Matte’s widow at
her express wish, and “lived happy ever after.” The woman indeed was
quite agreeable to the removal of her first husband, as it was
miserable to be the wife of so unpopular a member of the community.
Continued quarrelling, like that of this man Matte, is punishable by
death. So also is murder. A thief is banished from the village, but
petty pilferers are merely sent to Coventry.
Old people are held in great respect among the Eskimo, and their
counsel is always considered. They help as far as they are able in the
household work, the old men repairing weapons, harness, etc., and the
old women in sewing or tending the lamps. In times of scarcity, as in
winter, meat and oil are always shared round. Directly a deer or seal
is brought in it is cut up and pieces sent to each needy family. In
times of plenty each family is supposed to provide for itself; but old
people, widows and orphans have always the first claim upon those who
have the means.
Among these people, mutual kindliness is a general obligation. A widow
or orphan child is never left alone, but taken into the house and
family circle of the nearest relative. The widow gives her services in
return for food and lodging and clothing, and the child is cared for
exactly as the man’s own offspring.
Children have always the right of entry to any house and to partake
there of whatever food may be going. Women are seldom refused a like
privilege. In times of famine children are fed first, the women next
and the men last. The writer has known a hunter to go out four days in
succession and meet with no success. He had shared a portion of seal
with another man who had caught one and cut it up as usual, but this
had been given to his wife and family, whilst he himself, taking no
more than a drink of warm water, went off with unimpaired cheerfulness
to try his luck again.
Strangers and travellers, too, are always entertained and provided for
so far as the means of the moment may permit. A native arriving from
another tribe and having no relations in the village just puts up at
any igloo he may chose—as a rule he will select the family best able to
entertain him—and there his dogs are fed, his equipment is repaired or
the necessary material offered, and food and a sleeping place provided
for himself. Should he be on the trail alone, a temporary wife is
furnished him from the widows or spinsters of the community, and it
becomes her business to see that his clothes are dried and mended, and
that when he departs again he has sufficient food to carry him over the
next stage of his journey.
The Eskimo are aware that in some respects European customs differ from
their own, and when entertaining a white man his peculiarities are
rigidly respected. The Eskimo standard of morals is not that of the
European. It may be that in this matter of the temporary wife, as in
the annual exchange of wives during the Sedna festivities, nature is
making her own instinctive provision for the continuation of a race;
otherwise so heavily handicapped are they by arctic conditions of life
generally that without it wedlock would scarcely suffice for the
purpose. The Eskimo despite customs which look like promiscuity
according to the standards of civilisation, are not afflicted with the
diseases associated with European vice—until they come in contact with
unscrupulous whites. Either the germs of these scourges have not made
their appearance in the Eskimo communities, or the people are
particularly resistive to them. That this latter supposition is not
borne out is evidenced by the havoc that has been wrought among the
tribes in the past. The Eskimo, when left to themselves, are a moral
people according to their own ideas, and the rude health they keep
despite these strange customs, seems to vindicate them from an
unthinking criticism.
If he can, the wayfarer makes suitable offerings in return, but they
are not necessarily expected. He drops in on the family overnight, just
perhaps when the hunter has returned with a good fat seal, and the
jolly distribution of it all round is going on. There is a broad smile
on the face of the housewife as she picks out the best bits for her
friends and leaves the scraggy remnants for those of whom she cannot
profess to be so fond. The children rush hither and thither, willing
servitors of those who cannot come themselves.
The blood is carefully scooped into an ice bowl for future stew or for
the glazing of sled runners. At the hospitable shout, “Kileritse!
Kileritse!”—“Come ye! Come ye!”—everyone, friend and stranger alike,
crowds into the house and squats on the bench or the floor, or in the
porch, and is duly served out with his share. Nothing is heard for
awhile but the crunch of strong ivory teeth; the red blood stains hands
and faces; black eyes glisten with enjoyment. Then, after a time, the
hum and clatter of talk rises to the smoky roof. Everything is
devoured, even the entrails (squeezed through the fingers to flatten
and empty them). Reindeer moss, taken from the stomach of a deer may be
served up as well by way of that greatest possible luxury—a salad!
