Typical winter home of South Greenland Eskimo.
Eskimo girls of Holsteinborg, Mixture of Danish, Spanish,
English and Eskimo.
That evening we put on our best clothes and glossiest sealskin boots—the Greenland dancing pump de rigeur. After our toilet was complete, we repaired to the cooper’s shop, then utilized as a dance hall. We made our way through the assembled crowd, and entered the long, low room which was lighted by only three or four smoky candles. All decked in their most elaborate finery, the girls were ranged along the wall, and a short distance removed from them stood the young bucks. Against the white sila-paks of the males, the colorful feminine costumes made a pleasing contrast. This costume consisted first of all of a pair of elaborately dyed and embroidered sealskin boots, with tops of fine linen on which is sewed lace. These reach almost to the hips. Tucked into the top of these are tight-fitting sealskin pants with a broad, colorful strip of leather running down the front. Around the upper part of the body was fitted a bodice lined with eiderdown, and over this was a facing of ornate velvet. Around their necks and reaching half-way to the waist was a wide, artistically beaded collar of which no two were alike in design and workmanship. About their heads each wore a ribbon. A red ribbon was worn by the maidens; a blue ribbon by the married ones, and a black ribbon by the widows. For one who was a mother, but who was not in the last two categories, a green ribbon was worn—a later learned fact which explained why some of us were greeted with smiling refusals to accept green ribbon in exchange for furs and trinkets.
Soon arrived the Governor and his lady and their daughter, as did also Mr. Neilson and his family. This was the signal for the dance to begin, and the orchestra struck up a lively tune. The orchestra, by the way, consisted of a wheezy accordion which seemed reasonably in tune except on the very high C’s. This accordion was manipulated by a relay of players who spelled each other while each took his turn at dancing.
The dancing itself consisted of a series of gyrations and whirls which made the Charleston appear like Walter Camp’s setting up exercises in a home for old ladies. It is made up of measures of everything from the hornpipe to the hula hula—fragments of dances contributed by sailors from the seven seas, and well suited to the cosmopolitan blood of many of these children of mischance.
The fun was fast and furious, and the night merrily tripped along “on light fantastic toe” until at last the candles guttered in their sockets and went out, leaving the party whirling about in the darkness. This incident in no way dimmed the enjoyment of the occasion, and there was many a close shave and tight squeeze before the party broke up.
CHAPTER XIII
STORM AND STRESS AND—HOME!
AFTER several days of the gay and intimate life of this “Venice of the North,” so-called because of its many waterways and numerous islands, and the Latin temperament of its inhabitants, we regretfully set sail for Godthaab. There we loaded fuel oil and also visited some very interesting Norse ruins dating back to the year 1000 A.D. These were sixty miles up a fiord, not far from the spot where Nansen came down from the ice-cap after his first crossing of Greenland. On the way to these ruins we had a most delightful sail in the midst of the Alpine scenery we had observed on our first sighting of Greenland. We spent an interesting day rambling about these ruins, after which we returned to Godthaab.