CHARACTER AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS
When I see all the wrangling and all the coarse abuse of opponents
which form the staple of the different party newspapers at home, I now
and then wonder what these worthy politicians would say if they knew
anything of the Eskimo community, and whether they would not blush
before the people whom that man of God, Hans Egede, characterises as
follows:--'These ignorant, cold-blooded creatures, living without order
or discipline, with no knowledge of any sort of worship, in brutish
stupidity.' With what good right would these 'savages' look down upon
us, if they knew that here, even in the public press, we apply to each
other the lowest terms of contumely, as for example 'liar,' 'traitor,'
'perjurer,' 'lout,' 'rowdy,' &c., while they never utter a syllable of
abuse, their very language being unprovided with words of this class, in
which ours is so rich.
This contrast typifies a radical difference of character. The
Greenlander is of all God's creatures gifted with the best disposition.
Good-humour, peaceableness, and evenness of temper are the most
prominent features in his character. He is eager to stand on as good a
footing as possible with his fellow-men, and therefore refrains from
offending them and much more from using coarse terms of abuse. He is
very loth to contradict another even should he be saying what he knows
to be false; if he does so, he takes care to word his remonstrance in
the mildest possible form, and it would be very hard indeed for him to
say right out that the other was lying. He is chary of telling other
people truths which he thinks will be unpleasant to them; in such
cases he chooses the vaguest expressions, even with reference to such
indifferent things as, for example, wind and weather. His peaceableness
even goes so far that when anything is stolen from him, which seldom
happens, he does not as a rule reclaim it even if he knows who has taken
it. 'Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away
thy goods ask them not again' (Luke vi. 30).
The result is that there is seldom or never any quarrelling among them.
The Greenlanders cannot afford to waste time in wrangling amongst
themselves; the struggle to wring from nature the necessities of life,
that great problem of humanity, is there harder than anywhere else, and
therefore this little people has agreed to carry it on without needless
dissensions.
On the whole, the Greenlander is a happy being, his soul being light and
cheerful as a child's. If sorrow overtakes him, he may perhaps suffer
bitterly for the moment; but it is soon forgotten, and he is once more
as radiantly contented with existence as he used to be.
This happy levity of his saves him from brooding much upon the future.
If he has enough to eat for the moment, he eats it and is happy, even if
he has afterwards to suffer want--which is now, unfortunately, often the
case, and becomes so oftener year by year.
His carelessness has frequently been made a subject of bitter reproach
to him. The missionaries declare, no doubt rightly, that it makes him
inaccessible to civilisation, and have tried to exhort him to greater
providence and frugality. They quite overlook the fact that it is
written, 'Take ye no thought for the morrow.... Behold the fowls of the
air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet
your heavenly Father feedeth them.'
This levity of mind has also its bright side; it is even, in a way, the
Eskimo's chief strength.
Poverty and want have, with us, two consequences. The most immediate
is, of course, the physical suffering; but together with it and after
it comes mental suffering, 'the cares of bread,' the unceasing anxiety
which pursues one night and day, even in sleep, and embitters every hour
of life. In the majority of cases, this is probably what tells most upon
our poor people; but for this, the bodily sufferings, which, after all,
are generally transitory, would be easily supported. But it is precisely
from this phase of suffering that the Eskimo's elastic spirit saves him.
Even a long period of starvation and endurance is at once forgotten
so soon as he is fed; and the memory of bygone sufferings can no more
destroy his enjoyment and happiness, than can the fear of those which
to-morrow or the next day may bring. The only thing that really makes
him unhappy is to see others in want, and therefore he shares with them
whenever he has anything to share.
What chiefly cuts the Eskimos to the heart is to see their children
starving; 'and therefore,' says Dalager, 'they give food to their
children even if they themselves are ready to die of hunger; for they
live every day in the hope of a happy change of fortune--a hope which
really sustains life in many of them.'
In order to obtain a clearer conception of the radical difference
between the Eskimo character and ours, we ought to study the Eskimos in
their social relations.
It is not unusual to hear people express the opinion that the Eskimo
community is devoid of law and order. This is a mistake.