Finally, everyone goes to bed. The doorway is blocked up, blankets are
unrolled, and men and women and children, stripped to the skin, wrap
themselves up in these and lie down with their heads towards the lamps
and their feet towards the back of the snow house, and sleep the sleep
of health and good humour and repletion until the break of another
arctic winter “day.”
The children of an Eskimo community have quite a good time. Whenever
infanticide has been practised among these people, it was never through
cruelty or wanton waste of infant life, but simply because of a dearth
of provisions. As a matter of fact, the Eskimo prides himself on having
as large a family as possible. He is entitled to have as many wives as
he can support. It is not uncommon for a well-found man to have three
wives—possibly sisters—all living amicably together. The children are
named after some place or object, and many names descend from father to
son. Thus we have “Moneapik,” the little egg; “Oonapik,” the little
hunting spear; “Pitsoolak,” the sea pigeon; “Shokak,” roof of the
mouth; and other names too crude for translation.
The pastimes of the children are just like those of children all the
world over. On fine days they romp with the puppies, as described
elsewhere, or they borrow a sealskin from their mothers and, finding a
snow incline, drag it to the top and toboggan down on it in fine style
and with resounding glee. They build snow houses; play with little
improvised sledges; kick a seal bladder about by way of a ball;
discover cat’s cradles for themselves with any odd bits of thong; and
get up to all the usual mischief with bows and arrows. The girls make
dolls. The boys have an ivory top corresponding to cup and ball, and
another game called “spearing the seal,” which is played by two, with a
piece of skin for the ice, and a bit of bone that moves about
underneath it for the seal. There is a blow hole, of course, and a
miniature spear.
The education of the Eskimo boy all turns on hunting. All sorts of
curious observances wait on his first adventures in that line. When he
secures his first weasel, for instance, he gives it to the dogs, simply
to be torn in pieces; and that night has to sit up by the igloo door,
one hand on hip and in the other a lamp stick. Possibly the root idea
is to defend himself from the spirit of the little beast. When he gets
his first bird, Young Hopeful sits in the middle of the sleeping bench,
his mother on one side and his grandmother on the other. The boy is
told to take off his jacket, and the two women wrench the bird apart
between them in a sort of tug of war, to the accompaniment of cries of
congratulation. The mangled spoil is then eaten to bring good luck to
the boy.
The following tale of the voluntary suicide of the old people who feel
that they have outgrown their usefulness to the community, and have
rather become a burden to it, shows how strongly the communal feeling
dominates the Eskimo, how essential to existence each one of them finds
the social life of the tribe and village to be.
For many weeks summer has reigned in the arctics. Snow has disappeared.
The ice has broken up and drifted away to the south; only a few bergs
remain, like the remnants of a majestic fleet, wending their wandering
way after the rest. For weeks on end it has been one long, glorious
day, when the sun has scarcely set an hour. The weather is hot and the
sky is blue. Arctic flowers and arctic heather gem the short turf;
streams and cascades fill the valleys with the unwonted music of
running water. The dogs lie about, basking in the sunshine, or betake
themselves to the seashore to hunt for fish and such toothsome morsels
as may be left in the rock pools by the falling tide. The village of
sealskin tents is pitched in a sheltered spot near some handy stream,
overlooking the inlet. Contentment, ease and plenty are the order of
the day. The kyakers skim the waters of the bay, hunting as usual, and
in the evening the boys have a turn in the same light craft, to
practice with harpoon or birdspear. They vie with each other in skill
and speed, and take lessons from their elders.
The old men and women potter about, visiting each other. The crones
occupy themselves teaching the younger women how things were best done
in their day, and the granfers fight their own battles over again and
exploit their own adventures, as they listen to the talk of the younger
men—the tales of more recent feats accomplished, perils survived, and
clever captures achieved. As the bright day wanes to that short
twilight which is the arctic summer night, the men fetch their blankets
from the tents, roll themselves up in them under the shelter of some
boulder, and sleep in the open air.
The month of the eider ducks has come and gone. The women have manned
their boats and made their annual raid on the island where the birds
breed, returning with hundreds of eggs, plenty of ducks, and a goodly
store of eiderdown from the nests. The days have been one long, joyous
picnic, all the hardships, privations and dangers of the winter
forgotten. The babies, brown and mother-naked, have sprawled about in
the sun and waxed fat and jolly, with the freedom and the play and the
plenty of summer.
