The Eskimo women, then, are allowed far greater freedom in this respect than women of Germanic stock. The reason probably is that whereas inheritance, and the continuance of the race and name, have been matters of supreme importance to the Teutons, the Eskimos have had little or no property to transmit from father to son, while for them the great consideration is simply that children shall be born.
With reference to the above-mentioned game, however, Dalager declares that it is of very rare occurrence, ‘and that it is to be observed that a married woman who has duly become the mother of a family never takes part in it.’
On the other hand, he tells us that widows and divorced wives are not so particular. While it is very seldom that ‘a young girl has a child, one sees older women bearing just as many children as if they were living in wedlock. If they are reproved for this, even by their own countrymen, they will often answer that their conduct does not proceedfrom mere wantonness, but from a natural longing to bear children, which leads them to seduce many a worthy man.’
On the east coast, too, the morality of married people seems to leave a good deal to be desired, according to our ideas. I have mentioned, for instance, that the men often exchange wives; but the exchange is strictly a personal matter, and the husband will usually resent any unfaithfulness on the wife’s part to the man to whom he has lent her, he himself, however, claiming full liberty. While living in their winter houses they often play a wife-exchanging or lamp-extinguishing game, like that above-mentioned; but in this the unmarried also take part. Holm tells us that ‘a good host always has the lamps put out at night when there are guests in the house.’
So far as I know, this game is no longer practised on the west coast. Married Christian Greenlanders, however, do not seem to have any overweening respect for the seventh commandment, and irregularities of conduct are far from uncommon.
The morals above described seem to us very bad on the whole; but it does not follow that the Eskimos share this feeling. We should beware how we fix ourselves at one point of view, and unsparingly condemn ideas and practices which the experience of many generations has developed among anotherpeople, however much they may conflict with our own. There may be underlying reasons which do not at once meet the eye, and which place the whole matter in a very different light.
The conceptions of good and evil in this world are exceedingly divergent. As an example, let me cite the case of the Eskimo girl who, when Niels Egede spoke to her of love of God and her neighbour, said to him: ‘I have given proof of love for my neighbour. Once an old woman who was ill, but could not die, offered to pay me if I would lead her to the top of the steep cliff from which our people have always thrown themselves when they are tired of living; but I, having ever loved my neighbours, led her thither without payment, and cast her over the cliff.’ Egede told her that this was ill done, and that she had killed a fellow-creature. ‘She said no; but that she was filled with pity for her, and cried after she had fallen over.’ Are we to call this a good or an evil deed?
Another time, when Egede was explaining how God punishes wicked people, an Eskimo remarked that in that respect he was like God, for he had killed three old women who were witches.
The same divergence of judgment makes itself felt with regard to the seventh commandment. To the Eskimo the other exhortation to increase andmultiply seems to be of greater weight. The reason may partly be that his race is by nature unprolific.
Like many other peoples, the Eskimos found it strange that we should not regard polygamy with warm approval. Among them, a man was held in esteem in proportion to the number of wives he possessed, and they therefore thought the Old Testament patriarchs more reasonable than we. This, however, is a view which we find prevailing among our own forefathers, until well on in historical times.
When Paul Egede was remonstrating with the Greenlanders one day upon their polygamous proclivities, one of them fell to eulogising his own wife for her ‘good humour in never being angry because he loved strange women.’ Egede said that ‘women in our country could not endure that their husbands should care for others; they would turn them out of their houses.’ ‘It is no praise to your women,’ replied the Eskimo, ‘that they want to have their husbands all to themselves and to be masters over them; we hold that a fault.’
Their way of thinking in these matters is less ideal and more practical than ours, and their point of view entirely different. Their habit of exchanging wives, for example, and their treatment of barren women, seems to us wanton and immoral; but when we remember that the production of offspring is thegreat end and aim of their conduct, and reflect what an all-important matter this is for them, we may perhaps pass a somewhat milder judgment.
If a Greenlander’s wife does not bear children, his marriage fails of its chief purpose, and it is quite natural that he should try to find a remedy. A young man whose wife had no children once offered Niels Egede a fox-skin either to come to his aid himself in the matter, or to order one of his sailors to do so, and was much astonished to find Egede indignant at the proposal. ‘There would be no disgrace,’ he said, ‘for she is married, and she could have one of your married sailors.’
It appears, however, that even the married Greenlanders are not by nature devoid of what we understand as moral feeling, for their everyday behaviour is, as a rule, quite reputable and void of offence; on that point all travellers must agree.
