TO SCHOOL IN BEARSKNS

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 92, 12 January 1935, Page 23

TO SCHOOL IN BEARSKNS

When the first Eskimo School on the shores of Providence Bay was opened five years ago, ten children turned up, wrapped in long bearskins. They had never washed, so the first thing they had to be taught was the use of soap and water. At first they repeated to their teachers what they had heard from their elders. Dirt, they said, was a safeguard against disease.

Another superstition to be dispelled was one about the danger of haircutting. There is an Eskimo saying that if a person whose hair has been cut enters a house, some member of the family will die soon after. Last year the first batch of ten pupils finished their full course at the Slrenka Elementary School. Sixteen-year-old Atata remained on as an assistant teacher. The girl Vyie became an assistant teacher in a nearby village. These two ar e the first Eskimo teachers. A third pupil is learning to become a bookkeeper. In addition to learning how to read and write the pupils learn how to wash clothes, and this knowledge they pass on to their elders.

The children make rulers, compasses, and T-squares from walrus tusks. Until last year instruction was oral, but with the working out of a native alphabet the school now uses text-books drawn up by the teachers as they go along. The school is facing an acute need of equipment, and is looking forward to the text-books the Committee of the Peoples of the Nortß Is preparing.