But now the time has come to get ready for a very big annual enterprise
indeed—the great deer hunt, upon which the fortunes of the tribe will
turn for months. If the Eskimo lay up little store of food, they
accumulate all the hides they can for winter clothing. For several
weeks before the start is made, stores of meat are prepared, slices of
seal cut and spread on the rocks, or hung on lines in the sun to dry.
Piles of moss and cotton plant are collected and dried for the winter’s
supply of lamp wick. Sealskins are cleaned and stretched and dried for
clothing, boot soles, boat coverings, and water buckets; intestines are
inflated and dried for sail cloth and material for making windows. The
dogs are outfitted with sealskin panniers for transport purposes. The
trek ahead of the tribe is a long and laborious one. They will journey
for many days by water up the rivers, and climb long ranges of hills
and cross many valleys, before they reach the interior and the pastures
of the deer. Each man, woman and child must shoulder his own pack, for
none can carry a double load. And so, it often chances, comes the
tragedy of old and enfeebled age.
Seorapik was an octogenarian. Her hair was grey and her back was bent.
She had managed, somehow, the previous year to carry her belongings on
the long, long trail, and to stumble along after the tribe. But at last
the bitter fact forced itself upon her that she could follow the
hunters no more. She must stay behind—alone. She could no longer carry
her load nor keep pace with the folk on the way, and none might carry
her. She had no alternative but to remain in the deserted village and
await the tribe’s return.
Now Seorapik, like every other Eskimo, was an intensely sociable being.
She loved nothing so much as to hear laughter and jokes about her, and
to be in the thick of all the village talk and doings. As she faced the
prospect of the long lonely weeks ahead, in the lifeless silence of the
empty camp, with the days growing ever shorter and colder, without a
soul—except perhaps a child—to bear her company, her heart quailed and
grew very heavy. There was the danger, too, of attack by wolf or bear,
and of sickness coming on—and death. Death, all alone! True, they would
leave her a plentiful store of food—the good village folk—and lots of
skins; but what comfort could these afford her in their absence?
But the law of the North is stern and immutable.
They knew it—those sons and daughters of hers, and all their sons and
daughters. They grieved for Seorapik, and remembered her many acts of
kindness to each and every one of them, and her life of cheery toil
spent wholly in their service. They had a custom to be sure—but it was
hard to endure it when it came face to face. A familiar custom,
designed to meet such as case as this; but a heartbreaking one, all the
same. Seorapik remembered it, too, and was the first to summon the
courage to announce it.
She proposed to bid the tribe goodbye rather than let it take leave of
her. Her time to go on the long, lone journey from which none ever
returned could not be far off in any case. She decided to anticipate
it. She could not face seeing her folk load up the packs, start out on
the trail, without her, and disappear over the hills. She could not
contemplate the intense loneliness that it would all mean, and miss the
laughter of the children, and even the rough and tumble among the dogs.
So the dread subject was broached to her son.
He gave his assent. Itteapik announced the decision to the villagers,
and they came to help with the preparations for Seorapik’s death.
A rough, round igloo was built, and the old woman withdrew into it,
taking her few belongings, escorted by all her kindred and friends.
They encouraged her to the last with every kindly and sympathetic thing
they could think of to say. She braved it out, and, with her cheery but
quavering goodbye still in their ears, her loved ones blocked up the
entrance to the little death chamber in such a way that no dog or wolf
might break in.
And there she sat down slowly and willingly to starve to death, quite
happy so long as her children continued to come from time to time and
call to her from outside, and tell her all that was going on, every
single little thing that happened.... She never asked for food or
drink; they never gave it.... She never wanted to come out; they never
moved a stone.... She simply had to go. Their part was to make her last
days, her last hours, as happy as they could, simply by being
there—quite close—outside.
Then the time came when the feeble voice just ceased to make one more
response. She had gone on her own long journey first, to the land where
parting would be no more, nor the fear and sadness of it. Her last
hours had been happy ones, cheered by the sounds of the village life,
the cries and gurgles of the babies, the shouts and cat-calls of the
boys and girls, the murmur of men and women talking over their
accustomed tasks. She had no loneliness to bear, after all, no
desolation, no silence. The old Eskimo died with a smile of love and
contentment on her face, with a long record behind her of woman’s good
and motherly work, of a humble, “primitive” life indeed, but lived
according to what light she had—and so into the better life beyond.