If a heathen—and in many cases even a Christian—Greenlander refrains from having to do with another man’s wife, whom he has looked upon with favour, it is generally, no doubt, more because he shrinks from quarrelling with the husband than because he regards adultery as morally wrong; but we may gather from the following saying, current at Angmagsalik, that even on the east coast there is a vague feeling that it is not the right thing. ‘Thewhale, the musk-ox, and the reindeer,‘ so the saying runs, ‘left the country because men had too much to do with other men’s wives.’ Many men declared, however, that it was ‘because the women were jealous of their husbands.’ The jealousy of the women was also alleged as a reason for the fact that the channel which formerly went right through the country, from the Sermelik Fiord to the west coast, had been blocked with ice.[40]
Egede relates that, strangely enough as he thought, the women before his arrival had felt no jealousy when their husbands had more wives than one, ‘and got on very well with each other’; but as soon as he had preached to them the wickedness of such proceedings, they began to show much annoyance when their husbands wanted to take second wives. ‘When I have been reading with them,’ he says, ‘and instructing them in the Word of God, they have often urged me to bring the seventh commandment sharply home to their husbands.’ The men, as may be supposed, did not at all approve of the missionaries’ influence over the women in this respect, and one of them, whose two wives had fallen by the ears, said angrily to Niels Egede: ‘You have spoiled them with your teaching, and now they’re jealous of each other.’ It appears to methat the man’s anger was not without justification. What should we say if Greenlanders came to our country, forced themselves into our houses, and preached their own morality to our wives?
Before we utterly condemn the morality of the Eskimos, we ought also, perhaps, to remember the golden maxim that those who live in glass houses should not throw stones. European morality is in many respects of such doubtful value that we have scarcely the right to pose as judges. After all is said and done, it is possible that the most essential difference between our morality and that of the Eskimos is that with us the worst things take place behind the scenes, in partial or complete secrecy, and therefore produce all the more demoralising effect, while among the Eskimos everything happens on the open stage. The instincts of human nature cannot be altogether suppressed. It is with them as with explosives: where they lie unprotected on the surface, they may be easily ‘set off,’ but they do little mischief; whereas when they lie deeper and more concealed, they are perhaps less easily kindled, but when once they take fire the explosion is far more violent and destructive, and the greater the weight that is piled upon them, the greater havoc do they work.
According to the Eskimo code, marriage betweenfirst cousins, or between any near relations, is prohibited. Even foster-children, who happen to have been brought up in the same household, cannot marry. A man should, if possible, seek his wife in another village.
This rule answers to the so-called law of exogamy, or prohibition of marriage with blood relations, with people of the same family name, or even belonging to the same clan (among the Chinese), gotra (among the Hindus), or gens (among the Romans?), which is also found in slightly different forms in the Greek, and formerly in the Catholic, Church, among the Slavonic and Indian races, and in many other quarters. Plutarch says of the Romans that in earlier times they no more thought of marrying women of the same stock than they would in his day think of marrying aunts or cousins. Our own forefathers, in long past ages, probably observed the law of exogamy, which, however, stands in sharp opposition to the feeling now dominant in Norway, that natives of the same place should be chosen in marriage, and if possible near relatives, even first cousins. It seems to be the general rule that we find the widest circles of prohibition against marriage among savage peoples, while among modern and civilised nations a greater freedom prevails. Exogamy would thus appear to be a relic of barbarism from which we Norwegianshave very thoroughly freed ourselves. It is very difficult to explain the origin of this law. Many writers, as we know, seek to trace it to the primitive conception of woman as a chattel, and commonly as a captive of the spear, whence it followed that a wife ought not to be taken from among relations or friends, but should be carried off from another tribe. Although the scientific authorities are against me, it appears to me by no means impossible that we may also find at the root of the custom the belief that marriage between near relations produces a weakly progeny. This belief, at any rate, prevails among almost all nations in the form of a dread of incest. It is true that modern research has sought to show that marriage between kinsfolk is not injurious; but whether well-founded or not, the contrary belief has undoubtedly been entertained, and from it the law of exogamy would naturally follow. The fact that among the Greenlanders it goes the length of forbidding marriage between people of the same village is easily explicable when we think of the above-mentioned customs, which render it impossible to be sure who may or may not be half-brothers and sisters.
In several respects the morality of the heathen Eskimos stands considerably higher than that which one generally finds in Christian communities. As Ihave already pointed this out (in Chapter VIII.), I will here only remind the reader of their self-sacrificing love of their neighbour and their mutual helpfulness, to which, indeed, we find no parallel in European society. These virtues, however, are not unfrequently to be found among primitive peoples, and are probably in the main due to the simpler structure of society. A more developed and consequently more complicated social order leads to the decline of many of the natural virtues of humanity.