Originally, on the contrary, it was singularly well ordered. It had
its customs and its fixed rules for every possible circumstance, and
these customs and rules were handed down from generation to generation,
and were almost always observed; for the people are really incredibly
well-disposed, as even Egede himself, who has, as we have seen, written
so harshly of them, cannot help admitting in such a passage as, for
example, the following; 'It is wonderful in what peace and unity
they live with each other; for quarrelling and strife, hatred and
covetousness, are seldom heard of among them.[20] And even if one of
them happens to bear an ill-will to another, he does not let it be seen,
nor, on account of their great tenderness for each other, does he take
upon himself to attack him openly with violence or abuse, their language
being indeed devoid of the necessary words.' Observe that this is said
by a missionary of heathens, who, therefore, could not have developed
this peaceful temper through the influence of Christianity.
Then came the Europeans. Without knowing or understanding the people
or its requirements, they started from the assumption that it stood in
need of improvement in every possible way, and consequently set to work
to disturb and overturn the whole social order. They tried to force
upon the Eskimos a totally new character, gave them, all in a moment,
a new religion, and broke down their respect for their old customs
and traditions, of course without being able to give them new ones in
their place. The missionaries thought that they could make this wild,
free people of hunters into a civilised Christian nation, without for
a moment suspecting that at heart these people were in many respects
more Christian than themselves, and, among other things, like so many
primitive people, had put into practice the Christian doctrine of love
(charity) very much more fully than any Christian nation. The Europeans,
in short, conducted themselves in Greenland exactly as they are in the
habit of doing wherever they come forward in the name of the Christian
religion to 'make the poor heathen partakers in the blessings of eternal
truth.'
Very characteristic of this view is the following utterance of Egede's,
of which I have already spoken: 'The inborn stupidity and dulness of the
Greenlanders, their slothful and brutish upbringing, their wandering
and unstable way of life, certainly offer great hindrances to their
conversion, and ought as much as possible to be obviated and remedied.'
What a lack of comprehension! Only think, to want to obviate and remedy
the nomadic life of a tribe of hunters! What would remain to them? I
may add that he at another time proposes to attain this end by means of
'chastisement and discipline.'
The Eskimos at first listened in astonishment to the strangers. They
had hitherto been very well content with themselves and their whole way
of living; they did not know that man and his life on earth were so
miserable as the missionaries again and again assured them they were.
They had not, as Egede says, 'any just realisation of their own profound
corruption,' and had great difficulty in understanding a religion so
cruel as to condemn people to everlasting fire. They could quite well
recognise 'original sin' as a common characteristic of the _kavdlunaks_
(Europeans), for it was clear enough that many of them were bad; but the
_kaladlit_ (Eskimos) were good people, and ought without any trouble to
get into heaven.
When in 1728 a number of Danish men and women came to Godthaab to
colonise the country, many of them gave great offence to the heathens by
their evil ways, so that they 'often asked how it was that so many of
our people were so bad. Women (that is, Greenland women), they said, are
naturally quiet and modest; but these (the Europeans) were boisterous,
brazen, and lacking in all womanly propriety. Yet they surely all knew
God's will.' And the Greenlanders looked down upon and laughed at the
stupid, self-satisfied Europeans who preached so finely but practised so
little what they preached, and who, besides, knew nothing about hunting
or about all the things which the Eskimos regarded as the most important
in life.
The power which comes of a higher development gradually gave the
Europeans the upper hand, so that in the course of time they have
brought about a complete disturbance of the primitive social order, and
replaced it by an indeterminate mixture of Eskimo and modern European
habits and civilisation; while they have also effected a deplorable
mixture of breeds, and produced, without the help of the clergy, an
exceedingly mongrel population.
But, as the Eskimos are a very conservative people, we can still find
many important traces of their primitive condition.
The Greenlanders, like all nations of hunters, have a very restricted
sense of property; but it is a mistake to suppose it entirely
non-existent.
As regards the great majority of things, a certain communism prevails;
but this is always limited to wider or narrower circles according to
the nature of the thing in question. Ascending from the individual, we
find in the family the narrowest social circle; then come housemates and
the nearest kinsfolk, and then all the families of the village. Private
property is most fully recognised in the kaiak, the kaiak-dress and the
hunting-weapons, which belong to the hunter alone, and which no one
must touch. With them he supports himself and his family, and he must
therefore always be sure of finding them where he last laid them; it is
seldom that they are even lent to others. In former times, good hunters
would often own two kaiaks, but that is seldom the case now. Snow-shoes
may almost be regarded as belonging to implements of the chase; but as
they were introduced by the Europeans, they are not considered matters
of private property in the same degree; so that while an Eskimo seldom
or never touches another's weapons he will scarcely think twice about
using another's snow-shoes without asking leave.
