Among the Eskimos I found a great deal of tuberculosis and much eye trouble. Around the Moravian Mission stations wooden houses had largely replaced the former "tubiks," or skin tents, which were moved as occasion required and so provided for sanitation. These wooden huts were undrained, dark and dirty to a remarkable degree. No water supply was provided, and the spaces between the houses were simply indescribable garbage heaps, presided over by innumerable dogs. The average life was very short and infant mortality high. The best for which we could hope in the way of morals among these people was that a natural unmorality was some offset to the existing conditions. The features of the native life which appealed most to us were the universal optimism, the laughing good-nature and contentment, and the Sunday cleanliness of the entire congregation which swarmed into the chapel service, a welcome respite from the perennial dirt of the week days. Moreover, nearly all had been taught to read and write in Eskimo, though there is no literature in that language to read, except such books as have been translated by the Moravian Brethren. At that time a strict policy of teaching no English had been adopted. Words lacking in the language, like "God," "love," etc., were substituted by German words. Nearly every Eskimo counted "ein, zwei, drei." In one of my lectures, on returning to England, I mentioned that as the Eskimos had never seen a lamb or a sheep either alive or in a picture, the Moravians, in order to offer them an intelligible and appealing simile, had most wisely substituted the kotik, or white seal, for the phrase "the Lamb of God." One old lady in my audience must have felt that the good Brethren were tampering unjustifiably with Holy Writ, for the following summer, from the barrels of clothing sent out to the Labrador, was extracted a dirty, distorted, and much-mangled and wholly sorry-looking woolly toy lamb. Its raison d'être was a mystery until we read the legend carefully pinned to one dislocated leg, "Sent in order that the heathen may know better."
Their love for music and ability to do part-playing and singing also greatly impressed us, and we spent many evenings enjoying their brass bands and their Easter and Christmas carols. We made some records of these on our Edison phonograph, and they were overpowered with joy when they heard their own voices coming back to them from the machine. The magic lantern also proved exceedingly popular, and several tried to touch the pictures and see if they could not hold them. We were also able to show some hastily made lantern slides of themselves, and I shall never forget their joyful excitement. The following season, in giving them some lantern views, we chanced to show a slide of an old Eskimo woman who had died during the winter. The subsequent commotion caused among the "little people" was unintelligible to us until one of the Moravian Brethren explained that they thought her spirit had taken visible form and returned to her own haunts.
I happened to be in the gardens at Nain when a northerly air made it feel chilly and the thermometer stood only a little above freezing. A troop of Eskimo women came out to cover up the potatoes. Every row of potatoes is covered with arched sticks and long strips of canvas along them. A huge roll of sacking is kept near each row and the whole is drawn over and the potatoes are tucked in bed for the night. I could not resist the temptation to lift the bedclothes and shake hands and say good-night to one of the nearest plants, whereat the merry little people went off into convulsions of laughter.
At Hopedale there was a large Danish ship with over six hundred tons of cargo for the new Moravian buildings. The Brethren do not build as we are doing from coast material. In order to save time and also to have more substantial buildings, they are cut out and built in Germany, photographed, and each piece marked. Then they are taken to pieces, shipped, and sent out here for erection.
Some years ago in Germany, when the Socialists were wearing beards and mustaches, all respectable people used to shave. Therefore the missionaries being Germans insisted on the Eskimos shaving as they did. The result is that at one store at least a stock of ancient razors are left on hand, for now neither missionary nor Eskimo shaves in the inhospitable climate of this country. A small stock of these razors was, therefore, left on my account in some graves from which one or two Eskimos were good enough to go and get us a few ancient stone implements. It is a marvellous thing how superstition still clings around the very best of native Christian communities.
The Moravian Mission is a trading mission. This trading policy in some aspects is in its favour. It is unquestionably part of a message of real love to a brother to put within his reach at reasonable rates those adjuncts of civilized life that help to make less onerous his hard lot. Trade, however, is always a difficult form of charity, and the barter system, common to this coast, being in vogue at the Moravian Mission stations also, practically every Eskimo was in debt to them. In reality this caused a vicious circle, for it encouraged directly the outstanding fault of the Eskimo, his readiness to leave the morrow to care for itself so long as he does not starve to-day. Like a race of children, they need the stimulus of necessity to make them get out and do their best while the opportunity exists. In the past twenty-six years I have made many voyages to one and another of the stations of the Brethren, and have learned to love them all very sincerely as individuals, though their mission policies are their own and not mine.
I remember once in Nain the slob ice had already made ballicaters and the biting cold of winter so far north had set in with all its vigour. There was a heavy sea and a gale of wind. One of two boats which had been out all day had not come in. The sea was so rough and the wind so strong that the occupants of the first boat could not face it, and so had run in under the land and walked all the way round, towing their boat by a long line from the shore. Night came on and the second boat had not appeared. Next morning the Nain folk knew that some accident must have happened. Some men reported that the evening before they had seen through a glass the boat trying to beat against the storm, and then disappear. The Eskimos gathered together to see what could be done and then decided that it was kismet—and went their way. The following evening a tiny light was seen on the far shore of the bay—some one must be alive there. There was no food or shelter there, and it was obvious that help was needed. The gale was still blowing in fury and the sea was as rough as ever, and Eskimos and missionaries decided that in their unseaworthy boats they could do nothing. There was one dissentient voice—Brother Schmidt; and he went and rescued them. One was nearly spent. When their boat had capsized, one man, a woman, and a lad had been drowned, but two men had succeeded in getting into their kajaks and floated off when the disaster happened.