But the Eskimo’s love of his neighbour goes the length of restraining him from slandering him, and even from any sort of evil-speaking, especially in the case of a neighbour in the literal sense of the word. Scandal and malice are inconsistent with his peaceable and kindly disposition. As before remarked, the women do not seem to be quite so exemplary in this respect; but we know that such weaknesses are commonly attributed to the softer sex all the world over.
Reverence for the aged is not a prominent feature of the Eskimo character. They are honoured, indeed, so long as they are able to work, and if they have in their younger days been good hunters, and have sons, they may retain great influence and be regarded as the head of the household. A woman who has able-bodied sons may also be treated with reverence,even should she attain a great age. A widow especially has often great power, governing the house as long as she lives, and having the upper hand of her daughters-in-law. But, as a rule, when people grow so old that they cannot take care of themselves, they are apt to be treated with scant consideration, especially women. Sometimes the younger generation will even go the length of making fun of them, and to this the poor old people submit with great patience, regarding it simply as the way of the world.
That the reader may form some conception of a primitive Eskimo’s habits of thought on moral questions, I quote the following letter from a converted Greenlander to Paul Egede.[41]I reproduce it here, because it in many respects bears out the views above expressed, and Egede’s book ‘Accounts of Greenland,’[42]in which this translation is printed (pp. 230-236) is now not easily obtainable. The writer was a heathen who had been baptised by Paul Egede’s father, Hans Egede. The letter, which was of course written in Eskimo, gives evidence not only of a peculiar moral point of view, but also of a keen understanding, and of feelings which, as Paul Egede says, one would scarcely expect ‘in so stupid apeople as we have hitherto taken them to be.’ It is, as will be seen, an answer to an epistle of Egede’s, and runs as follows:—
Amiable Pauia![43]
You know how precious and agreeable your letter is to me; but how appalled I was when I read of the destruction of such multitudes of people in the great earthquake,[44]inconceivable to us, which you say devoured in one moment more people than there are in all our country. I cannot tell you how this moved me, or how frightened we were, so that many fled from the place where they lived to another, which was quite as unsafe, though it was on a rock; for we see even here that rocks have been split open from the top to the very depths, though when it happened none of us know. Granite rocks, such as our land consists of, and sand-hills like your land, are equally easy for God to overthrow, in whose power the whole world stands, and we poor little animals are easily buried in the ruins. You give me to understand that with you there have been neither snow nor great cold this winter, and conclude that it must have been all the severer with us; but we, too, have had an unusually mild winter. I hear that your learned men are of opinion that this mild weather has been caused by the warm vapours emanating from the earth at the time of the earthquake, which have warmed the air and melted the snow-material. But if I had not heard that this was the opinion of the learned, I should have thought that the warmth of the earth would avail little to heat the height and breadth of the air—as little as a man’s breath avails to warm a large house in which he simply breathes for a momentand then goes out again. The south winds, which are always warm, and have blown all the year through with us, are the cause of the moderate cold we have had; but why the south wind blew I cannot tell, nor the learned either, perhaps. Were these wretched people killed by the heat, or did the earth swallow them up, or were they shaken to death? Skipper B. thought that their own houses must have fallen upon them and killed them. Your people do not seem to care very much about it; for they are not only cheerful and merry, but they relate that the two nations[45]who come here whale-fishing, not your countrymen, but of the same faith as you, are fighting with and shooting each other both by land and sea, hunting each other as we hunt seals and reindeer, and stealing and taking away ships and goods from each other, from people they have never seen or known, simply because their lord and master will have it so. When I asked the skipper, through an interpreter, what could be the cause of such inhumanity, he answered that it was all about a piece of land right opposite ours,[46]so far away that it could only be reached after three months’ sailing. Then I thought that there must be great scarcity of land where these people dwell; but he said no, that it was only because of the great lords’ greediness for more riches and more people to rule over. I was so astounded by this greediness, and so terrified lest it should fall upon us too, that I was almost out of my mind; but I presently took heart again, you will scarcely guess why. I thought of our snow-clad country and its poor inhabitants, and said to myself: ‘Thank God! we are poor and possess nothing which these greedy Kablunaks [so they call all foreigners] can desire.What we have upon the earth they do not care to possess, what we require for food and clothing swims in the great sea; of that they may take as much as they can, there will always be enough for us.’ If only we have as much food as we can eat, and skins enough to keep us from the cold, we are quite contented; and you know very well that we let to-morrow take care of itself. Therefore we will not fight with anyone, even if we were strong enough; although we can as justly say that the sea belongs to us as the believers in the East can say of the unbelievers in the West that they and their possessions belong to them. We can say it is our sea which surrounds our land, and that the whales, cachalots, grampuses, porpoises, unicorns [that is, narwhals], white whales, seals, halibuts, salmon, cod, and sea-scorpions which swim in it belong to us too; but we willingly allow others to take of this great store as much as they please. We are happy in that we have not so great a natural covetousness as they. I have often wondered at the Christians, and have not known what to think about them—they leave their own beautiful land, and suffer much hardship in this country, which is to them so rough and disagreeable, simply for the sake of making us good people; but have you seen so much evil in our nation, have you ever heard such strange and utterly senseless talk among us? Their teachers instruct us how we are to escape the devil, whom we never knew; and yet the roystering sailors pray with the greatest earnestness that the devil may take them, or may split them. I daresay you remember how I, in my youth, learned such phrases from them to please them, without knowing what they meant, until you forbade me to use them. Since I have come to understand them myself, I have heard more than I wanted of them. This year in particular I have heard so much of the Christians, that if I had not, in the course of long familiaritywith them, known many good and worthy men among them, and if Hans Pungiok and Arnarsak, who have been to your country, had not told me that there were many pious and virtuous people there, I could have wished that we had never set eyes upon them lest they should corrupt our people. I daresay you have often heard how my countrymen think of you and yours that you have learned good behaviour among us; and when they see a pious person among you, they will often say, ‘He is like a human being,’ or ‘a Greenlander.’ You no doubt remember that funny fellow Okako’s idea of sending angekoks [that is, medicine-men] to your country to teach the people to be good, as your king has sent preachers hither to teach us that there is a God, which we did not know before. But I know that your people do not lack instruction, and therefore that proposal is of no use. It is strange enough, my dear Pauia!—your people know that there is a God, the creator and upholder of all things, that after this life they will either be happy or miserable, according as they shall have conducted themselves here, and yet they live as if they were under orders to be wicked, and it was to their honour and advantage to sin. My countrymen, on the other hand, know nothing either of a God or a devil, believe neither in punishment nor in reward after this life; and yet they live decently, treat each other kindly, and share with each other peaceably when they have food to share. There are, of course, bad people among us too, which proves that we must be of one stock; and perhaps we must thank our barren land for the fact that most of us are above reproach. (You do not think, I hope, that I am talking hypocritically about my countrymen, for you know by experience that what I say is true.) When I have heard accounts of your pleasant country I have often envied its inhabitants; for they have great abundance of the delicious fruits of the earth, and of animals, birds, and fishesof innumerable sorts, fine large comfortable houses, fine clothes, a long summer, no snow or cold, no midges, but everything pleasant and desirable; and this happiness, I thought, belonged to you alone because you were believers, and, as it were, God’s own children, while we, as unbelievers, were placed in this country as a punishment. But, oh, we happy Greenlanders! Oh, dear native land! How well it is that you are covered with ice and snow; how well it is that if in your rocks there are gold and silver, for which the Christians are so greedy, it is covered with so much snow that they cannot get at it! Your unfruitfulness makes us happy and saves us from molestation! Pauia! we are indeed contented with our lot. Fish and flesh are our sole food; dainties seldom come in our way, but are all the pleasanter when they do. Our drink is ice-cold water; it quenches thirst and does not steal away the understanding or the natural strength like that maddening drink of which your people are so fond. Our clothing is of unsightly thick-haired skins, but it is well suited to this country, both for the animals, while the skins are still theirs, and for us when we take them from them. Here then, thank God, there is nothing to tempt anyone to come and kill us for its sake. We live without fear. It is true that here in the North we have the fierce white bears; but to deal with them we have our dogs, which fight for us, so that we do not run the slightest risk. Murder is very seldom heard of among us. It does not happen unless someone is suspected or accused of being a magician and of having killed someone by his witchcraft, in which case he is killed without remorse by those whose duty it is, who think they have just as good right as the executioner in your country to take the lives of malefactors; but they make no boast of it, and do not give thanks to God for it like the great lords in your country, when they have killed all the people ofanother land, as D. has told me. It surely cannot be to the good God of whom you teach us, who has forbidden us to shed blood, that they give thanks and praises; it must be to another who loves slaughter and destruction. I wonder if it is not to the Tornarsuk [the devil]? Yet that cannot be either; for it would be flying in the face of the good God to give any honour to Satan. I hope you will explain this to me at your convenience. I promise not to tell my countrymen about it. It might lead them to think like Kaua, who dared not become a Christian for fear he should come to be like the wicked sailors. I will not tell you anything about the conversion of my countrymen, for I know that our teacher has given you all information. The thing you desired me to look into I will, as far as I am able, attend to. I have not been able to make the experiment with the compass, since the cold this year has been only moderate. The cause of the two conflicting currents is no doubt what you say. Since you value so much the two fishes almost turned to stone, I shall try to procure more for you; they are found in clay beds, as you suppose. Now I seem to have been speaking to you and you to me—now I must close my letter. The skipper is ready and the wind is fair. The mighty Protector of all of us guide them over the great and perilous sea, and preserve them, especially from the wicked men-hunters, of whom I see they are most in dread, so that they may come scatheless to their fatherland and find you, my beloved, with gladness.