Next to clothes and hunting implements come the tools which are used in
the houses, such as knives, axes, saws, skin-cutters, &c. Many of these,
and especially the women's sewing materials, are regarded as altogether
private property.
Other household implements are the common property of the family or
even of all the occupants of the house. The woman-boat and the tent
belong to the father of the family or to the family as a whole. The
house belongs to the family, and if several families live together they
own it in common.
The Eskimo knows nothing of private property in land; yet there seems
to be a recognised rule that no one shall pitch a tent or build a house
at a place where people are already settled without obtaining their
consent.
As an example of their consideration for each other in this respect I
may cite a custom which was thus described by Lars Dalager more than
a hundred years ago: 'In the summer, when they take their tents and
baggage with them, and think of settling down at a place where other
Greenlanders are living, they row very slowly towards the shore, and
when they come to within a gunshot of it they stop and lie upon their
oars without saying a word. If those on shore are equally silent and
give no sign, the newcomers think they are not wanted and therefore
row away as fast as possible to some unoccupied place. But if those
on shore, as generally happens, meet them with compliments, such as:
"Look here! here are good places for your tents, a good beach for your
woman-boats--come and rest after the labours of the day!" they, after a
little consideration, lay in to the shore where the others stand ready
to receive them and to help with the landing of the baggage. But when
they are starting again, the people of the place confine themselves
to helping in the launch of the woman-boat, and let the strangers
themselves see to the rest, unless they happen to be very good friends
or near relations, in which case they are despatched with the same marks
of honour with which they were received, and with some such phrases as
this: "Your visit will be a pleasant memory to us."'[21]
We may perhaps find the rudiments of the conception of private property
in land in the fact that where dams have been built in a salmon river
to gather the fish together, it is not regarded as the right thing if
strangers come and interfere with the dams or fish with nets in the
dammed-up waters, as Europeans were often in the habit of doing in
earlier times. This too is mentioned by Dalager.
Driftwood belongs to whoever first finds it floating in the sea,
wherever it may happen to be. In order to sustain his right to it, the
finder is bound to tow it ashore and place it above the high-water line,
if possible marking it in one way or another. For this form of property
the Eskimo has the greatest respect, and one who has left a piece of
drift-wood on the shore may be sure of finding it again even several
years after, unless Europeans have come along in the meantime. Any one
taking it would be regarded as a scoundrel.
As to their customs in lending and trading, I may again quote Dalager:
'If one man lends another anything, for example a boat, a harpoon, a
fishing-line, or other sea-implement, and it comes to harm--if, for
instance, the seal gets away with the harpoon, or the fish breaks the
line, or the fish or seal does injury to the boat--the owner must bear
the loss, the borrower making no reparation. But if anyone borrows darts
or implements without the knowledge of the owner, and they come to
harm, the borrower is bound to make good the damage. This happens very
seldom; for a Greenlander must be hard pushed before he will trouble his
neighbour to lend him anything, for fear of any harm occurring to it.
'When one makes a purchase from another, and the wares do not suit him,
he can return them even after a considerable time has elapsed.
'If one buys of another such costly things as a boat or a gun, and the
buyer is not in a position to satisfy the seller in ready money, he
is allowed credit until he can pay up. But if the debtor dies in the
meantime, the creditor never makes any claim. This,' adds Dalager, 'is
an inconvenient habit for the merchants of the colony, who are always
bound to give credit; whereof I have had several experiences, especially
this year, many of my debtors having departed this life, and thus
brought me into considerable perplexity.'
On his complaining to 'some influential and reasonable Greenlanders,'
they advised him 'to register his claim at once, but to let the man's
lice die in the grave (as they expressed it) before he proceeded to
execution.'
Beyond the articles above enumerated,[22] the Greenlander, according
to his primitive customs, can possess but little. Even if he had a
faculty for laying up riches, which he very seldom has, his needier
fellows would have the right to enforce a claim upon such of his
possessions as were not necessary for himself. Thus we find in Greenland
this unfortunate state of things: that the European immigrants, who
are in reality supported by the natives, often become rich and live
in abundance (at any rate, according to the Eskimo ideas), while the
natives themselves are in want.
