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_ Throughout this chapter no reference has been made to the Eskimos, who are popularly considered a race apart from the Indians. The best authorities now believe that they are a strictly American race, whose primal home was to the south of the Hudson Bay, whence they spread northward to Labrador, Greenland, and Alaska.[254] I have reserved them for separate consideration because they admirably illustrate the grand truth just formulated, that a race may have made considerable progress in some directions and yet be quite below the sentiment of love. Westermarck's opinion that the Eskimos are "a rather advanced race" is borne out by the testimony of those who have known them well. They are described as singularly cheerful and good-natured among themselves. Hall says "their memory is remarkably good, and their intellectual powers, in all that relates to their native land, its inhabitants, its coasts, and interior parts, is of a surprisingly high order" (I., 128). But what is of particular interest is the great aptitude Eskimos seem to show for art, and their fondness for poetry and music. King[255] says that "the art of carving is universally practised" by them, and he speaks of their models of men, animals, and utensils as "executed in a masterly style." Brinton indeed says they have a more artistic eye for picture-writing than any Indian race north of Mexico. They enliven their long winter nights with imaginative tales, music, and song. Their poets are held in high honor, and it is said they get their notion of the music of verse by sleeping by the sound of running water, that they may catch its mysterious notes.
[FOOTNOTE 254: See Brinton's _The American Race_, 59-67, for an excellent summary of our present knowledge of the Eskimos (on the favorable side).]
[FOOTNOTE 255: _Journal Ethnol. Soc_., I., 299.]
Yet when we look at the Eskimos from another point of view we find them horribly and bestially unaesthetic. Cranz speaks of "their filthy clothes swarming with vermin." They make their oil by chewing seal blubber and spurting the liquid into a vessel. "A kettle is seldom washed except the dogs chance to lick it clean." Mothers wash children's faces by licking them all over.[256]
[FOOTNOTE 256: Cranz, I., 155, 134; Hall, II., 87, I., 187; Hearne, 161.]
Such utter lack of delicacy prepares us for the statement that the Eskimos are equally coarse in other respects, notably in their treatment of women and their sexual feelings. It would be a stigma upon an Eskimo's character, says Cranz (I., 154), "if he so much as drew a seal out of the water." Having performed the pleasantly exciting part of killing it, he leaves all the drudgery and hard work of hauling, butchering, cooking, tanning, shoe-making, etc., to the women. They build the houses, too, while the men look on with the greatest insensibility, not stirring a finger to assist them in carrying the heavy stones. Girls are often "engaged" as soon as born, nor are those who grow up free allowed to marry according to their own preference. "When friendly exhortations are unavailing she is compelled by force, and even blows, to receive her husband." (Cranz, I., 146.) They consider children troublesome, and the race is dying out. Women are not allowed to eat of the first seal of the season. The sick are left to take care of themselves. (Hall, II., 322, I., 103.) In years of scarcity widows "are rejected from the community, and hover about the encampments like starving wolves ... until hunger and cold terminate their wretched existence." (M'Lean, II., 143.) Men and women alike are without any sense of modesty; in their warm hovels both sexes divest themselves of nearly all their clothing. Nor, although they fight and punish jealousy, have they any regard for chastity _per se_. Lending a wife or daughter to a guest is a recognized duty of hospitality. Young couples live together on trial. When the husband is away hunting or fishing the wife has her intrigues, and often adultery is committed _sans gene_ on either side. Unnatural vices are indulged in without secrecy, and altogether the picture is one of utter depravity and coarseness.[257]
[FOOTNOTE 257: Hall, _Narrat. of Second Arctic Exp._, 102; Cranz, I, 207-12 (German ed.); Letourneau, _E.d.M._, 72.]
Under such circumstances we hardly needed the specific assurance of Rink, who collected and published a volume of _Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo_, and who says that "never is much room given in this poetry to the almost universal feeling of love." He refers, of course, to any kind of love, and he puts it very mildly. Not only is there no trace of altruistic affection in any of these tales and traditions, but the few erotic stories recorded (_e.g._, pp. 236-37) are too coarse to be cited or summarized here. Hall, too, concluded that "love--if it come at all--comes after marriage." He also informs us (II., 313) that there "generally exists between husband and wife a steady but not very demonstrative affection;" but here he evidently wrongs the Eskimos; for, as he himself remarks, they
"always summarily punish their wives for
any real or imaginary offence. They seize
the first thing at hand--a stone, knife,
hatchet, or spear--and throw it at the
offending woman, just as they would at
their dogs."
What could be more "demonstrative" than such "steady affection?"
[THE END]
Henry Theophilus Finck's Book: How American Indians Love
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