“The Esquimaux dwell constantly near the sea, from whence they are supplied with all their provisions. Both their constitutions and complexions partake of the quality of their food. The flesh of the seal, which is their food, and the oil of the whale, which is their drink, give them an olive complexion, a strong smell of fish, an oily and tenacious sweat, and sometimes a sort of scaly leprosy. This last is probably the reason why the mothers have the same custom as the bears of licking their young ones.
“This nation, weak and degraded by nature, is, notwithstanding, most intrepid on a sea that is constantly dangerous. In boats, made and sewed together like so many borachio’s, but at the same time so well closed that it is impossible for the water to penetrate them, they follow the shoals of herrings through the whole of their polar emigrations, and attack the whales and seals at the peril of their lives.
“One stroke of a whale’s tail is sufficient to drown a hundred of these assailants; and the seal is armed with teeth, to devour those he cannot drown: but the hunger of the Esquimaux is superior to the rage of these monsters. They have an inordinate thirst for the oil of the whale, which is necessary to preserve the heat in their stomachs, and defend them from the severity of the cold. Indeed, men, whales, birds, and all the quadrupeds and fishes of the North, are supplied by nature with a degree of fat, which prevents the muscles from freezing, and the blood from coagulating. Every thing in these Arctic regions is either oily or gummy, and even the trees are resinous.
“The Esquimaux are, notwithstanding, subject to two fatal disorders; the scurvy, and loss of sight. The continuation of snows upon the ground, joined to the reverberation of the rays of the sun on the ice, dazzle their eyes in such a manner, that they are almost constantly obliged to wear shades of two pieces of very thin wood, through which small apertures for the light have been bored with fish-bones. Doomed to six months’ night, they never see the sun but obliquely; and then it seems rather to blind them, than to give them light. Sight, the most delightful blessing of nature, is a fatal gift to them, and they are generally deprived of it when young. A still more cruel evil, which is the scurvy, consumes them by slow degrees: it insinuates itself into their blood, and changes, thickens, and impoverishes the whole mass. The fogs of the sea, which they inspire; the dense and inelastic air they breathe in their huts, which are shut up from all communication with the external air; the constant and tedious inactivity of their winters; a mode of life alternately roving and sedentary; every thing, in short, tends to increase this dreadful malady, which in a little time becomes contagious, and, spreading itself through their abodes, is transmitted by cohabitation, and perhaps likewise by the means of generation.
“Notwithstanding these inconveniences, the Esquimaux is so passionately attached to his country, that no inhabitant of the most-favoured spot under Heaven quits it with greater reluctance, than he does his frozen deserts. The difficulty he finds in breathing in a softer and cooler climate may possibly be the reason of this attachment. The sky of Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and London, though constantly obscured by thick and fetid vapours, is too clear for an Esquimaux. Perhaps, too, there may be something in the change of life and manners more contrary to the health of savages than the climate: it is not impossible but that the indulgences of an European may be poison to an Esquimaux.—Such are the inhabitants of a country discovered, in 1610, by Henry Hudson!”
Although many parts of the foregoing extract are strictly descriptive of the Esquimaux, yet it is very evident that the Abbé Raynal has undertaken to describe a people whom he never saw: consequently, nothing can be more absurd than those remarks which, it may be observed, I have particularized: and I shall now notice them, in the order in which they occur.
In the first place, the Abbé says, that “scarce any of the individuals are above four feet high!” It has been before noticed, that, of all those whom we saw, a fair average standard might determine their height to be between five feet five inches, and five feet eight inches: moreover, we even saw some of the females five feet seven inches high. In the next place, he observes: “Their heads bear the same enormous proportion to their bodies as those of children.” This, again, is about as fabulous as those old stories of a race having been discovered with two heads. There is certainly nothing peculiar about the heads of the Esquimaux, to distinguish them from the Europeans; unless, indeed, we except the enormous quantity of thick, coarse, straight, black hair, which covers them: and this last fact will bear rather hard upon the next marvellous remark of the Abbé’s, in which he asserts that they have neither hair nor beard! The amazing coarseness of their hair, which generally is as thick as a mat on their heads, is, of all others, the most likely characteristic to strike the attention of a stranger: they have also a straggling beard upon the chin and upper lip; although, certainly, it must be admitted that the beard never grows thick or bushy.
The aged appearance of the Esquimaux is, as he says, owing to the formation of their lower lip!—Being able to adduce, if necessary, the testimony of a hundred witnesses to prove the truth of my assertions, I shall content myself with simply stating, that there is no such projection of the lower lip as the Abbé has described. He states that the Esquimaux have taken their name from the coast of Labrador; but Esquimaux, or Skimaux, is an expression, in the language of the Cree and other inland Indians, signifying “eaters of raw flesh!” and they have bestowed this appellation on the maritime Indians, in contempt; as there has always been a most deadly hatred between them.
Then again, with a bold dash of his pen, the Abbé peoples the whole of Hudson’s Bay with Esquimaux: whereas, in fact, they occupy but a very small proportion of it, when compared with the vast extent of territory inhabited by the different tribes of Hunting Indians, the inveterate enemies of the Esquimaux. The northern and unexplored parts of the Bay, and the western shore of Labrador, from Cape Diggs to the southward, are alone inhabited by the latter; whilst the whole of the western and southern shores are peopled by the former.
I know not what could have induced him, also, to describe the Esquimaux as having “the pupil of their eyes yellow, and the iris black:” this is not true; but I suppose that such a supposition may have arisen from that peculiar contraction of the eyelids which has already been noticed in the foregoing part of this Narrative.