The Greenlander has not even unrestricted rights over the game he
himself secures. There have been fixed rules from time immemorial
according to which it is divided, and there are only a few sorts of
animals which he can keep pretty well to himself and to his family. To
these belong the _atak_ or Greenland seal; but even in its case he must
give a portion of blubber to each of the kaiak-men who are present when
he takes it, and in the same way the children of the village, when he
comes home, receive a little scrap of blubber apiece. There are fixed
rules for other sorts of game, in accordance with which the whole animal
is divided among those who were present when it was killed or even among
all the houses of the village. This is especially the case with regard
to the walrus and several sorts of whales, as, for example, the white
whale; of this the hunter receives only a comparatively small portion,
even when he has killed it without help from others. When a whale of
any size is brought to shore, it is said to be quite a horrible sight
to see all the inhabitants of the village, armed with knives, flinging
themselves upon it to secure each his share, while it is still in the
water.
The scene is so sanguinary that Dalager declares that he has 'never
seen or heard of a whale being cut up without someone or other being
mutilated, or at least badly wounded, so great is the careless eagerness
with which several hundred people will rush upon the fish, each one
doing his best for himself, and, therefore, paying very little heed
as to where he slashes with his knife.' It is characteristic of their
amiability, however, that 'when one of them has thus come to harm, he
does not bear any grudge against the man who injured him, but regards it
as an accident.'
It is not only with respect to the larger animals that such rules hold
good; they also apply in the case of certain fishes. Thus if a halibut
is caught, the fisher is bound to give the other kaiak-men upon the
hunting-ground a piece of the skin for division among themselves; and
in addition to this, when he comes home, he generally gives some of the
animal to his housemates and neighbours.[23]
[Illustration: FISHING]
Even when a Greenlander has fulfilled all the aforesaid laws, he cannot
always keep to himself his own share of his booty. For instance, if he
makes a catch at a time when there is scarcity or famine in the village,
it is regarded as his duty either to give a feast or to divide his prey
among other families, who may perhaps have had to go for long without
fresh meat.
After a good haul, they make a feast, and eat as long as they can. If
everything is not eaten up, and there is plenty in the other houses
as well, what remains is stored against the winter; but in times of
scarcity it is regarded as the duty of those who have anything to
help those who have nothing, even to the last remnant of food. After
that, they starve in company, and sometimes starve to death. That some
people should live in profusion while others suffer need, as we see
it occurring daily in European communities, is an unheard of thing
in Greenland; except that the European settlers, with the habitual
providence of our race, have often stores of food while the Greenlanders
are starving.
It will be understood from what has been said that the tendency of
the law is, as much as possible, to let the whole village benefit by
the captured prey, so that no family shall be entirely dependent upon
the daily 'take' of those who provide for it. These are laws which
have developed through the experience of long ages, and have become
established by the habit of many generations.
The Greenlander is, on the whole, like a sympathetic child with respect
to the needs of others; _his first social law is to help his neighbour_.
Upon it, and upon their habit of clinging together through good and ill,
depends the existence of the little Greenland community. A hard life has
taught the Eskimo that however capable he may be, and able as a rule to
look after himself, there may come times when without the help of his
fellow-men he would have to go to the wall; therefore, it is best to
help others. 'Therefore, all things whatsoever ye would that men should
do to you, do ye even so to them'--this commandment, one of the first
and most important of Christianity, Nature itself has instilled into
the Greenlander, and he always acts up to it, which can scarcely be
affirmed of Christian nations. It is unfortunate that, as he advances in
civilisation, this commandment seems to lose its power over him.
Hospitality to strangers is a no less binding law among the Eskimos
than helpfulness to neighbours. The traveller enters the first hut he
comes to, and remains there as long as convenient. He is kindly received
and entertained with what the house can offer, even if he be an enemy.
When he proceeds on his way, he often takes a store of food along
with him; I have seen kaiak-men leave houses where they had remained
weatherbound for several days, loaded with halibut flesh, which had
been presented to them on their departure. No payment is ever made for
the entertainment. A European, too, is everywhere hospitably received,
although the Greenlanders would not think of making similar claims upon
his hospitality. Europeans, however, often make some sort of recompense
by treating their entertainers to coffee and such other delicacies as
they may have with them.
That hospitality is considered a very binding duty upon the east coast
of Greenland appears from several remarkable instances related by
Captain Holm. I may refer the reader to what he tells of the murderer
Maratuk, who had killed his stepfather. He was a bad man, and no one
liked him; yet when he presented himself at the house of the murdered
man's nearest relatives, he was received and entertained for a long
time--but they spoke ill of him when he had gone.
