The Tooneet were short, between four and five feet in stature, and very broadly built. (On this subject the reader should consult Dr. Rink, “Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo.”) The skull was oval, unlike the present race, who are round-headed. Their weapons were fashioned of stone, but of a different shape to those of to-day. Their skin canoes were short and broad instead of the long, narrow kyak in use now. Of these aboriginals little further trace or memory remains. The writer met a very ancient Eskimo on the south coast of Baffin Land, who related that his grandfather had seen two Tooneet on the shores of an inland lake. They were getting into their canoes, and would not allow the other to come near. They appeared to understand nothing of the shouted greeting, but hastily paddled off. The Tooneets [[65]]were also found on the coast of Labrador. The present tribes of the region were originally enslaved to them. At Nakrak, their remains are to be seen.
The unmixed Eskimo type of to-day closely resembles the Chinese, with an average stature of five feet, lank black hair and small peaked eyes. Nansen gives us a very life-like picture of them: “Their faces are as a rule round, with broad, outstanding jaws, and are, in the case of the women particularly, very fat, the cheeks being especially full. The eyes are dark and often set a little obliquely, while the nose is flat, narrow above and broad below. The whole face often looks as if it had been compressed from the front and forced to make its growth from the sides. Among the women, and more especially the children, the face is so flat that one could almost lay a ruler across from cheek to cheek without touching the nose; indeed, now and again one will see a child whose nose really forms a depression in the face rather than the reverse. It will be understood from this that many of the people show no signs of approaching the European standard of good looks, but it is not exactly in this direction that the Eskimo attractions usually lie. At the same time there is something kindly, genial and complacent in his stubby, dumpy … features which is quite irresistible. Their hands and feet alike are generally small and well shaped.” Elsewhere he adds: “One cannot help being comfortable in these people’s society. Their innocent, careless ways, their humble contentment [[66]]with life as it is, and their kindness, are very catching, and must clear one’s mind of all dissatisfaction and restlessness.” The length of the excerpt will be forgiven, since it gives more than a delightful pen picture—an inimitable bit of human psychology, that touch of insight which makes the whole world kin.
The Eskimo on the southern coasts of Baffin Land are taller than their fellows, sometimes attaining a stature of six feet and breadth in proportion. The majority of the men are beardless. Their hair, black and coarse, is worn either long or short, but is cut square across the forehead. It covers the ears, to prevent frostbite, and a band is tied round the head to prevent it blowing about too freely in the wind. We shall deal with the ladies’ coiffure at greater length in another connection.
Each band of Eskimo inhabits some particular spot or tract of the coast, and takes its name after the country, or some peculiarity it exhibits. For instance, the land at the point of Fox Channel and Hudson Strait is called Sikkoswelak, a term which describes the fact that the ice just there is seldom stable, owing to the swift local tides. Thus the tribe is known to the rest as the Sikkoswelangmeoot or “The-People-of-the-Place-which-never-Freezes.” Again, there are the Puisortak or the “People-who-live-where-Something-Shoots-up” (a blow-hole in a glacier). The tribe is not a very big unit. It consists of about ten to twenty families (generally less, and, be it noted, the people are polygamists), but the birth-rate is a low [[67]]one. The deaths fairly balance the births, so that their numbers remain more or less stable. Were not this the case, the regions they inhabit could never support them, for the Eskimo are voracious eaters (naturally, considering the climate!) and so far as land animals are concerned, the hunting is very scanty for many months of the year.
Apropos of this peace-loving, non-belligerent quality in the Eskimo character, some word should be offered in explanation of the fact that these people have occasionally shown themselves dangerous to the white men, and have murdered a few whalers and traders.
As far as any historical records of them exist at all, it would seem that on one occasion only did the Eskimo ever go to war, or make an active and successful stand against their enemies. This was many centuries ago. The handful of Norsemen from Iceland who originally colonised some spots along the coast of southern Greenland, lived peaceably enough with the natives they discovered there. At last, however, a quarrel broke out, blood was spilt, and the Eskimo, plucking up a courage and spirit never since repeated, fought and killed off the foreigners. But in America, whenever the Innuit came into contact with the Red Indians they simply fled before them ever farther and farther into the icy fastnesses of the north. The red men seem to have been always particularly savage and inimical to the others. And when in the course of time they became possessed of firearms, they [[68]]pressed this overwhelming advantage against the spear and bow-and-arrow people more ruthlessly than ever.
The Eskimo believed that it was the white fur trader who had armed the Adlât with these “fire-tubes” against him, hence the original hostility of these people towards all other white folk. As a matter of fact, the servants of the Hudson Bay Company did all they could, in those early days, to protect the Eskimo against the Indian, and to bring about an understanding between the native races of the great territory they exploited. It was, however, this original fear and prejudice which must be held accountable for any barbarity white men have met with since at the hands of the Eskimo (unless indeed the instance has been one of recently and immediately provoked reprisals). For the most part, it certainly holds good that the inhabitants of the Arctic north have been the least dangerous “savages” explorers have ever met. There are some conflicting accounts on this subject in the annals of arctic voyagers; but as a very general rule the Eskimo have been found to be a kindly and harmless folk. Seldom as they wage war against others, seldom as they can be provoked or even terrified into self-defence (except by flight), they never fight, in a collective sense, among themselves. This is not due to effeminacy or cowardice, for no one could connect any such suspicion with the hardy intrepid natives of the most pitiless regions of the earth. It is simply that the [[69]]Eskimo are not made in the mould too common to all the other races of mankind—they are not fighters. Most people, it has been said, regard war as a reversion to primitive instincts. But some historians hold that war—organised war, as we understand the term to-day—was not primaeval in its origin. It was unknown to early man, and it is unknown to early man’s last representatives, such as the Black Fellows of Australia and the Eskimo of the Arctics, at the present time. The Eskimo can be doughty enough in single combat when necessity or custom require it of him; but generally speaking he is the most pacific being on earth.
Where these people come within the sphere of practical British influence, they are treated somewhat on the same lines as the North American Indians, but without being gathered into Reservations. There is a Government Agent in charge of the tribe, and its material needs are provided for by the annual supply ship sent along the coast. It is generally the Agent, trading or Departmental, who extends the first handclasp of welcome to medical man or evangelist who betakes himself to the peoples of the Arctic.
There have been, however, few travellers in Baffin Land, excepting, of course, the seamen who use its coast. Much of the country is unexplored. Probably the only whites who have penetrated it at all have been missionaries and explorers.
Thus the very modern and limited story of Baffin Land trade, etc., is the only civilised history it has. [[70]]As for its native history, we might refer almost without qualification to any archæological account of the fur-clad men of the stone age. The similarity of the Eskimo’s implements, their ways of life, their primitive pursuits, their domestic and tribal management, to those of the neolithic age, has often been pointed out. The only other notices of the Baffin Islanders to be found are those which occur in the journals of explorers’ voyages, such as Captain Parry’s second expedition of 1821, in which we get a lively account of the junketings on the ice between the “savages” and the crews of the “Fury” and the “Hecla.”