ESKIMO BELIEFS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 243, 3 June 1932, Page 3

ESKIMO BELIEFS

CURIOUS WORLD SPIRITS OF ANCESTORS CONTROL FROM UNSEEN. THE MARRIAGE BOND. With the pride of a father for clever children, the "Bishop of the Arctic," the Righ Rev. A. Turquetil, is impatient of stories that have gained credence about Eskimo infarificide, polygamy, and old people "put away" because they had becom'e a burden to their fellows, The world of the Eskimo is, he says, a curious world — good and evil spirits, taboos, medicine men and sorcerers, strange supersfcitions, legends and beliefs handed down, from mouth to mouth, through generations, scme of which may have had their oiigin in Mongolia, whence came ihe oiiginal Eskimo. It is primarily a world in which continued existence depends on the capacity to hunt successfully. Marriage is a commercial transaction between heads of families, an instalment being paid at the time of contract, and the remainder when the marriage age, which synchronises with the law of nature, is reached. An Eskimo youth, whose intended %ife has died, may have an unhorn child, provided it is a girl, hypothecated for him as mate. The Eskimo husband' may bring another wife into his home should he be dissatisfied with the first and Wife No. 1 must accept her altered status, unless she can persuade another man to care for her and her children. If an Eskimo covet his neighbour's wife it is quite legitimate for him to offer to purchase her. (If the husband says she is not for sale, she goes cheerfully to the victor, under the dominant primeval laws of the Arctic. The medicine men and witch doctors have great influence over the Eskimo, hedging him round with taboos, claiming they have direct touch with the spirit of dead ancestors, whom they consult regarding causes of accident and sickness and the name of a new baby; they go into trances to see the future. Others claim to be able to cut a man into many pieces and bring him back to life. These tricks are usually performed at night, behind curtains and with the aid of assistants. The Eskimo does not believe in reincarnation; he only believes that the spirit of a forbear lives again in the name of a child. The Eskimo child is allowed to do as it pl'eases. There are no "don'ts" in the Arctic woman's vocabulary, the assumption being that the child will be looked after by its guardian spirit. If the mother attempted to tell the child what it must and must not do, it would be tantamount to declaring her laclc of faith in the ability of the spirit to attend to its own business, and disaster would, she believes, almost certainly follow. • If an Eskimo dies before his time, due to sickness or accident, it is because he has failed to observe some of the customs or taboos of his tribe. If he dies form old age, it is simply because his spirit, tired of the world, desires to return to his ancestors. Old people, who cannot keep up with their fellows on the trail, slip away quietly and are never seen again. Eskimo men who have become a burden take their own lives in the interest of the- group. Although he follows the law of the survival of the fittest, the Eskimo, in the main, is an individualist. The family, rather than the camp, is the unit of society.