The inhabitants of the Arctic are the Eskimo, also written Esquimaux, Usquemows, called by themselves Innuit (Innuk s. Innooeet p.) or the “people.” The word Usquemow is Indian, meaning raw flesh eaters. The English and Scotch anglicised it to Eskimo. The name “Husky” as applied to the native is merely slang, a corruption of Eskimo perpetrated by men whose ears and tongues were untrained to the language—whalers who sometimes employed the tribesmen in their hunting, and dubbed them with the first jargon name that came handy. It is still used in this sense in localities where Europeans are numerous, such as Alaska, and Hudson Bay.
Part of an Eskimo Tribe of Women and Children.
With their outside jackets off, the inner jackets showing the ornamentations of beadwork.
Pure blood Indians do not penetrate so far north as the Eskimo territories, being denizens of the forest but not of the barrens. The Eskimo are a kindly, intelligent people, hardy to a degree. They follow the manner of life and the pursuits of primitive man; but when brought into contact with the whites and with civilisation, show themselves by no means incapable of assimilating a good deal of instruction. They have qualities of amiability, hospitality, ingenuity and [[57]]endurance, which all travellers have agreed in extolling; although here and there in the records of the voyages of exploration in the nineteenth century we also find unfavourable comments passed upon them. They exist in small, scattered tribes along the sea coasts, whence they derive the bulk of their subsistence. Owing to the establishment of whaling and other stations, the geographical areas of the tribes are now more circumscribed and confined than they used to be, as each station is a centre of trade where most of the necessaries of life can be obtained.
The origin of the Eskimo is a matter of ethnographical conjecture. They themselves had no written language until comparatively few years ago, and depended upon oral tradition for their history. And even to-day it is only the few who have been taught to read and write, so that legend still holds sway throughout the greater part of Baffin Land, Cockburn Land, and the rest. Their past is lost in obscurity. In the obscurity perhaps of that neolithic or “reindeer age” of which their life, even now, has so often been cited as a close replica.
That immense span of time in the history of the human race known as the Stone Age, falls into five divisions. There is the Palaeolithic period (Early, Middle and Late), and the Neolithic period (Transitional and Typical). During the last throes of the glacial epoch in Europe, the type of human being was that represented by the relic which has come down to us known as the Neanderthal skull. But the later [[58]]Pleistocene period saw a greater diversity in the matter of types, and one race in particular is represented by a fair number of specimens. They denote a good-looking, purely human being. Another race of the same period is represented by a single specimen only. It is known as the Chancelade Race, and “the skeleton, of comparatively low stature, is deemed to show close affinities to the type of the modern Eskimo.” (Dr. Marett.) This is exceedingly interesting as giving us some idea of the antiquity of the stock, and as showing how glacial conditions in prehistoric times in Europe produced a type which lingers on amid the races of the modern world in the still existing glacial epoch of the Arctic.
The “Reindeer men” of prehistoric times lived lives no harder in the bleak climate and unprogressive conditions of glaciated Europe than those of the Eskimo in glaciated America to-day. “The races of Reindeer men were in undisturbed possession of western Europe for a period of at least ten times as long as the interval between ourselves and the beginning of the Christian era.” (H. G. Wells.) If we add these periods of time together we may form some estimate of the age of a civilisation such as the climatic conditions have produced and proscribed in the modern Arctics.
Perhaps it may be said that in one sense the Eskimo have no history. They are living the same life, under the same rigorous conditions, in the same way now, as their forefathers lived it before them, [[59]]and as far back as human life could be traced in the Arctic earth. It is wonderful how faithfully this oral tradition of theirs has been handed down through the generations, for the same adventures and incidents and stories will be told with little or no alteration by various people of widely different tribes, and events that took place centuries ago will still be invariably related with circumstantial precision.
The writer well remembers an account given to him one winter’s night by an aged hunter, of some stores left by a party of the early explorers. It was during a journey along the south coast of Baffin Land, and shelter had been sought in the snow house of an ancient Eskimo couple. The old man was grandfather of the tribe, and had been a noted hunter in his day, and had fought many a battle with the savage elements and more savage beasts of the wild. It was after the evening meal. The old fellow and his equally old wife had been warmed with some steaming coffee liberally sweetened with molasses, and regaled with ship’s biscuit. The pipes of both had been filled, and were drawing well. Their bronzed, lined faces, lined like the shell of a walnut, shone with contentment, they huddled on their sleeping bench and smoked and dreamed of the strenuous past. A question or two soon elicited a flood of guttural reminiscences. The old hunter pictured himself as a youth again, and went over the exploits of his prime, prompted now and again by the crone at his side, in a shrewd expectation of further acceptable items. Among other [[60]]things, he told of the various “dumps” or “caches” of stores made by the white men who came long ago, remembering exactly the localities and the contents of every one. Some had been broken into long since by wandering Eskimo; some had been destroyed by bears; some remained intact. His memory was as exact and reliable as if he had seen the things but a week—instead of a lifetime—before. Perhaps it was an echo, all that time afterwards, of the Franklin tragedy.