Paul Greenlander.
Greenland, 1756.
This letter, as well as what has been stated in the earlier part of this chapter, surely justifies us in saying that the primitive morality of the Eskimostands in many respects close to that of ideal Christianity, and is even in one way superior to it; for, as the letter-writer says, the Greenlanders ‘know nothing either of a God or a devil, believe neither in punishment nor in reward after this life, and yet they live virtuously’ none the less.
Many people will, no doubt, think it astonishing that we should find so highly developed a morality among a race so uncultivated, and so unclean in their outward habits. Others will perhaps find it more surprising that this morality should have been developed among a people who have no religion, or at any rate a very imperfect one, as we shall presently see. Such facts are inconsistent with the theory which is still held in many quarters, that morality and religion are inseparable. A study of the Eskimo community shows pretty clearly, I think, that morality to a great extent springs from and rests upon natural law.
JUDICIAL PROCEEDINGS—DRUM-DANCES AND ENTERTAINMENTS
I have again and again sought to impress upon the reader that the Eskimos are a peaceable and kindly race. There is no more striking proof of this, I think, than their primitive judicial process.
It is a mistake to suppose that the heathen Eskimos had no means of submitting any wrong they had suffered to the judgment of their fellows. Their judicial process, however, was of a quite peculiar nature, and consisted of a sort of duel. It was not fought with lethal weapons, as in the so-called civilised countries; in this, as in other things, the Greenlander went more mildly to work, challenging the man who had done him wrong to a contest of song or a drum-dance. This generally took place at the great summer meetings, where many people were assembled with their tents. The litigants stood face to face with each other in the midst of a circle of on-lookers, both men and women, and, beatinga tambourine or drum, each in turn sang satirical songs about the other. In these songs, which as a rule were composed beforehand, but were sometimes improvised, they related all the misdeeds of their opponent and tried in every possible way to make him ridiculous. The one who got the audience to laugh most at his jibes or invectives was the conqueror. Even such serious crimes as murder were often expiated in this way. It may appear to us a somewhat mild form of punishment, but for this people, with their marked sense of honour, it was sufficient; for the worst thing that can happen to a Greenlander is to be made ridiculous in the eyes of his fellows, and to be scoffed at by them. It has even happened that a man has been forced to go into exile by reason of a defeat in a drum-dance.
This drum-dance is still to be found upon the east coast. It seems clear that it must be an exceedingly desirable institution, and for my part I only wish that it could be introduced into Europe; for a quicker and easier fashion of settling quarrels and punishing evil-doers it is difficult to imagine.
The missionaries on the west coast of Greenland, unfortunately, do not seem to have been of the same opinion. Being a heathen custom, it was therefore, in their opinion, immoral and noxious as well; and on the introduction of Christianity they opposed itand rooted it out. Dalager even tells us that ‘there is scarcely any vice practised among the Greenlanders against which our missionaries preach more vehemently than they do against this dance, affirming that it is the occasion of all sorts of misbehaviour, especially among the young.’ This policy he did not at all approve. He admits, indeed, that the dances may be the occasion of a few irregularities, but adds that if a girl has made up her mind to part with her virtue, she is not likely to select so unquiet a time and place; and one cannot but agree with him when he exclaims, ‘And in truth, if people danced to such good purpose among us, we should presently see every second moralist and advocate transformed into a dancing-master.’