There was Nandla (the spear), too, the blind hunter, who also went to
death under the lash of arctic circumstance.
The incident took place near Davis’ Strait, and was related to the
writer by one who had witnessed it. Again, the inexorable law of the
wild left one handicapped as Nandla was no choice. The man was
comparatively young, but by reason of his blindness useless to himself
and a burden upon others. In a hungry land, where every extra mouth to
be filled represents a problem, there is no room for one who cannot
provide for himself. The severity of the code of the North is very
great. It cannot be judged by the ordinary standards of humanity.
Spring was at hand—the joyous spring of the arctics. The days were
lengthening and the seals increasing in numbers. They were coming up
from the south for the breeding season. In the village all was life and
bustle. The hunters were full of preparations, and the dogs scarcely
less so. The boys were loading the sleds and harnessing the teams. One
by one, each hunting outfit glided off over the frozen ground, out
towards the bay.
Outside his snow house sat Nandla, the blind hunter, listening to every
sound and seeing every detail in his mind’s eye. His heart was heavy as
lead. In his younger days he, too, had gone forth just like these
others, to spear the season’s catch, and come home rejoicing with a
heavy sled. But repeated attacks of snow blindness (despite his wooden
snow goggles) had destroyed his sight; and here he was, in early middle
age, a useless, hopeless, helpless man, tied to the house, dependent
upon his folk for food and clothing, and a drag upon them all.
Each night, as the hunters came home, the whole tribe gathered as usual
round the cooking pots, when the excitements and doings of the day
would be discussed with no less gusto than the food. Nandla always had
his place in the family circle, and eagerly drank in every word the
hunters had to say. He longed to hunt again, himself; to bring back the
kill, to see the children come pushing into his house for their share,
and to bid his wife give generously to the aged and the destitute! In
his mind he pictured it all: the village nestling in the bay, huge,
snow-clad cliffs rearing up at the back of it, and overhead the pure
blue of the bright sky, where the glaucus gulls wheeled and cried. He
pictured the scavenger ravens perched about everywhere, on the look-out
for bits; the vast expanse of the frozen bay, glaring white in the cold
sunlight; and beyond, a heavy black mist smoking up in the wind,
marking the water line. Out there were the hunters—mere dots—moving
about in the still immensity.
And here was he—Nandla—idle and useless, unable to occupy himself even
with such tasks as fell to the ancients of the tribe—the repairing of
lines, harness, and weapons. He could not patch up a snow house any
more, or trim a lamp! Often, during the months of severe weather and of
scarcity his relations had been hard pushed to find the wherewithal to
feed him or clothe him. Nandla was very wretched.
At length, one evening, after just such a bad spell of weather and of
luck, Nandla begged to be taken out on to the hunting grounds. Now, his
relatives had been thinking things over rather grimly, and had seen
nothing ahead for him but long years of misery and possibly of want.
The problem suggested but one solution. It was simple enough. This
request of the blind man’s to be equipped once more for the hunt and
taken along with the rest, gave them their opportunity. They fell in
with his desire and made their plan. They knew of a certain rout where
danger lay. Nandla should be taken that way.
It was neither treachery nor murder they planned, but an end for the
afflicted man of his anxieties and griefs. Nandla set out that morning
full of delight. His heart was full of unwonted excitement. He yelled
to the dogs and bumped and glided over the ice on the sled with a long
missed sense of exhilaration.
They soon reached the grounds. Nandla’s guide seized his hand and led
him towards a gaping seal hole.
“Follow me!” he said, dropping the other’s hand and lightly stepping to
one side.
“I follow!” replied the sightless man, and straightway fell into the
hole.
He went right under, then and there—under the ice—and was immediately
drowned and frozen. A handy piece of ice served to seal the death trap,
and all was over. Nandla had died on the hunt, and had entered the
Eskimo heaven like the other valiant men of his tribe, and taken his
place with the doughtiest of them, where there would be joy and plenty
for evermore.