Hospitality is of course forced upon them by their natural surroundings;
for it often happens that they are overtaken by storms when far
from home, so that they are compelled to take refuge in the nearest
dwelling-place.
It seems, unhappily, as though hospitality had declined of late years on
the west coast. Doubtless it is once more the Europeans who have given
the example. And the fact that the people are by no means so well-to-do
as in earlier times, and are therefore less able to entertain strangers,
has no doubt tended in the same direction.
Many of my readers are probably of opinion that I am unjust to us
Europeans; but that is far from my intention. If the Europeans have not
had the best influence, the fact cannot always be directly laid to their
charge; circumstances have rendered it inevitable, in spite of excellent
intentions on their part. For example, they have conscientiously
laboured to foster the sense of property among the Greenlanders,
encouraging them to save up portions of their booty, instead of
lavishing it abroad in their usual free-handed way, and so forth; the
principle being that a more highly developed sense of property is the
first condition of civilisation. Whether this is a benefit may seem
doubtful to many; for my part I have no doubt about the matter. I must
admit, of course, that civilisation presupposes a much greater faculty
for the acquisition of worldly goods than the Eskimo is possessed of;
but what I cannot understand is what these poor people have to do with
civilisation. It assuredly makes them no happier, it ruins what is fine
and admirable in their character, makes them weaker in the struggle for
existence, and inevitably leads them to poverty and misery. But more of
this at a later opportunity.
The laws upon which the heathen community in Greenland rests are, as we
have seen, as nearly as possible socialism carried into practice. In
this respect, accordingly, they are more Christian than those of any
Christian community. The social reformers of to-day might learn much in
these high latitudes.
Spencer has in one of his books pointed out that mankind has
two religions. The first and most natural is the instinct of
self-preservation, which impels the individual to protect himself
against all outward opposition or hostile interference. This he calls
the religion of enmity. The other is the instinct of association, which
impels men to join fellowship with their neighbours; and to it we trace
the Christian doctrine that you should love your neighbour as yourself,
and should even love your enemies. This he calls the religion of
friendship. The former is the religion of the past, the latter that of
the future.
Precisely this religion of the future the Eskimo seems to have made his
own to a peculiar degree.
The men of some tribes or races are driven to combine with each other
by the pressure of human enemies, others by inhospitable natural
surroundings. The latter has been the case with the Eskimos. Where
the instinct of association and mutual help has been most strongly
developed, there has the community's power of maintaining itself been
greatest, and it has increased in numbers and in well-being; while other
small communities, with less of this instinct, have declined or even
succumbed altogether.
In so far as we believe with Spencer that the religion of friendship is
that of the future, that self-sacrifice for the benefit of the community
is the point towards which development is tending, we must assign to the
Eskimo a high place in the scale of nations.
It is a question, however, whether our forefathers also, in long bygone
ages, did not act upon a similar principle. It may be that social
development proceeds in a spiral with ever wider and wider convolutions.
Footnotes.
[20: 'When they have seen our dissolute sailors quarrelling and
fighting, they regard such behaviour as inhuman, and say: "They do
not treat each other as human beings." In the same way, if one of the
officers strikes a subordinate, they at once exclaim: "He behaves to his
fellow-men as if they were dogs."']
[21: Dalager, _Grönlandske Relationer_, Copenhagen, 1752, pp. 15-16.]
[22: Dogs, however, must be added to the list, and, in the case of the
North and East Greenlanders, dog-sledges.]
[23: When several are hunting in company, there are fixed rules to
determine to whom the game belongs. If two or more shoot at a reindeer,
the animal belongs to him who first hit it, even if he only wounded
it slightly. As to the rules for seal-hunting, Dalager says: 'If a
Greenlander strikes a seal or other marine animal with his light dart,
and it is not killed, but gets away with the dart, and if another then
comes and kills it with his darts, it nevertheless belongs to the first;
but if he has used the ordinary harpoon, and the line breaks, and
another comes and kills the animal, the first has lost his right to it.
If, however, they both throw at the same time and both harpoons strike,
the animal is cut lengthwise in two, and divided between them, skin and
all.' 'If two throw at a bird simultaneously, it is divided between
them.' 'If a dead seal is found with a harpoon fixed in it, if the owner
of the harpoon is known in the neighbourhood, he gets his weapon back,
but the finder keeps the seal.' Similar rules seem also to be in force
upon the east coast.]