The result of this inconsiderate action on the part of the missionaries is that, in reality, no law and no forms of justice now exist in Greenland. The Europeans cannot, of course, or at any rate should not, mix themselves up in the Greenlanders’ private affairs. But when, on some rare occasion, a crime of real importance occurs, the Danish authorities feel that they must intervene. The consequences of such intervention are sometimes rather surprising. At a settlement in North Greenland some years ago (so I have been told), a man who had killed his mother was punished by banishmentto a desert island. In order that he should be able to support himself in solitude, they had to give him a new kaiak, and a small store of food to begin with. Some time afterwards, the food having run out, he returned to the settlement and declared that he could not live on the island, because there was not enough game in the waters around it. He therefore settled down again in his old house, and the only change in his life brought about by his matricide was that he got a new kaiak.
The managers of the colonies sometimes have recourse to a more effective method of punishment in the case of women: it consists in excluding them for a certain time from dealing at the stores.
Besides being a judicial process, the drum-dance was also a great entertainment, and was often danced merely for the sake of pastime. In this case the dancers sang songs of various kinds, beating a drum the while, and going through a varied series of more or less burlesque writhings and contortions of the body. This is another consideration which ought to have made the missionaries think twice before abolishing the drum-dances, for amusement is a necessity of life, serving to refresh the mind, and is of quite peculiar importance for a people which, like the Greenlanders, inhabits an inhospitable region and has few diversions. Tomake up for the loss of the drum-dances, they have now borrowed from the European whale-fishers and sailors many European dances, especially reels, which they have to some extent modified according to their own taste. At the colonies, the carpenter’s shop, the blubber-loft, or some other large apartment, is generally used as a ball-room, and here dances take place as often as the managers or other authorities will give permission—generally once a week. In the other villages the dancing takes place in the Greenlanders’ own houses.
A Greenland ball offers a picturesque spectacle—the room half lighted by the train-oil lamps, and the crowd of people, young and old, all in their many-coloured garments, some of them taking part in the dance, some standing as on-lookers in crowded groups along the walls and upon the sleeping-benches and seats. There is plenty of beauty and of graceful form, commingled with the most extravagant hideousness. Over the whole scene there is a sense of sparkling merriment, and in the dance a great deal of grace and accomplishment. The feet will often move so nimbly in the reel that the eye can with difficulty follow them. In former days the music was generally supplied by a violin, but now the accordion, too, is much in use.
The unhappy Eskimos who belong to the Germanor Herrnhut communities, of which there are several in the country, are forbidden to dance, and even to look at others dancing. If they do, they are excommunicated by the missionaries, or put down in their black books.
A GREENLAND DANCE
A GREENLAND DANCE
Among other amusements, church-going takes a prominent place. They find the psalm-singing extremely diverting, and the women in particular are very much addicted to it.
The women, however, find shopping at least as entertaining. As the time for opening the stores approaches, they are to be seen, even in the winter snowstorms, standing in groups along the walls and waiting for the moment when the doors of Paradise shall be flung wide and they can rush in. Most of them do not want to buy anything, but they while away the hours during which the store is open, partly in examining all the European articles of luxury, especially stuffs and shawls, partly in flirting with the storekeepers, and partly in exchanging all sorts of more or less refined witticisms and ‘larking’ with each other.
The rush is particularly great every summer, after the arrival of the ships with cargoes of new wares from Europe. Then the stores are literally in a state of siege the whole day long. Like their European sisters, the Eskimo women are fond ofnovelties of all sorts, so that as soon as they arrive the stores do a roaring trade in them. The main point, so far as I could understand, is that the wares shall be new; the use they are to be put to is a minor consideration.
MENTAL GIFTS—ART—MUSIC—POETRY—ESKIMO NARRATIVES
The Greenlanders are endowed with good mental faculties and great inventiveness. Their implements and weapons, as we have seen, afford a striking proof of this. The missionaries, too, especially at first, found only too ample opportunity to judge of the keenness of their understanding, when they were so foolish as to let themselves be drawn into discussions with the heathen angekoks. When the missionaries were cornered, however, they had often arguments in reserve which were much more forcible than those of the natives. They wielded, as my friend, the master carpenter at Godthaab used to say, ‘a proper fist,’ and to its persuasions the peaceable Greenlanders could not but yield.
To prove that their natural parts are good, I may mention that they learn to read and write with comparative ease. Most of the Christian Eskimos can now read and write, many of them very well; indeed,their faculty for writing is often quite marvellous. Even the heathen Eskimos learn to play dominoes, draughts, and even chess, with ease. I have often played draughts with the natives of the Godthaab district, and was astonished at the ability and foresight which they displayed.
