NEWLY-DISCOVERED TRIBE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1029, 21 November 1912, Page 4

NEWLY-DISCOVERED TRIBE.

FAIR-HAIRED ESKIMOS

Remarkable details of the mode of life of the newly-discovered tribe of fair-haired and blue-eyed Eskimos in Northern Canada are given in letters received by Professor James Eayor, of Toronto University, and published in The Times of August 13th. Mr Stefanssou, the Auglo-Scan-dinavian explorer, who made the discovery, in the course of five years in the Arctic regions, states that so numerous are these Eskimos of European type that a thousand whites married among the Eskimos would be an insufficient number to produce the conditions lound.

He explains it by the disappearance from Greenland in 1412 of an Icelandic colony of 3000 people. There are only two kinds of medicine in use, viz., blood-letting and magic. The doctor’s treatment is generally by songs and dances, with sometimes a sleight-ot-hand trick or two and neither invalid nor the audience takes any active part.

After the performance the doctor is paid-in the old days the fee went as high as two to three big skin boats. If the invalid is poor everybody gives the doctor something—a foxskiu, spear, bag of oil, or other things of value.

If the man treated dies within the year his wife or children get the lee back —under other conditions the fee is retained.

Every man has a watch and children of eight can usually tell the lime by the clock. They are satisfied with only the best goods —Winchester magazine rifles of the old style are being replaced by high pressure, steel-bullet types. Many families have sewing machines aud “Primus” oil stoves. Most natives speak English—some of them very well. In the evenings they play whist, casino, and other games with cards; checkers and dominoes (chess lam just introducing). In these games all members of the family from about 10 to 12 years of age usually join. Cleauliues is increasing. Everyone washes with soap and water every morning, and the women especially frequently take sponge baths. I know of some babies who are regularly bathed every Saturday night. Liquor is now not brought in by the whalers ; the tobacco habit they had “ always ” (those who chew swallow the saliva and most women and some men inhale in smoking).

Communism in food seems complete aud unrestricted only with reference to whale carcases, whether the animal was killed and towed ashore or found stranded. People flock from near and far and take what they want and find available. The one who fastens the first float to a whale profits by it only in renown won.