They are not so dark-hued as the Indians—in fact, many of them are no darker than the average white man under like conditions of exposure to wind and storm and sun would be. The hair is straight, black, coarse and abundant. The men usually wear it hanging below their ears, cut straight around, with a forehead bang reaching nearly to the eyebrows. The women wear it braided and looped up on the sides of the head.
What constitutes beauty is of course largely a question of individual taste. My own judgment of the Eskimos is that they are very ugly, although I have seen young women among them whom I thought actually handsome. This was when they first arrived at the Post with dogs and komatik and they were dressed in their native costume of deerskin trousers and Koolutuk, their cheeks red and glowing with the exercise of travel and the keen, frosty atmosphere. A half hour later I have seen the same women when stringy, dirty skirts had replaced the neat-fitting trousers, and Dr. Grenfell’s description of them when thus clad invariably came to my mind: “A bedraggled kind of mop, soaked in oil and filth.” This tendency to ape civilization by wearing civilized garments, is happily confined to their brief sojourns at the Post. When they are away at their camps and igloos their own costume is almost exclusively worn, and is the best possible costume for the climate and the country. The adikey, or koolutuk, of the women, has a long flap or tail, reaching nearly to the heels, and a sort of apron in front. The hood is so commodious in size that a baby can be tucked away into it, and that is the way the small children are carried. The men wear cloth trousers except in the very cold weather, when they don their deer or seal skins. Their adikey or koolutuk reaches half way to their knees, and is cut square around. The hood of course, in their case, is only large enough to cover the head. It might be of interest to explain that if this garment is made of cloth it is an adikey; if of deerskin, a koolutuk, and if made of sealskin, a netsek—all cut alike. If they wear two cloth garments at the same time, as is usually the case, the inner one only is an adikey, the outer one a silapak.
Their language is the same from Greenland to Alaska. Of course different localities have different dialects, but this is the natural result of a different environment. Missionary Bohlman, whom I met at Hebron, told me that before coming to Labrador he was attached to a Greenland mission. When he came to his new field he found the language so similar to that in Greenland that he had very little difficulty in making himself understood. When Missionary Stecker a few years ago went from Labrador to Alaska he was able to converse with the Alaskan Eskimos. It is held by some authorities that Greenland was peopled by Labrador Eskimos who crossed Hudson Strait to Baffin Land, and thence made their way to Greenland, having originally crossed from Siberia into Alaska, thence eastward, skirting Hudson Bay. This is entirely feasible. I heard of one umiak (skin boat) only a few years ago having crossed to Cape Chidley from Baffin Land. Even in Labrador there are many different dialects. The “Northerners,” the people inhabiting the northwest arm of the peninsula, have many words that the Koksoagmiut do not understand. The intonation of the Ungava Eskimos, particularly the women, is like a plaint. At Okak they sing their words. Each settlement on the Atlantic coast has its own dialect. It is a difficult language to learn. Words are compounded until they reach a great and almost unpronounceable length.* Naturally the coming of the trader has introduced many new words, as tobaccomik, teamik, etc., “mik” being the accusative ending. The Eskimo in his language cannot count beyond ten. If he wishes to express twelve, for instance, he will say, “as many fingers as a man has and two more.” To express one hundred he would say, “five times as many fingers and toes as a man has,” and so on. It is not a written language, but the Moravians have adapted the English alphabet to it and are teaching the Eskimos to read and write. Mr. Stewart in his work has adapted the Cree syllabic characters to the Eskimo, and he is teaching the Ungava people to write by this method, which is largely phonetic. Both the Moravians and Mr. Stewart are instructing them in the mystery of counting in German.
The following will illustrate this; it is part of a sentence quoted from a Moravian missionary pamphlet: “Taimailinganiarpok, illagget Labradormiut namgminek akkilejungnalerkartinaget pijariakartamingnik tamainik, sakkertitsijungnalerkartinagillo ajokertnijunik.”
** The Eskimo numerals are as follows: 1, attansek; 2, magguk; 3, pingasut; 4, sittamat; 5, tellimat; 6, pingasoyortut; 7, aggartut; 8, sittamauyortut; 9, sittamartut; 10, tellimauyortut.
Cleanliness is not one of the Eskimos’ virtues, and they are frequently infested with vermin, which are wont to transfer their allegiance to visitors, as we learned in due course, to our discomfiture. For many months of the year the only water they have is obtained by melting snow or ice. In sections where there is no wood for fuel this must be done over stone lamps in which seal oil is burned, and it is so slow a process that the water thus procured is held too precious to be wasted in cleansing body or clothing. One of the missionaries remarked that “the children must be very clean little creatures, for the parents never find it necessary to wash them.”
They treat the children with the greatest kindness and consideration— not only their own, but all children, generally. I did not once see an Eskimo punish a child, nor hear a harsh word spoken to one, and they are the most obedient youngsters in the world. A missionary on the Atlantic coast told me that once when he punished his child an Eskimo standing near remarked: “You don’t love you child or you wouldn’t punish it.” And this is the sentiment they hold.
Love is not essential to a happy marriage among the Eskimos. When a man wants a woman he takes her. In fact they believe that an unwilling bride makes a good wife. Potokomik’s wife was most unwilling, and he took her, dragging her by the tail of her adikey from her father’s igloo across the river on the ice to his own, and they have “lived happily ever after,” which seems to prove the correctness of the Eskimo theory as to unwilling brides. Of course if Potokomik’s wife had not liked him after a fair trial, she could have left him, or if she had not come up to his expectations he could have sent her back home and tried another. It is all quite simple, for there is no marriage ceremony and resort to South Dakota courts for divorce is unnecessary. If a man wants two wives, why he has them, if there are women enough. That, too, is a very agreeable arrangement, for when he is away hunting the women keep each other company. Small families are the rule, and I did not hear of a case where twins had ever been born to the Eskimos.
Dancing and football are among their chief pastimes. The men enter into the dance with zest, but the women as though they were performing some awful penance. Both sexes play football. They have learned the use of cards and are reckless gamblers, sometimes staking even the garments on their backs in play.
The Eskimo is a close bargainer, and after he has agreed to do you a service for a consideration will as likely as not change his mind at the last moment and leave you in the lurch. At the same time he is in many respects a child.