All our ordinary branches of education they master with more or less readiness. Arithmetic is what they find most difficult, and there are comparatively few who get so far as to deal competently with fractions; the majority have quite enough to do with addition and subtraction of integers, to say nothing of multiplication and division. The imperfection of their gifts in this direction is no doubt due to age-old causes. The Eskimo language, like most primitive idioms, has a very undeveloped system of numerals, five being the highest number for which they have a special word. They count upon their fingers: One,atausek; two,mardluk; three,pingasut; four,sisamet; five,tatdlimat, the last having probably been the original word for the hand. When an Eskimo wants to count beyond five, he expresses six by saying ‘the first finger of the other hand’ (arfinekorigluane atausek); for seven he says ‘the second finger of the other hand’ (arfinek mardluk), and so forth. When he reaches ten he has no more hands to count with, and must have recourse to his feet.Twelve, accordingly, is represented by ‘two toes upon the one foot’ (arkanek mardluk), and so forth; seventeen by ‘two toes on the second foot’ (arfersanek mardluk), and so forth. Thus he manages to mount to twenty, which he calls a whole man (inuk nâvdlugo). Here the mathematical conceptions of many Eskimos come to an end; but men of commanding intellect can count still further, and for one-and-twenty say ‘one on the second man’ (inûp áipagssâne atausek). Thirty-eight is expressed by ‘three toes on the second man’s second foot’ (inûp áipagssâne arfinek pingasut), forty by ‘the whole of the second man’ (inûp áipagssâ nâvdlugo), and so forth. In this way they can count to a hundred, or ‘the whole of the fifth man’; but beyond that his language will not carry even the most gifted Eskimo.
This is, as will be easily understood, a somewhat unwieldy method of expression when one has to deal with numbers over twenty. In former days there was seldom any need to go further than this; but the introduction of money and trade has, unfortunately, rendered this more frequently necessary. It is therefore not surprising that, in spite of their remarkable power of resistance to foreign words, the Greenlanders have begun more and more to adopt the Danish numerals, even for the smaller numbers. By their aid they have now got so far thatthey can count to over a hundred, which they calluntritigdlit[47]; but I strongly suspect that they have still a difficulty in forming any distinct conception of so high a number. A thousand they calltusintigdlit.[48]
This primitive Eskimo method of numeration answers to what we find among most primitive peoples, the fingers and toes having been from all time the most natural appliances for counting with; even our forefathers no doubt reckoned in the same way. Imperfect though it be, however, this method is a great advance upon that of the Australian tribes, who cannot count beyond three, or in some cases not beyond two, and whose numerals consist of: ‘One, two, plenty.’ That the forefathers of the Eskimos, as of all other peoples, at one time stood on this level appears from their original grammar, in which we find a singular, dual, and plural, as in Gothic, Greek, Sanscrit, the Semitic languages, and many others.
All travellers agree in acknowledging the Eskimo’s remarkable sense of locality and talent for topography. When Captain Ommaney, in 1850, asked an Eskimo from Cape York to draw the coast, he took a pencil, a thing he had never seen before, and sketched the coast-line along Smith’s Sound from his birthplace northwards with astonishing accuracy, indicating all the islands, and the moreimportant rocks, glaciers, and mountains, and mentioning the names of all of them. The heathen natives brought to Captain Holm a map of the east coast north of Angmagsalik, which they had cut out in wood.
The Greenlanders have, in my opinion, an indubitable artistic faculty, and if their culture in this direction is but little developed, I believe the reason lies in their hard fight for existence, which has left them no time for artistic pursuits. Their art[49]consists chiefly in the decoration of weapons, tools, and garments with patterns and figures, cut out of bone or wood, or embroidered in leather. The designs often represent animals, human beings, woman-boats, and kaiaks; but they are conventional, and intended rather for decorative or symbolic effect than as true reproductions of Nature; indeed, they have as a rule assumed quite traditional forms. Some, too, are of religious significance, and represent, for example, thetôrnârssuk—one of their spirits or supernatural beings. When they really try to copy Nature, they sometimes display a rare sense of form and power of reproducing it, as may be seen from the remarkable pictures given by Captain Holm of dolls andtoys from the east coast, which are therefore quite uninfluenced by European art-products.
Weapons and tools were doubtless among the first things upon which the human artistic faculty thought of exercising itself; but the human body itself was perhaps a still earlier subject for artistic treatment. Relics of this early form of art are found among the Eskimos, the women seeking to heighten their attractions by means of geometrical lines and figures which they produce upon face, breast, arms, or legs, by means of drawing sinews, blackened with lamp-soot, through the skin.
