During our stay in Ungava, and the succeeding weeks while we traveled down the ice-bound coast, we were brought into constant and intimate contact with the Eskimos. We saw them in almost every phase of their winter life, eating and sleeping with them in their tupeks and igloos, and meeting them in their hunting camps and at the Fort, when they came to barter and to enjoy the festivities of the Christmas holiday week.
The Cree Indians used to call these people “Ashkimai,” which means “raw meat eaters,” and it is from this appellation that our word Eskimo is derived. Here in Ungava and on the coast of Hudson’s Bay, they are pretty generally known as “Huskies,” a contraction of “Huskimos,” the pronunciation given to the word Eskimos by the English sailors of the trading vessels, with their well-known penchant for tacking on the “h” where it does not belong, and leaving it off when it should be pronounced.
The Eskimos call themselves “Innuit,” [Singular, Innuk; dual, Innuek] which means people—humans. The white visitor is a “Kablunak,” or outlander, while a breed born in the country is a “Kablunangayok,” or one partaking of the qualities of both the Innuk and the Kablunak. Those who live in the Koksoak district are called “Koksoagmiut,” * and those of the George River district are the “Kangerlualuksoagmiut.” **
The ethnologists, I believe, have never agreed upon the origin of the Eskimo, some claiming it is Mongolian, some otherwise. In passing I shall simply remark that in appearance they certainly resemble the Mongolian race. If some of the men that I saw in the North were dressed like Japanese or Chinese and placed side by side with them, the one could not be told from the other so long as the Eskimos kept their mouths closed.
In our old school geographies we used to see them pictured as stockily built little fellows. In real life they compare well in stature with the white man of the temperate zone. With a very few exceptions the Eskimos of Ungava average over five feet eight inches in height, with some six-footers.
* Kok, river; soak, big; miut, inhabitants; Koksoagmiut, inhabitants of the big river.
** Literally, inhabitants of the very big bay. The George River mouth widens into a bay which is known as the Very Big Bay.
Their legs are shorter and their bodies longer than the white man’s, and this probably is one reason why they have such wonderful capacity for physical endurance. In this respect they are the superior of the Indian. With plenty of food and a bush to lie under at night the Indian will doubtless travel farther in a given time than the Eskimo. But turn them both loose with only food enough for one meal a day for a month on the bare rocks or ice fields of the Arctic North, and your Indian will soon be dead, while your Eskimo will emerge from the test practically none the worse for his experience, for it is a usual experience with him and he has a wonderful amount of dogged perseverance. The Eskimo knows better how to husband his food than the Indian; and give him a snow bank and he can make himself comfortable anywhere. The most gluttonous Indian would turn green with envy to see the quantities of meat the Eskimo can stow away within his inner self at a single sitting; but on the other hand he can live, and work hard too, on a single scant meal a day, just as his dogs do.
The facial characteristics of the Eskimo are wide cheek bones and round, full face, with a flat, broad nose. I used to look at these flat, comfortable noses on very cold days and wish that for winter travel I might be able to exchange the longer face projection that my Scotch-Irish forbears have handed down to me for one of them, for they are not so easily frosted in a forty or fifty degrees below zero temperature. By the way, if you ever get your nose frozen do not rub snow on it. If you do you will rub all the skin off, and have a pretty sore member to nurse for some time afterward. Grasp it, instead, in your bare hand. That is the Eskimo’s way, and he knows. My advice is founded upon experience.