Hieroglyphics, which many believe to have been, in part at least, the origin of art, seem oddly enough to have been unknown among the Greenlanders, unless indeed the symbolic designs in their ornamentation can be supposed to have some such significance. The only attempt at real picture-writing which I have been able to discover among them does not evince a very high order of talent. It was a missive to Paul Egede from an angekok, which consisted simply of a stick, upon which was drawn, with soot and train-oil, a figure like this: Λ. The angekok called after the letter-carrier, as he took his departure, ‘If Pauia Angekok does not understand what I mean (though he probably will), then say to him: “This means a pair of trousers which I wanthim to buy for me at the stores.” But he will understand it well enough.’
Eskimos who have seen specimens of European art and methods of representation, will sometimes produce remarkable things without any sort of instruction. A Greenlander named Aaron once fell sick and had to keep to his bed. Dr. Rink sent him some materials for wood-engraving and some old woodcuts. Lying in bed, he at once began to illustrate the Eskimo legends, and he not only drew his pictures, but also cut them on the wood.
ESKIMO VENUS AND APOLLO
ESKIMO VENUS AND APOLLO
As an example of their talent for sculpture I here reproduce two heads, carved in wood, which a native of a village in the Godthaab district broughtto me. They seem to me to betray a marked sense of humour; and one can scarcely doubt that it is the features of his own race which the artist has immortalised.
Of musical talent the Greenlanders have a good share. They pick up our music with remarkable ease, and reproduce it, sometimes vocally, for they are very fond of singing, sometimes on the violin, guitar, organ, accordion, or other instruments, which they quickly teach themselves to play upon. This is the more remarkable as their primitive music, which was performed at the drum-dances, is monotonous and undeveloped, like that of most primitive peoples. It employs only a few notes, as a rule not more than five; but it is nevertheless peculiar and not without interest. It is believed to be in the main an imitation of the rushing of the rivers. The East Greenlanders told Holm that when they sleep beside a river they hear the singing of the dead, and this they seek to imitate.
The primitive characteristics of their music have of course been more or less destroyed by their intercourse with Europeans. They have now adopted many European airs, and it produces a quaint and surprising effect, among the mountains and the glaciers, suddenly to hear a snatch of a Copenhagen street song, as for example,‘Gina, lovely maiden mine, ... won’t you come along?’
The Greenlanders have a great wealth of fairy tales and legends, many of them very characteristic. Nothing affords a better insight into the whole spiritual life of the people, their disposition, feelings, and moods, than the matter of these legends and the manner in which they are told. We find in them a considerable talent for narrative and gift of imagination, along with a grotesque humour, which of course often takes the form of coarseness.
Besides this legendary lore (see nextchapter) and narratives of exploits and adventures, the Greenlanders had a poetry of their own. The songs were either lampoons, such as they used to sing at the before-mentioned drum-dances, or else descriptions of different objects and events.
When, on the introduction of Christianity, the drum-dance was abolished, the art of versification also fell into disuse or assumed new shapes. Still, however, the Greenlanders make up songs. They are often of a jocose character, the poet setting forth to ridicule, in a more or less innocent manner, the peculiarities of others. I understand that several songs of this nature were composed with reference to members of my expedition. Indeed I have often heard them sung about the settlement of an evening,though I never succeeded in obtaining the text of any of them.
Thanks to the initiative of Dr. Rink, an Eskimo newspaper,Atuagagdliutit, has ever since 1861 been published in Godthaab. It is printed by a native, Lars Möller, who has been to Copenhagen to learn the trade, and who even draws and lithographs pictures for it. It is published twelve times a year, and is distributed gratis to the community, the expenses being borne out of the public funds. Its contents consist partly of translations from the Danish, partly of independent contributions from the natives describing their hunting, their travels, and so forth. Thus a whole new literature has been called into existence.
A specimen of their method of narration was given in ‘The First Crossing of Greenland,’ Vol. II. pp. 217-236. It consisted of the account given by an Eskimo named Silas, in theAtuagagdliutit, of his expedition from Unanak on Godthaab-fiord to the Ameralik fiord to render assistance to the four members of our expedition who had remained behind there in October 1888, after Sverdrup and I had proceeded to Godthaab. The following narrative, from theAtuagagdliutit, is also a good sample of their style. It exemplifies, moreover, the strong hold which their superstitions still possess upon theEskimo mind, and is thus of interest with reference to the matter of my next chapter. I have to thank Mrs. Signe Rink for her kindness in translating it for me.